Poetry, Security

Comoros wins Bank Note of the Year 2006

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The International Bank Note Society (IBNS) has just given the Bank Note of the Year award to the Banque Centrale des Comoros for their 1,000-franc note issued in 2006.

Comoroes1000FF

Comoroes1000FB

The IBNS Bank Note of the Year is awarded to the banknote which, in the eyes of the judges, has a high level of artistic merit, an imaginative design, and features that present the best of modern security printing (taking into account the value of the note). The Comoran 1,000-franc note impressed the judges with innovative design, well-balanced color, and sensible use of modern security features.

Here is the best part, in my opinion:

Poetry is common to the entire series of notes to which the 1,000 franc belongs, with a verse appearing on the front and the back of each note. The verse on the front of the 1,000-franc note can be translated from French as:

From our feelings, what you expect I understood
For it is a love that is so absolutely exclusive
That, not to lose you, I hereby consent.
Truthfully, it will be a love
That our times have never seen.

Continued on the back of the note is a further verse which translates as:

I claim these different names which are ours
and if I speak the rainbow
It is to better greet our Indian Ocean sea-mother
whose waves of pleasures brings
to insularity abundance and joy

The final line below the verse identifies the author, Mab Elhad, and the book in which his verse appears: Kaulu la Mwando (meaning First Word in the Comoran language). The book was published in 2004 and the verses of the author, a Comoran policeman, celebrate his Comoran life and nationality.

And then there are the security features:

Despite a low face value (approximately US$2.70 at current exchange rates), the 1,000-franc note sports an impressive array of security features. Portions of the design are printed with the intaglio process, imparting a tactile element to the raised ink, along with the latent image created by the BCC embossed above the signatures. Counterfeiting is made more difficult through the use of microtext, incorporation of a perfect-registration device, and the inclusion of Omron rings. The paper contains an embedded security strip that fluoresces under UV light, and a watermark of a crescent moon, four stars, and the letters BCC. Finally there is an iridescent band on the front of the note that can be seen only when tilting the note at an angle to the light.

Impressive indeed. Is it possible for the bill value to go higher due to the Bank Note of the Year award coupled with the high-tech security features? Clearly smaller circulation countries have an advantage as they can be more nimble with their designs and adoption of new technology. Large networks of legacy ATMs, for example, will probably never need to read Comorian denominations. But the “series of notes” comment is not lost on me.

It does not make a lot of sense (pun not intended) for currency in America to be so tired and stagnant while innovation abounds elsewhere in the world. From a national pride let alone security perspective the dollar series has been flat. Strange that credit cards can be issued in a million colors and patterns yet the new currency in America has barely changed in 60 years. With the life of an actual dollar bill of less than two years, one would think there could be more variety in the series.

History, Poetry, Security

Happy Birthday Rumi

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On the occaison of the famous poet’s birthday, I found some nice reflections online. This one, for example, points out the connection to peaceful themes within Islam:

Whenever people say that Islam is hostile to opposing views and violent in its nature, I always wonder whether those people actually ever took the time to read the Koran, to talk about it, to read other Islamic literature, to take a long and hard look at the history of this second largest religion of the world, and whether they’ve ever heard of someone we in the West have come to know as Rumi.

The BBC adds some classic British dry humor for perspective:

For many years now, the most popular poet in America has been a 13th-century mystical Muslim scholar.

I guess they were really trying to say Madonna is the most popular, and since she cites Rumi…but the effect is the same. Poetry today is more alive, more integrated, and more important than ever before. The BBC continues:

“When a religious scholar reads the Mathnawi, he interprets it religiously. And when sociologists study it, they say how powerful a sociologist Rumi was. When people in the West study it, they see that it’s full of emotions of humanity.”

Ironically, the biggest threat to poetry is from those who argue that it is in such a weak state that it needs to be popularized through force — they want to see their idea of poetry become more dominant and that usually means the stuff most like themselves rather than from a global perspective. But let’s face it, there’s plenty of Rumi in this world for everyone, and so we do not have to measure poetry’s success solely by what makes old rich white men in America happy.

Security

Blackwater found negligent

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This goes in the fingernails-on-the-chalkboard category, or maybe the you’ve got to be SH#$%@NG me category.

Today’s news on Blackwater is that they failed to prepare four of their militants before sending them into hostile territory. Preparation is hard, prediction even harder, and so you might think they would say something of that sort about how they did their best but they made a mistake and have regrets, right?

No.

In a statement, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell called the report a “one-sided version” of a tragic incident. She said the committee has documents that show the Blackwater team was “betrayed” and steered into “a well-planned ambush.”

The report does not acknowledge “that the terrorists determined what happened that fateful day in 2004,” Tyrrell said. “The terrorists were intent on killing Americans and desecrating their bodies.”

Oh, really? Blackwater thought terrorists were not intent on killing Americans and that was the reason their trained anti-terrorist troops were caught off-guard? Did I read that right? Who are they kidding? It was the terrorists fault for Blackwater botching a mission? Wow.

Security

Phone Gadgets for Security

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Someone just pointed me to a couple cute new security-related toys for mobile phones.

One converts text to speech, using the camera, and the other provides an image-based second-factor authentication mechanism.

Iansyst CEO Tim Sutton told silicon.com: “It takes a standard HTC TyTN smart phone and turns the inbuilt camera into a scanner but a scanner which can be taken anywhere and used anytime”.”

Exciting stuff. Seems extreme, but if someone is blocked from downloading data, they might be able to do a screen record and send the data to a remote audio output. In fact, imagine if someone could redirect the audio of this gadget. Could a “transcribing” attack vector become more relevant? Also wonder what would happen if you just left the scanner on as you walked around town — could the resolution handle billboards, or even street signs? Transcription via highly-mobile scanners presents a new frontier.

The other gadget is less of a tangent:

Users create a pattern by choosing four squares on a grid (pictured) and it is this pattern which is then used to authenticate purchases or passwords, instead of a fixed PIN or password.

The grid is filled with random numbers every time a password or PIN is required. Therefore, a unique number is entered and not the same four-digit code.

The amusing thing to me about this is that the grid is made up of numbers instead of images. Why? Are people expected to be more comfortable with numbers? Maybe it’s just easier to implement and less offensive. Seems backwards and upside down to me. Might be a good idea to reconsider the possibilities of allowing people to enter “something they know” on “something they have”, when that thing they have is a high resolution color screen.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s clever that the phone assigns random numbers to a keypad that has nothing to do with numbers (just color and position are meant to be remembered), but why use numbers?