Hollow Spy Coins 322
Posted
by
kdawson
from the pocket-changer dept.
from the pocket-changer dept.
Bruce Schneier's blog links to a few sources for hollow spy coins, one being BoingBoing's Bazaar — where a nickel that can hold a microSD card costs $27. Another is Slashdot's sister company ThinkGeek, where you can get hollow quarters and half-dollars in the low 20s. As if corporate and government security geeks didn't have enough to worry about.
Re:X-ray? (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure. All x-rays I've seen just show metal as a bright spot, not much relief. And either way, all you have to do is keep the coin in your pocket. I never take my belt, rings or glasses off and have yet to be beeped by the metal detector and I've been flying twice a week lately. A little bit of metal is allowed. Just keep the coin in your pocket and take all other metal off and you'll almost certainly raise no suspicions or alarms.
Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
I was a amateur magician when I was ten or twelve, and I'll be 58 next month. You could get those coins at any magic shop way back then, or through the mail from catalogs; I owned a couple of them. Also, any machinist can and could make them easily.
Monty Python Slippers (Score:2, Informative)
I keep The Rabbit of Caerbannog plush toy in my magician's hat.
Re:are they even legal? (Score:5, Informative)
That said, I've never heard of anybody going after currency defacement operations(even the overt ones. Those "souveneir penny" machines that crush a graphic associated with whatever attraction the machine is located in have been around for decades, and the Secret Service has shown no signs of caring) unless they involve wholesale export of coins for their melt value(I think there was some issue involving the old pure copper pennies during one of the spikes in copper prices fairly recently).
If you somehow got caught, and your hollow nickel contained a microSD card with a copy of secret_leaked_CIA_documents_that_the_illuminati_don't_want_you_to_have.doc, they'd probably throw a defacement of currency charge at you, just for completeness' sake; but, while almost definitely illegal, they aren't exactly a huge legal risk.
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:3, Informative)
"Actual coins are precision hand milled to create a secret compartment inside" from Thinkgeek description.
It's the most expensive half-dollar you'll buy without being a collector, though. Potentially the most expensive you'll spend, depending on the contents of the micro SD card.
Re:are they even legal? (Score:3, Informative)
The "defacement of currency" charge that people toss around doesn't really apply to tearing up a dollar bill, or crushing a penny. The defacement charge is there as a hedge against people drawing a zero on the end of a five dollar bill and trying to pass it off as a fifty.
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:3, Informative)
No, it just means you have a spy pocket you could sell to sucker for 20 bucks.
Re:are they even legal? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:are they even legal? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hiding in plain sight (Score:5, Informative)
Probably because you are not a beard wearing Mediteranian. Random searches and such, you know.
And a nice place place would be in your laptop itself. For small things, just put them in the battery department. And for very topsecret things, open the laptop and tape it to the motherboard. Unless they realy are looking for it AND have somebody know how the xray should look like, it will look like a motherboard with some chips on it.
Re:Great.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Coins? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:3, Informative)
There are companies [spy-coins.com] that will sell you coins from many different countries, if you're worried about spending your spy coin...
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:3, Informative)
No, in the U.S. you may do anything you want to a coin as long as it is not with fraudulent intent, e.g. bleaching a $1 bill and reprinting it to look like a $100 bill, etc.
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq/coins/portraits.shtml#q13 [ustreas.gov]