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Claim: The infamous number '666' appears in all product barcodes.
Origins: "No one could buy or sell unless he had this mark, that is, the beast's name or the number that stands for his name." — THE 
EAN-13 barcode system is used in 85 countries, making it the most popular product scanning system of its
kind in the world. It works by representing numbers as a series of seven vertical lines. Each of the seven lines is either black or white, and the sequence of lines forms a pattern which is recognized as a particular digit when scanned by a computer. Every product is assigned a unique thirteen-digit number (ten digits for the product itself, a check digit, and a couple of flag characters to indicate which organization assigned the number).
Contrary to popular myth, no bar code includes the number 666. This belief arose because the number six is represented by a pattern similar to that of the guard bars used to mark the beginning, middle, and end of every bar code. Since the guard bars always appear three times in a given bar code, people who mistakenly read them as sixes claimed that the pattern Barbara "my personal barcode is 'keep 'em coming!'" Mikkelson Additional information:  Universal Product Codes
Last updated: 17 November 2006 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2009 by snopes.com. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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