Re: virus: Barcodes On People

From: No name given (vampier@mac.com)
Date: Tue Feb 26 2002 - 21:02:24 MST


Hi - call me Vampier - I'm new to this list - if I post anything that
has been covered before, feel free to tell me to shut-up and read the
archives (along with what keyword to search for, please - there's a lot
of stuff in the archives and quite a bit of it I'm not incredibly
interested in - from what I've browsed).

As far as the barcodes on people,
this was tried at a school in the states - as an ID for everyone, not
just the students.
The code they put on them was the social security number (just as bar
code, without the number, and with a simple encoding mechanism).
One of the students cracked the code (and taught others) and threatened
to put up a webpage with all of the school administrators social
security numbers on it (which other people could use for something like
applying for a fake credit card).

There was a thread about it on slashdot about it here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/09/24/1536200&mode=thread

It is my personal opinion that there is a role in society for
anonymity - both online as well as in the real world - and that anything
that tries to squash that out will meet with resistance.

It is the natural tendency of people to want to feel "in control" of
their lives - even if it is an illusion. This desire means that people
will want the ability to "pretend" they are "someone else" because quite
often they've "locked themselves in" into "who they are" (who they think
they are - what they think their role in society is).

begin poem{

There once was a memeplex named I,
who thought it had evolved quite high,
when along came society,
which gave it sobriety,
and made the memeplex named I be dry.

There once was a primitive urge,
against which conformity did surge,
obedience came,
life became lame,
and on dysfunctionalities there was a splurge.

}end poem.

I'm sure someone else can express what I mean in more clinical/objective
terms (I probably could if I cared to), but I use that part of my brain
(left) for other stuff (like my job/school) and would like to try to
keep my brain usage in balance (and use my right side for poetry here)
if no one objects.

On Tuesday, February 26, 2002, at 07:21 PM, Violet Beck wrote:

> Bah! And good for them--kids run rampant these days. I would know--I AM
> one. Even if this is robbing teens of a personal liberty, they have a
> commited a crime and are thus paying. More power to the law enforcement.
>
> Now, if ONLY we could get something like that going in the
> states...where we REALLY need it...
>
>> From: "Zphobic" <zphobic@softhome.net>
>> To: virus@lucifer.com
>> Subject: virus: Barcodes On People
>> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 15:58:19 +1300
>>
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,658294,00.html



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