You do know that every color copier comes with the ability to identify US currency and would refuse to copy it? And that every color printer leaves a pattern of faint yellow dots on every printout that uniquely identifies the printer?

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sabatonfan 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Is this something strictly with the US currency notes or is the same true for other countries currency as well?

	▲	SaberTail 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's most notes, and for EU and US notes (as well as some others), it's based on a certain pattern on the bills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

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potsandpans 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And that's not a good thing.

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wing-_-nuts 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Nope, having a stable, trusted currency trumps whatever productive use one could have for a anonymous, currency reproducing color printer

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mlmonkey 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm just responding to this by OP:

> Were politicians 20 years ago as overreative they'd have demanded Photoshop leave a trace on anything it edited.

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fwip 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why not? Like, genuinely.

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potsandpans 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I generally don't think that's it's good or just for a government to collude with manufacturers to track/trace it's citizens without consent or notice. And even if notice was given, I'd still be against it

The arguments put forward by people generally I don't find compelling -- for example, in this thread around protecting against counterfeit.

The "force" applied to address these concerns is totally out of proportion. Whenever these discussions happen, I feel like they descend into a general viewpoint, "if we could technically solve any possible crime, we should do everything in our power to solve it."

I'm against this viewpoint, and acknowledge that that means _some crime_ occurs. That's acceptable to me. I don't feel that society is correctly structured to "treat" crime appropriately, and technology has outpaced our ability to holistically address it.

Generally, I don't see (speaking for the US) the highest incarceration rate in the world to be a good thing, or being generally effective, and I don't believe that increasing that number will change outcomes.

	▲	fwip 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Gotcha, thanks for the explanation. I think that personally, I agree with your stance that it's a bad kind of thing for government to do, but in practice I find that I'm in favor of the effects of this specific law. (Perhaps I need to do some thinking.)

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oblio 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It depends on how you're looking at it. For the people not getting handed counterfeit currency, it's probably a good thing.

	▲	fwip 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Also probably good for the people trying to counterfeit money with a printer, better not to end up in jail for that.