� Cracking the Universal Product Code
by Count Nibble
—————
Have you ever though of what fun you could have by altering that little set of
black bars? If you were lucky enough, you might be able to slip a box of
industrial size laundry detergent by that dizzy 16- year-old girl at the Safeway
and have the computer charge you the price of a pack of Juicy Fruit, or some
other such mischief. Well, to help you in your explo�rations of How To Screw
Over Others In This Grand Old Computerized World of Ours, I proudly present HOW
TO CRACK TO UPC CODE. Use the information contained herein as you will. You
will need the file UPC.PIC, hopefully available from the same place you found
this file. And so, let’s begin:
When the lady at the corner market runs the package over the scanner (or
whatever it is they do in your area), the computerized cash register reads the
UPC code as a string of binary digits. First it finds the “frame bars” – a
sequence of “101” (see A on picture). There are three sets of frame bars on any
given code…one on either side, and one in the center. These do nothing but
set off the rest of the data, and are the same on any UPC code. Next is the
“number system character” digit, which is encoded in leftside code (see later).
This digit tells the computer what type of merchandise is being purchased. The
digits and their meanings are:
0 – Ordinary grocery items. Bread, magazines, soup, etc.
2 – Variable-weight items. Meats, fruits & veggies, etc.
3 – Health items. Aspirin, bandaids, tampons, etc.
5 – Cents-off coupon. (Not sure how this works).
The next cluster of digits is the manufacturer number, again stored in
leftside code. THere are five digits here all the time. Some numbers include
51000 for Campbell’s Soup, 14024 for Ziff-Davis publishing (Creative Computing,
A…), and 51051 for Infocom. The next five digits (after the frame bars) are
the product/size id number. The number for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy” from Infocom is 01191. These digits are stored in rightside code.
Finally there is the checksum, in rightside, which will be discussed later.
Now, why are there two types of codes, leftside and rightside? That’s so the
person at the checkout counter can slide the thing by the scanner any way she
pleases. By having different codings for either side the computer can tell the
right value no matter how the digits are read in. � Here are the codes for the
digits 0 through 9:
Digit Leftside code Rightside code
—– ————- ————–
0 0001101 1110010
1 0011001 1100110
2 0010011 1101100
3 0111101 1000010
4 0100011 1011100
5 0110001 1001110
6 0101111 1010000
7 0111011 1000100
8 0110111 1001000
9 0001011 1110100
The more observant among you may have noticed that Rightside code is nothing
more than logical-NOTed Leftside code, i.e., a 0 in Leftside is a 1 in Right-
side, and vice versa. Later on we will discuss another type called Reversed
Rightside, in which the binary values in Rightside are reversed, meaning that
1110100 (9) in Rightside would be 0010111 in Reversed Rightside. RR is used
only when there is an extra set of codes off to the right of the main code bars,
as with books and magazines.
Now we see the hard part: how the checksum digit is encoded. Let’s try
working out the checksum for “Hitchhiker’s Guide”.
First, notice the Number System Character. Software is considered a Grocery
Item by UPC, so the NSC is 0 (zero). Next, Infocom’s Manufacturer’s Number is
51051, and the game’s id number is 01191. Good enough. Set together, these
numbers look like this:
0 51051 01191
Now, take the digits of the code and write them on alternate lines, odd on one
line, even below, giving this:
0 1 5 0 1 1
5 0 1 1 9
Now add each set of numbers:
0+1+5+0+1+1 = 8
5+0+1+1+9 = 16
Multiply the first number (the ones created by adding the first, third, etc
digits) by three:
8×3 = 24
And add that to the result of the other number (second, fourth, etc digits
added together):
24+16=40
Subtract this from the next higher or equal multiple of 10 (40 in this case)
40-40=0
And the remainder, here 0 (zero), is the checksum digit.
Now, what if there’s a set of other bars off to the side? For books, the
sequence is as follows:
Five digits
Starts with 1011
If (first digit is even) then sequence is L-RR-L-L-RR
� else sequence is RR-L-L-RR-L
each digit is separated with 01
Therefore, the sequence for 29656 is:
1011 0010011 01 0010111 01 0101111 01 0110001 01 0000101
2L 9RR 6L 5L 6RR
and the sequence for 14032 is:
1011 0110011 01 0100011 01 0001101 01 0100001 01 0010011
1RR 4L 0L 3RR 2L
Naturally, all these bars are run together. There is no checksum.
For magazines, the sequence is even more complex. There are two digits in
each bar, and the numbers usually run from 1-12, signifying the month. The
first digits are encoded thusly:
L if the digit is 1,4,5,8 or 9 and
RR if the digit is 2,3,6,7 or 0.
The second digit is coded in L if it is even, and RR if it is odd. Therefore,
06 codes as:
1011 0100111 01 0101111
and 11 codes as:
1011 0110011 01 0110011
No checksum here, either, and the fields are again separated by 01.
Well, that about does it for this explanation of how to crack the UPC codes.
Use this information as you will, and forward any question to THE SPACE BAR,
505-265-5178, pw:BANZAI. Enjoy!
– Count Nibble –
