From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (General Boycott)
Subject: Re: "Welcome to the Machine"
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords: Control, money, cattle
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 07:43:00 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.185456.12840@sunova.ssc.gov>, 
kevin@andorra.ssc.gov (Kevlar) writes...
>  
>       A friend of mine just notified me of something I found to
>      be rather peculiar...Figured that this group might think is 
>      interesting.
>        Here in D/FW there is a store that recently opened called
>      "Incredible Universe" (home electronics, appliances, computers,
>      etc) Well i've been told that upon entering this store an
>      individual is issued a membership card with a bar code.
>        Any subsequent visits.....the member must bar code IN
>      just to enter the store. Also scan out upon leaving! ^^

I can confirm the entry part. They actually get all your name/address
info from you, and then give you one credit card size barcode card and
two smaller "key chain" cards. (You did give them the correct info, eh?)

Then you are greeted by gatekeepers wearing Grid Palmpad penputers
who "swipe" your card with an attached wand -- interestingly the
palmpad is RF linked (5" antenna) to some central system. And off 
you go to tinker with the techie toys. (I checked out Virtuality
once to get a feel for it, at $5 bucks for 10 minutes -- not bad.)

The deal of course is that for any transaction you make they wand one of
your cards. Since IU is basically a small mall, your travels is no doubt
roughly obtainable from the data base, as well as time of purchase from
entry. I exited we no final purchases though there cash registers on the
way out -- consequently they didn't get an exit time on me. The exit is
out of one of the "stores,"  though it resembles more the open walkways
of a regular mall, with a bunch of impulse purchase items stacked
around. 

Natch' no doubt, they sell customer list.

>         Does this make anyone else out there think?
>         What kind of data profile could be assembled from this?

On the back of the larger credit-card-size card, it says...

	Please present this card for admittance and when you
	shop at INCREDIBLE UNIVERSE. This is a privilege card 
	and not a credit card. No fee will be charged for this
	membership. It is non-transferable. The use of this card
	may entitle you to earn Frequent Shopper points to be 
	used as discounts toward later purchases and possibly 
	other benefits at INCREDIBLE UNIVERSE's sole discretion. 
	This Frequent Shopper program allows us to track the
	shopping patterns of our customers. By your use of this
	card you agree to foregoing uses. The loss of this card,
	or any change in name, address or phone number should be
	reported to your nearest INCREDIBLE UNIVERSE store 
	immediately. This card and any benefits pertaining hereto 
	are subject to change or cancellation at INCREDIBLE
	UNIVERSE's sole discretion with or without notice to you.

I wonder how many lawyers it took to write that and what they were paid.

>          I don't consider myself paranoid, but it starts to
>       make you wonder about the ever increasing number of apparant
>       devices in place to track or assemble data!
>     
>                              Kevlar

Kevin, you work at the SSC and you're not paranoid?  
Hmmmm....
(I'll come back to this.)

All three cards are solid plastic and the barcode looks standard, with
6 numbers, 5 middle zeros, and 5 more trailing numbers.

I cut open one of the cards to look for foil or other embedded 
resonant elements -- nothing.  

With a few minutes consideration, you can readily come up with all
kinds of advantages to the store with this system; psychological,
advertising, security, and otherwise. 

A little acetone, a laser printer produced "stamp," and an acrylic
finish... probably would be easy to change the code. Then again 
they didn't ask for an id to verify personal data so why bother.

I'll have to dissolve one of cards later.

---

Now as to the SSC...

You ought to read the House Hearing [Science, Space, and Technology
(SST) Subcommittee] from May 9, 1991 (UTA Call # Y4.Sci 2:102/40),
also see SST: 2-27-92 (Y4.Sci 2:102/100), Joint House/Senate 2-18-92
(Y4.Ap 6/2:S.hrg.102-484), and this:

..the Congressional Record for June 17th, 1992 (section X. of UTA slide 
shelving) pp. H 4807-4828 especially the last paragraph of the 1st column
p. H 4811.

Fascinating stuff. Amazing to me that they DOE actually describes a
total lifecycle cost of around $15 Billion, counting a half billion per
year over a 25 year lifespan to operate and maintain the SSC, but the
only thing we ever hear about in the *MEDIA* is $8.25 Billion to
construct. Nor are we taxpayers(see note) told in the media that an
additional $1.7 Billion is supposed to come from foreign sources -- which
is an outright gamble. Nor are we Texans told, that Texas has given 
$1 Billion (plus bought the land), which is a rather large percentage of 
the state's $60 Billion 2 year budget. And it only gets worse the more 
you look into to it, such as how much is covered under other budget areas 
in DOE and Defense, how the same CongressScum who call for a Balanced Budget
Amendment one week can push the Collider the next, that the physical
size of this monster is 54 miles in diameter, (plus smaller rings), of
titanium alloy "magnets" each the size of a tanker truck (10,000 of them).
Or about project Isabelle, the fore-runner proton-proton collider that
got only partly built up in Brookhaven. Or about this basically being a
race with CERN to find a particle which if found would put a damper on
particle research for a long, long time since the next energy jump is
mega-huge. Or that a bunch of ex-Navy and Defense Procurement people are
running the money side of the game, and a great deal of the construction
will be done by companies that also build Naval Nuclear Propulsion
Reactors. Or that a sizable percentage of the 6000 employees will be
foreign nationals (more than 20% I think it was). Or that this thing
actually ever being completed, given the current escalation of the debt,
is hardly plausible. But the cryo-magnet people are going to get rich in
the mean time. 

The only good thing I can say about this is that the DOE actually
(with coaxing) provided all this information. So I can't really accuse
the Bureaucracy of cover-up. But the major media, the senior members of 
Congress(Especially Gramm & Bentsen), Bush and Clinton, *all* of them 
push this insanity each year -- which is all new spending. 

{ The URA is an interesting exercise in academic politics all by itself,
{ a "consortium" of over 75 universities who are using the SSC as a 
{ vehicle for various research projects....

I wouldn't be surprised if security at the SSC had barcoded ID cards 
as well, though somewhat more exotic than Incredible Universe.

note: "cattle"

"Every dollar paid in Taxes could have been money in a family savings
 account. Everly dollar in Federal Borrowing represents new taxes 
 plus an extra interest charge -- pushed off till you retire, or onto
 to your children. And TAXISM today is just as Wrong as Slavery was 
 back before the Civil War -- since it by-in-large is forced on the
 majority of Americans through the type of corruption and colllusion
 evident in the SSC."


Also see pork, christmas-tree-appropriations, and diversion-of-intent.
Xref: sparky alt.conspiracy:12344 alt.privacy:2366 alt.religion.computers:862 alt.security:4841