located (and verified) the proper information out there to declaw and neuter the free USB barcode scanners. this model's printed circuit board has the ID K023A055 REV:A silkscreened on it, and has no epoxy blobs. the serial EEPROM chip is U1 on the board, with the ID of ATC93LC46. the logic chip is U2 on the board, with the ID of HMS91C7316.
thanks and credit go to everyone who have mirrored this information
to disable the identifying serial number:
1. locate the U1 / ATC93LC46 EEPROM chip
2. cut pin 4. pin 1 is in the corner with the dimple. pin 4 is on the other corner, three pins to the right.
thanks and credit to http://www.flyingbuttmonkeys.com/foocat/usb/
to disable encryption of the bar code data:
1. locate the U2 / HMS91C7316 logic chip
2. cut pin 5. pin 1 is in the corner with the dimple. pin 5 is four pins to the right.
make sure your cuts are clean, and no stray metal/solder/crud remains anywhere near the cut, or anywhere else on the board. plug it into your USB port of choice, and enable it as a standard 'Human Interface Device'. no special drivers or code are needed to decode/descramble the data, and the data arrives via 'stdin', just as if you had typed it at the keyboard. the only condition is that a carriage return is appended to the end of the data to emulate pressing ENTER/RETURN on the keyboard.
hope this saves other people having to scratch and claw 
their way through all the kitty litter. i claim absolutely no credit or responsibility for either of these hacks. i just put them in this post.
