From: otto@tukki.jyu.fi (Otto J. Makela)
Subject: Re: MARK-OF-THE-BEA$T bar-code$/scanner$
Organization: The Crimson Permanent Assurance Company
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 15:55:07 GMT

For a moment, I'll ignore the fact that Mr. McElwaine sounds like your
average garden-variety loonie, and respond to him.  Just trying to stem
the tide of Affirmative Action messages which should go to talk.politics
or some such instead of cluttering up talk.rumors

In article <1992Nov17.165350.2396@cnsvax.uwec.edu> mcelwre@cnsvax.uwec.edu writes:
			      THE "MARK OF THE BEA$T"

		  ALL Christians are PROHIBITED by Revelation 14:9-11 from 
	     cooperating with the "MARK-OF-THE-BEA$T" bar-code, OCR-
	     number, and magnetic-strip scanning systems, (as found in 
	     local libraries, supermarkets, retail establishments, etc.), 
	     which also THREATEN to SUBVERT Individual Privacy and 
	     Freedom. 

Um, let's see...

REV14:9	And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any
	man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his
	forehead, or in his hand, [...nasty things shall happen to them]

Have you had UPC symbols stamped onto your forehead or hand lately?
You say it's only symbolic?  Well, then why are you looking for some
specific numbers or devices, it's all symbolic after all?

		  The scanners can serve THE SAME CRIMINAL PURPOSE as the 
	     TV cameras in the book "1984"! 

1984 did not have TV cameras, it had "telescreens" or some such.  The idea
was that it was a two-way television system.  Why aren't you against telly?

		  The UPC bar-codes are probably the most blatant form of 
	     the "MARK OF THE BEA$T" so far, with the "NUMBER OF THE 
	     BEA$T", 666, ALREADY CODED INTO THEM.  Each of the so-called 
	     "guard patterns", pairs of thin lines spaced close together 
	     at the beginning, middle, and end of each full-length UPC 
	     bar-code, is IDENTICAL to one of the two codes for a 6. 

I'd like to point out that this is false.  The guard patterns at the edges and
middle of the UPC-10/EAN-13 symbol are bar-space-bar-space, space-bar-space-
bar-space and space-bar-space-bar, respectively.  The actual number codes
depend on which code set (A, B or C) is used forming them (this encodes the 
two extra digits at the ends of the UPC-10 and the one extra digit at the end
of the EAN-13 bars), but they are all six units wide.  In some sets, six is
indeed coded as two narrow bars, but on closer examination you will notice
that the spaces around these two bars are different depending on what code
set was used to encode it (I seem to remember that sets A and C are mirror
images of each other).  The whole thing is just an artifact of the encoding
scheme which leaps out to humans looking for bars while ignoring the (to the
computers reading it) all-important spacing.

PS. Did you know that the sum of the 145 first digits of the fractional part
of pi are 666?  This of course proves that transcendental numbers are evil...
-- 
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