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I am freaking tired of QR codes. I recently moved to another country (SG) and QR codes are literally used for almost everything now, essentially requiring a pho

I am freaking tired of QR codes. I recently moved to another country (SG) and QR codes are literally used for almost everything now, essentially requiring a phone (and good lighting and a clean camera) to do almost anything. At least once a week I have to idle around waiting for a link to load in order to pay a vendor because scanning a qr-code under a glossy plastic standee is taking too long to read. I love how developers are all so lovingly inconsistent. On one hand they swear up and down that binary formats are shite and now human-readable formats are the new thing (or at least that was the story a few years back with various markup languages and json) but now, for those stupid fucking idiot users opaque formats that require a functioning camera line of sight clear to a piece of paper are now IN. Minimized urls are too passe, I suppose? And it's great too, because scammers and hackers are now dropping QR codes on the ground or leaflets, or placing stickers on the QR codes that dot the landscape (like on public info posters or ads put up in HDBs) so poor folks who have learned that the QR code is how you do things now just load up the QR codes without asking. Again, opaque formats are NOT good for many reasons, ease of hacking/social engineering is one reason obvious reason! Of course you can put a sticker on poster on a url but it's easy to recognize the difference between mysite.com/about and something else vs qr code 1 and qr code 2.

cowtools 4y ago
What if instead of QR, it was a special human-readable text format that was optimized for image recognition? Like a special font or something.
- itake 4y ago
  I suspect that the cameras on low-end phones would struggle with OCR text in suboptimal conditions (low-light or damaged text). QR codes have redundancy, which makes them resilient in a variety of conditions that plaintext isn't. Also, you can 'hide' ugly tracking urls in QR codes (e.g. a short-link that lets you count number of scans or update the redirect location).
  - lolcat_cowsay 4y ago
    could just use the torch
samstave 4y ago
QR codes should be REVERSED. ALL vendors should be required to have a camera. I have an app that produces a unique QR code for each transaction. The VENDOR scans MY QR code and REQUESTS for my to PAY them, showing me my receipt for auth on my device. The only VENDOR QR-read codes should only be for information about the product, menu etc. - I used QR codes on product descriptions that led to the product page and lab testing results for said product onto which the physical size of the product was not large enough for pertinent information -- this was for cannabis product company for which I did some contracting labeling... The upside of this, is that it ran through bitly and I was able to also, included with the QR scan, the geo-loc of the product scan which allowed me to map out the interest of various products based on the scan and location... QR codes are FANTASTIC, but implemented so poorly...
- noobermin 4y ago
  So, this is something some apps actually do, just noting, where they scan the payer's QR code, not the vendor. Also, not sure why you are being downvoted.
aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
A shortened URL is just as opaque for humans as a QR code. http://bit.ly/gAtJlyc http://bit.ly/gAtJlyc Would you trust this URL?
- u801e 4y ago
  I trusted using curl to find out it just returns a HTTP 404 page :)
  - GranPC 4y ago
    Doesn't look like a 404 to me
    - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
      Hehe, nice trick!
    - u801e 4y ago
- noobermin 4y ago
  Usually, people (who I think pay services like bitly) can use minimized urls with some readable text, not random letters, this is to make the url more readable and visible. Anyway, for here in Singapore, what I'm talking about generally are government websites, which in SG are plentiful and well used. Things like where to find ART kits or information on GST vouchers or things like that. This is information many people are likely to access via a website, and especially trust given it's a gov website. The government often already have nifty, readable urls already for these links, like gowhere.gov.sg/art and so don't need QR codes.
fernvenue 4y ago
That's true, QR code is now being abused where they are not really needed, which is a very bad phenomenon.

cowtools 4y ago

What if instead of QR, it was a special human-readable text format that was optimized for image recognition? Like a special font or something.

itake 4y ago
I suspect that the cameras on low-end phones would struggle with OCR text in suboptimal conditions (low-light or damaged text). QR codes have redundancy, which makes them resilient in a variety of conditions that plaintext isn't. Also, you can 'hide' ugly tracking urls in QR codes (e.g. a short-link that lets you count number of scans or update the redirect location).
- lolcat_cowsay 4y ago
  could just use the torch

samstave 4y ago

QR codes should be REVERSED. ALL vendors should be required to have a camera. I have an app that produces a unique QR code for each transaction. The VENDOR scans MY QR code and REQUESTS for my to PAY them, showing me my receipt for auth on my device. The only VENDOR QR-read codes should only be for information about the product, menu etc. - I used QR codes on product descriptions that led to the product page and lab testing results for said product onto which the physical size of the product was not large enough for pertinent information -- this was for cannabis product company for which I did some contracting labeling... The upside of this, is that it ran through bitly and I was able to also, included with the QR scan, the geo-loc of the product scan which allowed me to map out the interest of various products based on the scan and location... QR codes are FANTASTIC, but implemented so poorly...

noobermin 4y ago
So, this is something some apps actually do, just noting, where they scan the payer's QR code, not the vendor. Also, not sure why you are being downvoted.

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago

A shortened URL is just as opaque for humans as a QR code. http://bit.ly/gAtJlyc http://bit.ly/gAtJlyc Would you trust this URL?

u801e 4y ago
I trusted using curl to find out it just returns a HTTP 404 page :)
- GranPC 4y ago
  Doesn't look like a 404 to me
  - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
    Hehe, nice trick!
  - u801e 4y ago
noobermin 4y ago
Usually, people (who I think pay services like bitly) can use minimized urls with some readable text, not random letters, this is to make the url more readable and visible. Anyway, for here in Singapore, what I'm talking about generally are government websites, which in SG are plentiful and well used. Things like where to find ART kits or information on GST vouchers or things like that. This is information many people are likely to access via a website, and especially trust given it's a gov website. The government often already have nifty, readable urls already for these links, like gowhere.gov.sg/art and so don't need QR codes.

fernvenue 4y ago

That's true, QR code is now being abused where they are not really needed, which is a very bad phenomenon.