Re: virus: Barcodes On People

From: Walter Watts (wlwatts@cox.net)
Date: Tue Feb 26 2002 - 23:31:44 MST


Nice poem, Vampier.

Welcome to my non-spiritual well and virtual office water-cooler.

Leave all beliephs outside and kindly bring all valuable non-common,
self-discovered truths into our sanctuary and share them freely with us.

It's all we(I) ask.

Walter

No name given wrote:

> 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

--
Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"To err is human. To really screw things up requires a bare-naked command line
and a wildcard operator."


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