Canadian Coins Not Nano-Tech Espionage Devices 412
Necrotica writes "An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department's false espionage warning earlier this year.
The odd-looking — but harmless — "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP."
Old news? (Score:2, Informative)
WOW (Score:1, Informative)
Wow Army defense contractors and Government 'intelligence' agencies
http://media.thestar.com/AP/0506dv_spy_coins_ISDN
Re:wow (Score:2, Informative)
Why was it included in the US security report? (Score:2, Informative)
The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead.
Another very important subject about this false-espionnage coin:
The Defence Security Service disavowed its warning about spy coins after an international furor, but until now it has never disclosed the details behind the embarrassing episode. The U.S. said it never substantiated the contractors' claims and performed an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page published report about espionage concerns.
This is amazingly easy to verify... this is another embarrassing episode.
In Flanders Field (Score:4, Informative)
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/remembranceday/
Here's a link (Score:1, Informative)
Also from May 1 BoingBoing:
"US war on terror is a war on tourists, too
America is rated the world's most unfriendly destination for foreign travellers in a recent global poll. The War on Terror (which includes a $15 billion fingerprinting program that humiliates every visitor to America's shores and has yet to catch a single terrorist) has destroyed America's tourist industry, killing $94 billion worth of tourist trade, and 194,000 American jobs.
In a recent poll of international travellers, commissioned by Discover America Partnership, a coalition of US tourist organisations, 70 per cent of respondents said they feared US officials more than terrorists or criminals. Another 66 per cent worried they would be detained for some minor blunder, such as wrongly filling out an official form or being mistaken for a terrorist, while 55 per cent say officials are "rude."...
Such comments, and the poll results - which rate the US by a 2:1 margin as the world's "most unfriendly" destination for foreign travellers - are found in "A Blueprint to Discover America," unveiled in January by Discover America Partnership to halt a dramatic decline in foreign visitors.
According to the blueprint overseas travel to the US has slumped 17 per cent since 2001, even as world travel to other countries reaches historic growth levels. The decline has cost US$94 billion ($127 billion) in visitor spending, US$16 billion in tax receipts, and some 194,000 American jobs. Many poll respondents said that visiting the US had become a hassle and that they would take their holiday money elsewhere. "
Re:State of Fear (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why is The State of Canada Not Using US Coins? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:wow (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In Flanders Field (Score:5, Informative)
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
Re:Can Light Microscopes see Nano-scale devices? (Score:5, Informative)
A common definition of "nanotech" is a device that was devised with intentional features on a scale of under a 100 nm or so. The best optical microscopes can resolve down to about 200nm, or roughly half a wavelength of blue light.
So you are correct. In fact, for some devices even an electron microscope doesn't quite cut it, and a scanning-tunneling microscope (STM) or atomic-force microscope (AFM) are used.
Re:All this tells me... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wow (Score:5, Informative)
Re:wow (Score:4, Informative)
Clarification about the coin (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the coin was NOT a WW2 coin. It was issued in 2004 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the start of the FIRST world war in 1914. Remembrance Day started at the end of WWI (11th hour, eleventh day, eleventh month in 1918).
It is the first general-circulation coin in the world to have ever been issued in colour. IIRC, Canada is still the only country to issue coloured coins in general circulation (the mint later issued one with a pink ribbon as part of a breast cancer fund-raising campaign). The images are "painted" (printed actually) by computer using some kind of epoxy on a small mesh substrate, which is then cured (not sure if this required heat or not, but it becomes quite a durable finish).
It is quite an elabourate process for a simple little image, but it was designed so that it could withstand years of use in general circulation without wearing off or fading. They worked on the assumption that these coins would see the same kind of abuse as normal coins, but given that people tend to save them for awhile when they get then in their change, I suspect that the mint went a bit overboard in the design. However, the Canadian Mint is internationally known for quality so they have a rep to live up to.
Given the unusual nature of the coin to someone outside of Canada, I'm not surprised that it caught the attention of US security. Also, given the paranoia of security-types in both the US AND Canada, I am not the least surprised that they would over-react to a benign situation (and, in the process, likely miss a REAL threat). I have, in my travels through many airports in Canada and US, witnessed some of these "bright lights" confiscate an old lady's plastic crochet hooks and "take down" an 80 year old man (forcing him to the floor, arms restrained at his back), who lost sight of his wheelchair-bound wife when an attendant took her down the elevator while his back was turned. That last incident really drove home the message that you MUST take seriously the signs that read "do not stop in this area" as you leave the departure gate. If Canadian security are like that, I can only imagine what DC or New York would be like (Philadelphia and Chicago are bad enough thank you).
Starbucks has a long way to go (Score:5, Informative)
Starbucks is a Tim Horton's wannabe--it isn't anywhere close to achieving domination of its home country the way Tim Horton's is. Let me give you an idea of just how far along Tim Horton's is in its quest to take over Canada:
* Tim Hortons is the LARGEST fast-food/cafe chain in Canada. It is MORE THAN DOUBLE the size of McDonalds in Canada in terms of number of stores AND makes significantly more money than Mcdonalds does in Canada as well.
* For every cup of coffee Starbucks sells in Canada, Tim Horton's sells TEN.
* One of every four dollars spent on fast food in Canada is spent at Tim Horton's
* Even though it has a relatively small presence in the US, it is large enough that it TOOK OVER a major US fast food chain (it merged with Wendy's, and the resulting merged entity was majority owned by former Tim Horton's ownership). It also took over other regional fast food businesses in the US (Hardee's, Rax, etc).
So, it is an honest mistake to believe the special-issue coins might have been issued by Tim Horton's, given how thoroughly they have taken over the nation. However, it is not the case--legal tender is made exclusively by the Royal Mint despite the appearance that being a Tim Horton's franchisee is a license to print money.
Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)
Plus, the poem "In Flander's Fields", from which we derived the symbolism of the poppy, is a poem from the Great War.
Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)
Yep [psdschools.org].