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Re: Creating a unique ID number for a dollar
Death rays from Mars made Tim May <[email protected]> write:
>There's a way to generate a number for any person which is unique. It is not
>shared by anyone else on the planet.
It's not guaranteed unique. First, the dollar you use may be a forgery (why
forge a dollar? I don't know, maybe they're practicing on low-denomination
notes which noone ever looks at closely so they can get the twenties and
hundreds perfect. I have a vague memory of someone doing this with either US
dollars or UK pound notes some time ago, motivated by the "noone would ever
bother forging a dollar/pound, so it has to be genuine" mentality). In
addition you'd have to specify "US dollar" rather than just "dollar" because,
apart from the different serial number formats, some countries will reissue
banknotes if the originals are damaged in printing, which leads to the
possibility of two (legitimate) notes with the same serial number being in
circulation if the original isn't destroyed as required (I have some of these
replacement notes for now-defunct NZ dollar and two-dollar notes stashed away
somewhere). Does the US Treasury issue replacement notes if the originals are
damaged in printing, or does it just destroy the notes and leave it at that?
Peter.