Software help desk

On Friday, Kellogg’s recalled about 28 million boxes of cereal because consumers reported a unusual smell coming from the packaging that could potentially make people ill. in order to help identify the specific products involved, Kellogg’s referred the public to the universal product code (UPC). That’s the official name for the pattern of black lines on the side of almost everything you can possibly purchase. Simply put, the bar code.

It’s not too dramatic to say that UPCs are the hidden language of what we buy, what we owe on our credit cards, and what we aspire to acquire.

Most complaints about the erosion of privacy through technology revolve around these little scannable designs.

What makes the bar code interesting is that the lines as well as the 12-digit code have meaning. The white spaces between the black lines are also meaningful. The bars are for machines to “read,” the numbers for us unsophisticated humans.

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