Hollow Spy Coins 322
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.
X-ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:5, Interesting)
I could just as well call my wallet a "spy wallet", as it can hold mico-SD cards too.
That analogy doesn't work unless you're suggesting that you wouldn't use your wallet as a wallet. In this case, the coin is not really a coin. It's a fake, intended to deceive. On the other hand, I do agree with you that it seems like a slashvertisement.
are they even legal? (Score:3, Interesting)
if they look like real money, is it even legal?
or do the hollow coins come from the mint?
Watch out! or else.. (Score:4, Interesting)
the Defense Department might think these coins are for espionage, just like the foreign Canadian quarters from 2007:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003697628_spycoins08.html
Re:X-ray impervious? (Score:3, Interesting)
I had precisely the same idea: A hollow coin is also an effective Faraday cage. Not only is it good to disguise the contents from casual (or even somewhat close) examination visually/physically, it’s also going to shield it from more intrusive forms of electronic detection.
No biggie (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:are they even legal? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well.. interesting question..
They _are_ made from real coins and they don't purport to be worth anything more than the tender they were milled from.
Now, what happens if you try to pass one off at a store? Well, my guess is you would just be an idiot. At $20+ for a hollow quarter, you're better off just giving them a real quarter. Yes, the store would be out 25 cents, but I'm not sure that would be "counterfeiting" as, again, it was real money and again isn't purporting to be worth more than face value (ie, not a bleached $1 bill being reprinted as a $100).
Really, if you try to pass one of these off, you're _out_ money and it's a mistake you'll be pissed you made.
And no, hollow coins aren't "minted" that way. As far as I can tell, to make a hollow quarter, you take _two_ regular quarters of similar quality and you cut off the back of one and hollow out the center of another then mate the two.
Counterfeit? Maybe on a technicality, but I don't see the Secret Service knocking on your door over it.
No problem (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm still torn: Is this a cheap shot at advertising or is Bruce really so deep in the doo that he has to peddle crap now?
People, microSD cards are what their name suggests: Insanely TINY. They also don't really check on metal scanners that scan your body unless they're set to a level where the hemoglobin in your blood might set them off. Remember that tooth gap where your wisdom tooth used to be? Perfect place to put it while you go through whatever scanners your company might have in place.
So please...
FBI Hollow-Nickel Story (Score:5, Interesting)
Hollow Nickel, Hidden Agent
What’s a nickel worth?
No, it’s not a riddle. It’s a case straight from the pages of FBI history.
It all started in June 1953, when a Brooklyn newspaper boy picked up a nickel he’d just dropped. Almost like magic, the coin split in half. And inside was a tiny photograph, showing a series of numbers too small to read.
Even if the boy kept up with the front page news on the papers he delivered, he probably never would have guessed that this extraordinary coin was the product of one of the most vital national security issues of the day: the growing Cold War between the world’s two nuclear powers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
The coin ultimately made its way to the FBI, which opened a counterintelligence case, knowing the coin suggested there was an active spy in New York City. But who?
New York agents quickly began working to trace the hollow nickel. They talked to the ladies who passed the nickel on to the delivery boy, with no success. They talked to local novelty store owners, but none had seen anything like it. A lot of shoe leather was ruined, but no hot leads emerged.
Meanwhile, the coin itself underwent expert examination. FBI Lab scientists in Washington pored over it. They immediately realized the photograph contained a coded message, but they couldn’t crack it. The coin did yield clues, however. The type-print, Lab experts concluded, must have come from a foreign typewriter. Metallurgy showed that the back half was from a coin minted during World War II. Ultimately, the coin was filed away, but not forgotten.
The key break came four years later, when a Russian spy named Reino Hayhanen defected to the United States. Hayhanen—really the American born Eugene Maki—shared all kinds of secrets on Soviet spies. He led FBI agents to one out-of-the-way hiding place, called a “dead drop,” where FBI agents found a hollowed-out bolt with a typewritten message inside. When asked about it, Hayhanen said the Soviets had given him all kinds of hollowed-out objects: pens, screws, batteries, even coins. He turned over one such coin, which instantly reminded agents of the Brooklyn nickel. The link was made.
From there, Hayhanen put investigators on the trail of his case officer, a Soviet spy named “Mark” who was operating without diplomatic cover and under several false identities.
After painstaking detective work, agents figured out that “Mark” was really William Fisher, aka Rudolf Abel, who was arrested on June 21, 1957. Though Abel refused to talk, his hotel room and office revealed an important prize: a treasure trove of modern espionage equipment.
Abel was eventually convicted of espionage and sentenced to a long jail term. In 1962, he was exchanged for American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the U.S.S.R. and held prisoner there.
In the end, a nickel was worth a great deal: the capture of a Soviet spy and the protection of a nation.
Link: http://www.fbi.gov/fbihistorybook.htm [fbi.gov]
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:4, Interesting)
Is that legal? (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, apparently.
This may be walking a fine but legal line, since the coins are both real (not counterfeit) and still usable as currency (not defaced). But it's probably up for stimulated debate.
Re:Hiding in plain sight (Score:3, Interesting)
sure, that sounds good and all, but it's not realistic or related to what you're replying to. a cellphone is not a laptop. While both can hold enormous amounts of data (16gb/32gb microsd - I think most blackberries can only hold 16 max if I recall correctly), apparently border searches and the likes constitute searching laptops - they make a distinction.
My android phone holds significantly more data (and can do more, functionality wise) than your blackberry - it could be "more dangerous". Yet they could care less what phone any of us have, as they rarely ever inspect it.
So the coin makes sense but mostly all of the devices point out how security is basically stupid at best.
Re:X-ray impervious? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:These seem like neat toys... (Score:5, Interesting)
you can successfully hide a MicroSD card behind a Stamp on a letter (big stamp, big letter) and have it arrive intact. I did this as a bet to a friend. I sent it to him in florida from michigan.
I did modify the SD card. I sanded off the extended lip to make it all the same thickness, and I embossed the envelope where the st card was to go to give it a bit more room. it was undetectable by casual inspection, but if you flexed it in the stamp location you could feel it.
Spy's used to send microfilm cutouts under stamps all the time. I still have a MINOX camera that I paid a dear amount for back in the 90's when I was into collecting real spy trinkets.
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but if you got the weight correct, you’d have to worry about spending it accidentally...
(Actually you’re going to have to worry about that anyway, because cashiers don’t weigh the currency either. Only vending machines do that.)
For countries outside the US, you cannot spend a US coin. For those in the US, get the equivalent modification for a foreign coin.
"Oh that coin, it was left over from my last overseas trip. Nothing to see here."
Re:Hiding in plain sight (Score:3, Interesting)
Send me a hollow coin and I'll do it. I've X-rayed guns before (http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m5/J_M_Lambert/Guns/SR9X-ray.jpg), and condsidering the way it's easy to see through a metal magazine, and through the brass cartridges inside of it, I'd speculate that it should be pretty easy to differentiate hollow coin from a normal one.
Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really (Score:3, Interesting)
True story:
I once made a two-tailed coin as a birthday present for my brother. I used a large file with flat spacers attached that were exactly half the thickness of a coin. With a small jig to hold the coins, I filed away one side from each. I then filed a bevel around each inside edge, sandwiched the halves together and filled in the bevel by soldering. As a final touch, I filed small vertical lines around the edge of the coin.
Aside from having two tails, the result was pretty much indistinguishable from a regular coin. I don't recall that it sounded any different when dropped on a table, for example. With the coin, an endless number of tricks were possible.
Shortly after his birthday, my brother spent the coin.