Barcodes: The Number of the Beast

writes "The concept of UPC barcodes on packages at the grocery store is a little pedestrian these days. Much creativity has gone into the use of barcodes for many more applications than originally conceived (don't worry -- no Cuecat diatribe here!). For example, Scott Blake uses barcodes to create large, mosaic works of art. Andy Deck has reinvented classic literature with Bardcode which will stream the entire works of Shakespeare to you as barcodes. If you do nothing else, check out Art Lebedev, a group of Russian artists that manipulates photos to reveal hidden bar codes (The nod to Abbey Road in New Beatles By Robert Dyomkin is especially appealing to an ex-scouser like me). "

Boomzilla continues: Barcodes were first developed in the railroad business to keep track of which cars went with which engine. The barcodes were imprinted on the side of the railway cars. The barcodes on each car could then be read together to compile information on that particular grouping; what station they came from, where they were headed, etc. thus automating the process of marshalling. When the business world realized how well this system worked, these railway barcodes evolved into the UPC system with which we are all familiar. To really be able to take in the wonder that are bar codes, check out the excellent FAQ created by Russ Adams and an article from the BBC.

Coming full circle, the clever folks at Bekonscot Model Railway in the UK have utilized barcodes at every turn of their expansive system. For example, an MP3 player is driven off barcodes attached to trains. The trains are announced before they arrive and when they are leaving, stating their destination, route and at what stations they will call.

Want a barcode of your name?

Stupid Games

[rwiedower]

What about all those games that came out a year or so ago with commercials exhorting kids to run around grocery stores ripping things off of shelves in an attempt to "power up" their videogame creatures? Those were cool...er...stupid.

Use on railroads

[Smallpond]

The use on train cars was not without problems. Some roads ran the cars through a sprayer before trying to read the codes. Union Switch & Signal installed competing systems that used inductive loops; obviously more expensive but high reliability.

Barcodes have 666 encoded on them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Allow me to explain...

Standard UPC bar codes consist of a set of lines to mark the start of the code, the left hand part of the code itself, another set of marker lines, the right hand part of the code itself, and a third set of marker lines:

] ] IIIIII I I IIIIII [ [
] ] IIIIII I I IIIIII [ [
] ] IdataI I I IdataI [ [
] ] IIIIII I I IIIIII [ [
] ] IIIIII I I IIIIII [ [
] ] .5023. I I .7173. [ [

The marker lines are "0101", "01010" and "1010" respectively, where 0 is white and 1 is black.

Now, the encoding scheme is complicated, but it just so happens that "0101" if treated as data on the left hand side would decode to the digit "6".
Similarly, "1010" on the right hand side would decode to a "6" if it were data. The middle also has a "1010" or a "0101" depending upon how you want to look at it.

Hence every UPC bar code has "6...6...6" built into it.

There are some technical niggles with the theory. The middle marker has that extra white bar on the left, but this can be explained away by saying that a gap is needed before the next coded part starts, or that it is to make the thing scan both ways. Yup, it even reads "666" if you play it backwards.

In "The Master of Space and Time" Rudy Rucker jokes about this theory by having an alternate universe where people pay for their groceries by having the checkout operator swipe a UPC code that's tattooed on their foreheads.

Does anyone remember??

[ranolen]

Does anyone remember the game barcode battlers??? You used bar codes from anything you could find and swipe them through a reader and they would give you stats for your character to fight other characters. Really neat idea. Ahh early 90's technology... hehe.

101 != 6

[ee_moss]

The 666 rumor comes about from illiterate, non-mathematical conspiracy theorists.. On a barcode, the black bars represent 1 and white bars represent 0. Most of us, I hope, understand that. When the barcode scanner reads the barcode, it must know when to start reading and stop reading, and it does this by finding the code "101" you see at the beginning and end of the barcode. Also, in the middle of every UPC is a 01010 combination, which basically tells the scanner that it has reached the middle of the barcode. The beginning, middle, and end lines are longer than the rest, and some people think that these longer lines represent the number 666. Actually, 101 in binary is 5, so if you are that paranoid and into conspiracy theories, the longs lines on the barcode read "555"

Re:UPC really universal

[stoolpigeon]

I can't all your questions but I can tell you unequivicolly that many UPCs in the U.S. are not unique. I worked for a while as a pricing analyst for Safeway food and drug. Dealing with duplicate UPCs was a problem.

As I understand it-- there is a newer standard with longer barcodes and europe has moved to it but the u.s. still uses the older UPCs.

CT drivers license

[BigBir3d]

My new CT driver's license has a bar code like stripe on the back instead of the sensitive magnetic one that other states use(d). Instead of solid vertical lines, the lines are broken into what looks like random segments. Reminds me of the "snow" on a TV with antenna that isn't working properly.

Obligatory crossover

[42forty-two42]

What about Star wars in ASCII [slashdot.org] in barcode [slashdot.org]?

The artsy stuff is ok ....

[Compulawyer]

but they seem to limit themselves to 1D barcodes. What about 2D codes like PDF417? 2D codes would seem to open up countless more possibilities for artistic use ....

And Now For Something Completely Different: The definitive book on barcoding is "The Bar Code Book" by Roger C. Palmer (4th ed., (c) 2001 Helmers Publ., Inc., ISBN 0-911261-13-3). How do I know so much about barcodes? Trust me - you don't want to know.

Re:RFID

[42forty-two42]

We're considering using such a system to do inventory control. Fun!

...until someone drives up with a jamming transmitter. Panic!

Barcode Hacking

[stoolpigeon]

O.k. - I never thought I'd find a forum where this story might even have the slightest relevance but here we are.

For a few years I worked for Safeway Food and Drug as a File Maintenance Clerk. I printed pricing labels and hung them on the shelves. I made price signs, applied the batches to change prices, etc.

Safeway has a system in place on the registers where certain activities require a manager with an override card. Checks of a certain amount, large voids, all kinds of stuff.

Since I worked on the computers all the time I was the one who changed the message on the bottom of receipt tapes- with the manager name- when we got a new manager. One day I'm moving around in the file that contained that information and I find all these long numbers in one location. They were all the managers override numbers.

Here's where the barcode part comes in. I wanted my own over ride card. I went into the software I used to print price labels and took a single record and changed the UPC of a product on the label to an override number. When I printed the label- the barcode in the corner for ordering now read the override number.

I cut the barcode part out, peeled the back and stuck it to a card I carried in my wallet. Now any time I needed an override I could just scan that card over the register scanner.

On a side note- I called company security and told them that all the manager codes were in plain text where anyone could see them in the machine. They told me it was o.k. because noone would ever look there. Kind of funny. It is probably still that way.

Re:useful at last

[ciroknight]

yeah but you still have to have a reciept :-/, and since most plastically sealed things with rebates (cd players, other cheap electronic goods) have the upcs behind the plastic, you have to wrestle the plastic for like an hour before it gives up the item, then you have to hunt through the piles of discard to find and cut out a little barcode, that is if it isnt destroyed in the first process....

Re:UPC really universal

[ManInBlac]

European barcodes are indeed different from US ones. For example, US records will have a 12-digit UPC number, whereas European records will frequently have a a 13-digit EAN code. You can actually get several different length codes within both UPC (American) and EAN (European) systems. See e-centre [e-centre.org.uk] for more info on EAN codes. Of course, this does mean that only American products contain the number of the beast. Make of that what you will.

It's in the bones ... the bones never lie

[adzoox]

I wonder if the randomness of nature does have words to speak? Take this pic for example [artlebedev.com] from the article. I wonder if those patterns from the shade of tress on the snow if converted to barcodes would vaguely spell something out?

My title to the post makes me think of shamen. Shamen throw bones to tell fortunes and future events. In the Bible they cast urem and thumen to determine selection of elders and clerics. I wonder if either of those are TRUELY read like barcodes or whether Shamen and Biblical figures made things up to suit the task at hand or the situation.

I had turned my name into a barcode a long time ago after watching THX 1138. They all had barcodes on them that told their names. I have my barcode printed onto a laminated card in my wallet. If I can think of it, I scan it in different stores. If read by a Walmart Barcode scanner I am a bouncy ball from the toy department 99cents.

Re:Well sheesh.

[Thud457]

Ah, for the halcyon days of pre-internet conspiracy theory. We were much less jaded then!

We're used to much more potent lunacy these days.

How Barcodes Work

[FsG]

This site [howstuffworks.com] has an interesting article that fully explains how classic barcodes work, how you can decode the bars, etc. An interesting read.

don't laugh; it's been done

[jtheory]

I actually do have a buddy who had his SSN in barcode format tattooed on the back of his neck (as a comment on privacy erosion, etc.), about 10 years ago... I think we were still in high school.

I just went to his wedding last year. Forgot to ask the bride what she thought of it, though.

Re:so uh... cool or not?

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

I got a big tattoo of my SSN in barcode format right on my forehead.

That way people know who I am.

It is unclear from any of those links if this makes me cool or not.

Without even checking on the links, I can answer.
This does not make you cool.
I'm not saying you're not cool, but if you are, it would be in spite of your forehead, not because of it.

--

Re:RFID

[2short]

BUT!!... optical scanners are expenive ($250 and up).

WTF are you talking about? I bought mine for $29.95. That was a few years back, but still...

Re:RFID

[lfourrier]

barcode and scanning equipement where paid by inflation.
when they where introduced, in the mid eighties, there was about 12% inflation a year. the fact that the store was able, with barcoded articles, to increase price of articles without having to update the (no longuer present) tags on each articles permitted to finance the investement in about 6 month for a typical store.
(they buy with a certain target price, they inflate price while stock is in inventory, and they pay providers a few month after the inventory is sold. even at the prices of 85, it was cheap for them. )

Re:Use on railroads

[AndroidCat]

Back in school, when they took us on a field trip where railway people explained the switching yard and routing system for cars, I always liked the idea of having my own (disgused) car and hacking the system by changing the code on the side.

This was before I'd seen a computer. :^)

Re:bizare != art

[Eric Savage]

ART lacks a satisfactory definition. It is easier to describe it as the way something is done -- "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others" (Britannica Online) -- rather than what it is.

http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/artartists/artarti st s.html

By that definition, the barcodes (and the sink) are art. I think you underestimate the amount of art in our world, and simultaneously overvalue your concept of an artist. I personally don't find any reward in looking at a Van Gogh or a Monet, but I can lose myself in an Ansel Adams picture, and all he did was press a button, right?(it took a long time for photography to be considered "art") We each have tastes, and we each value certain things as art or not. And in someone's opinion, we're wrong.

Re:You'd like my license plate

[Gordonjcp]

There are loads of cars in the UK these days with 666 in the registration. I should point out, for non-UKians, that UK car registrations used to run , then switched to . It's changed again though. Incidentally, you will never see the three-letter group "BAS" on a UK number plate - because the "AS" part means "Inverness-shire", where people speak Gaelic. And "bas" in Gaelic (actually should have an accent over the "a") means "die".