The Top Ten Conspiracy Theories,Number 7

Barcodes are really intended to Control people

A barcode (also bar code) is a machine-readable (uses dark ink on white substrate to create high and low reflectance which is converted to 1's and 0's) representation of information in a visual format on a surface. Originally barcodes stored data in the widths and spacings of printed parallel lines, but today they also come in patterns of dots, concentric circles, and hidden within images. Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers or scanned from an image by special software. Barcodes are widely used to implement Auto ID Data Capture (AIDC) systems that improve the speed and accuracy of computer data entry.

Some conspiracy theorists have proposed that barcodes are really intended to serve as means of control by a putative world government, or that they are Satanic in intent. Mary Stewart Relfe claims in The New Money System 666 (1982) that barcodes secretly encode the number 666 - the Biblical "Number of the Beast". This theory has been adopted by other fringe figures such as the "oracle" Sollog, who refuses to label any of his books with barcodes on the grounds that "any type of computer numbering systems MANDATED by any government or business is part of the PROPHECY of the BEAST controlling you."

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