Remember the story from last year where there was a DoD warning put out about contractors in Canada having spy gear planted on them?
The high-tech device... was a Canadian commemorative coin. According to Fox News:
The odd-looking — but harmless — "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.
The Globe and Mail goes into rather more detail - and, to me, amusing detail.
"It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top."The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the Defence Security Service, an agency of the Defence Department, that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors travelled through Canada.
You really should read the whole Globe and Mail piece. It's, well, funny.
I rather think Bill Ockham's toiletries should have been applied rather earlier in the process than they were. Me, I'm guessing I would have looked at the coin and said, "Hey, kewl coin!" Of course, I know the symbolism of the Poppy, and might have connected that to the word "Remember" on the coin.
H/t, CAPT H and beery Alan.
But then, I'm not clever enough to work in the intel business. Heh. Someone could have just... asked, or something.
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