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Ha, nice. I was a silent participant of that contest that year. My buddies team was able to acquire a second tamper kit to practice on, I learned a lot about se

Ha, nice. I was a silent participant of that contest that year. My buddies team was able to acquire a second tamper kit to practice on, I learned a lot about seals that weekend and I still apply that knowledge to this day. Any seal that uses an adhesive is often easily removed with acetone. Seals that use multiple materials like plastic and metal, well you can dissolve the metal component and replace it if you have multiple blanks of the seal. If the plastic part is the part that is serialized then bobs your uncle. I moved on to using security paper to make high security envelopes. There are a ton of different features you can combine to make a unique security paper. Then mechanically sealing it with security wire and a lead seal. If an evil maid needs inside they would need to duplicate the security paper's features. This place sells a sampler pack of high security papers for cheap: http://www.secureguardpapers.com/assortment-w.html http://www.secureguardpapers.com/assortment-w.html If you want to go off the rails and raise legal questions for the government though, do this. Go to the treasury and buy sheets of uncut US currency to make your envelopes out of - remember all bills are uniquely serialized. If you are a true high roller buy uncut $100 bills, they probably have extra security features. Assuming your theoretical evil maid is a US government employee, it raises an interesting question: are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security? If you want to see other interesting application of anti-tampering features, go check out your passport and all your visa stamps in it. The low hanging fruit is UV, but don't forget that there are two common bands of UV, shortwave is where it's at. Lots of fluorescing going on. But don't forget IR transparent inks there (or IRT). Also don't forget that fluorescence can happen in wavelengths outside the human visible spectrum. If you shine an IR laser pointer at stuff there are inks that can fluoresce from IR back into the visible spectrum. There's a ton of other things too, but your passport has a cornucopia of interesting tamper evident features. And don't get me started on microwires. If conspiracy folks had any idea about these their heads would explode. https://security-paper.tagit-eas.ch https://security-paper.tagit-eas.ch

relaxing 4y ago
> are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security? We already know plenty of things they are not “allowed” to do, but happen anyway. If they’re already invested to the level of effort it takes to duplicate security seals, I think they can call off the Secret Service from investigating a little counterfeiting.
- dosman33 4y ago
  Certainly, but imagine the reams of red tape you'll be making your agent team wade through. The FBI has a lot of resources but I suspect they are not setup to counterfeit US currency. Sooo many meetings and approvals, Judicial oversight, just to get a special run of bills from the Treasury Department. Would they be required to destroy the original evidence since they are duplicating US currency? The years of the missed soccer games and birthdays of their loved ones just to take a peek at some pepe memes that have no meaning. Don't forget to put some sealed US currency envelopes in your suitcases while flying kiddos, the TSA needs to have fun too.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
phyzome 4y ago
That's a cute idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if counterfeiting a bill with a matching serial after destroying the original would be given a pass.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dosman33 4y ago
  Destroying evidence you say?
CTDOCodebases 4y ago
>Assuming your theoretical evil maid is a US government employee, it raises an interesting question: are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security? Why would they need to counterfeit the notes? Is there something stopping the NSA from calling up the treasury and asking for uncut sheets with specific serial numbers? Would they even be breaking the law if they decided to go it along and reverse engineer the printing process? While the Treasury is granted the right to print physical money[0] it does not exclude anyone else from physically printing money as well. Further counterfeiting/forging currency[1] needs to have the intent to defraud. I get your point though. I guess it would operate similarly to the operations of undercover police who have to break laws as part of their work. I suspect a lot of oversight would be needed from the upper levels of the organisation so as not to fall foul of the Justice Department. [0] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5114 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5114 [1] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/471 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/471

relaxing 4y ago

> are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security? We already know plenty of things they are not “allowed” to do, but happen anyway. If they’re already invested to the level of effort it takes to duplicate security seals, I think they can call off the Secret Service from investigating a little counterfeiting.

dosman33 4y ago
Certainly, but imagine the reams of red tape you'll be making your agent team wade through. The FBI has a lot of resources but I suspect they are not setup to counterfeit US currency. Sooo many meetings and approvals, Judicial oversight, just to get a special run of bills from the Treasury Department. Would they be required to destroy the original evidence since they are duplicating US currency? The years of the missed soccer games and birthdays of their loved ones just to take a peek at some pepe memes that have no meaning. Don't forget to put some sealed US currency envelopes in your suitcases while flying kiddos, the TSA needs to have fun too.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

phyzome 4y ago

That's a cute idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if counterfeiting a bill with a matching serial after destroying the original would be given a pass.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dosman33 4y ago
Destroying evidence you say?

CTDOCodebases 4y ago

>Assuming your theoretical evil maid is a US government employee, it raises an interesting question: are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security? Why would they need to counterfeit the notes? Is there something stopping the NSA from calling up the treasury and asking for uncut sheets with specific serial numbers? Would they even be breaking the law if they decided to go it along and reverse engineer the printing process? While the Treasury is granted the right to print physical money[0] it does not exclude anyone else from physically printing money as well. Further counterfeiting/forging currency[1] needs to have the intent to defraud. I get your point though. I guess it would operate similarly to the operations of undercover police who have to break laws as part of their work. I suspect a lot of oversight would be needed from the upper levels of the organisation so as not to fall foul of the Justice Department. [0] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5114 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5114 [1] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/471 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/471