7-2-96. FiTi: "A Japanese engineer's box of tricks is helping detect forged banknotes." Counterfeit dollar bills are judged on a scale of one to nine, with the crudest at level one. The detector machines that existed before Matsumura's could only pick out bills at around level five or six. Supernotes are ranked between seven and nine and have been almost impossible to detect. Matsumura says supernotes do have flaws, though, and his machine can spot differences in the printing by referring to a histogram, or statistical graph, of patterns on real US notes. Each supernote tends to have two or three minute aberrations. Consequently, sensors check for any variations at 12 points on the note. A 0.9-second scan also monitors the thickness of the paper and the printing ink. The company can only produce 500 units a month, but already has orders for 45,000. http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/tricks.txt (4 kb) TRI_cks