The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 39, September 29, 2002, Article 12

ANOTHER SPACE-AGE MONEY CONCEPT

  From the New Scientist comes an article about a new kind
  of token that cannot be counterfeited and could one day be
  used in credit cards and other secure identification applications.
  A team at the MIT Media Lab's Center for Bits and Atoms
  has discovered that "a transparent token the size of a postage
  stamp and costing just a penny to make can be used to
  generate an immensely powerful cryptographic key."

  "The team created tokens containing hundreds of glass beads,
  each a few hundred micrometres in diameter, set in a block of
  epoxy one centimetre square and 2.5 mm thick. These are
  "read" by shining a laser beam of a particular wavelength
  through the token."

  "The token could not be duplicated using any manufacturing
  technology in existence or planned....  One future use of the
  tokens could see them being embedded into credit cards."

  "... the first products using the tokens could be developed in
  as little as six months."
  http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992828

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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