11 ms·

If I was really bored and feeling malicious, printing QR codes to point to this "exploit" and then pasting them over QR codes on random advertisements in the st

by aw3c2 14y ago

If I was really bored and feeling malicious, printing QR codes to point to this "exploit" and then pasting them over QR codes on random advertisements in the streets seems like a terrible idea.

asmithmd1 14y ago
It wouldn't affect anyone because no one has ever scanned a QR code in an ad
- prof_hobart 14y ago
  My 6 year old daughter is absolutely fascinated by QR codes. I've been nagged into scanning ones on posters, in magazines, and even one that showed up in the middle of a TV show...
  - mibbitier 14y ago
    You can pick up barcode battlers on ebay for cheap. Although they're probably antiques now.
    - prof_hobart 14y ago
      I've got some somewhere, but I don't think they did QR codes and they certainly didn't launch a link - that's what she enjoys. No idea why, but I'm not going to discourage her from anything that gets her interested in technology. We're going to get a t-shirt printed for her with a QR code saying "If found, please ring [phone number]".
    - GFischer 14y ago
      First thought: this might be a neat Android game Second thought: this has already been implemented And.. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fawepark.android.barcodebeasties https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fawepark.a... (by the way, this displays in an awful Spanish for me, because of my default language)
  - dowskitest 14y ago
    I have a six year old son with this same fascination. Sometimes I'll walk into my home office and find some mailer with a QR code sitting there waiting for me. His inquisitive mind just has to know what the phone will do with the code.
- klausa 14y ago
  http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/
  - Aardwolf 14y ago
    But good sir, it's empty!
  - rootedbox 14y ago
    This needs a QR code sticker. http://qr.kaywa.com/?s=8&d=http%3A%2F%2Fpicturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com%2F http://qr.kaywa.com/?s=8&d=http%3A%2F%2Fpicturesofpeople...
  - bduerst 14y ago
    I chuckle every time I see this.
  - 89a 14y ago
    This will never stop being funny
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - noonat 14y ago
    I actually found them quite useful as a bookmarking tool when comparison shopping appliances at retail stores. They usually had code to the retailer's page for the appliance, and another for the manufacturer's page.
- culturestate 14y ago
  Every Android phone in Japan would be wiped out in a matter of hours. I see people scanning them in Tokyo constantly.
- c0nsumer 14y ago
  I do mountain bike (and thus indirectly hiking) trail development, construction, and maintenance as volunteer work. This has shown me a surprisingly useful place for QR codes: on trailhead map boards. The code just links to a (well optimized) PDF of the map itself, along with some text that says "Scan this with your phone to download a copy of the map.". It amazes me how many people I see scanning the QR code to get a copy of the map before they head out on the trails.
mibbitier 14y ago
I've yet to scan one of these codes, or see anyone scanning one. It seems like something from the 90s just came back for one last dying breath.
- ljf 14y ago
  I was in a British train station the other day and saw a poster containing 20 QR codes, one for each of a set a possible journeys from the station. Since I'm techy and had time to kill I scanned it, waiting to see the timetable information. Sadly the company who installed the posters was having some downtime, so it just errored. The annoying thing was that they were really just a URL shortening company, forwarding you on to the correct mobile friendly page of the trainline website. I really don't know why the trainline couldn't have just made some nice short, typing friendly short URLs of their own, and posted these on the poster. Or just posted the actual time tables like they used to. In the olden days. Whilst scanning it and trying to figure out what was wrong, the station master approached me to see what I was doing - since the poster had been installed he'd yet to see anyone use it, and had been waiting to ask someone what on earth it was for. Still - if there is someone out there that wanted to hack me, they just have to place a qr code in a place where I am likely to have nothing to do for a while... At least with this poster it was actually easy to scan the codes, unlike those on billboards or posted on the tube here in the UK.
  - timrogers 14y ago
    This sort of thing is common from what I've seen. More traditional businesses (like phone companies) don't know how to "do a QR code" (as it were), so they pay a company to make them for them. Such companies are just selling a glorified URL shortener, but the other businesses don't know that.
  - ZoFreX 14y ago
    My local bus company has failed to grasp QR codes in a mind-bogglingly thorough way. Every stop has a poster with a QR code on it, advertising that you can now look up when the next bus will be here by scanning the QR code. The first thing you might notice is that the poster is actually a photo of a QR code on a poster, and is taken at an angle sufficient to render scanning the QR code impossible. The second thing you might notice is that all the posters are identical - they are, in fact, an advert for the QR code you are meant to scan and not the QR code itself. So where are these QR codes? Somewhere else on the bus stop? On the post for the sign? No. Reading the smaller print on the poster reveals all: You simply visit their website on your PC and go to a specific URL, which delivers you a page full of QR codes. You then scan the QR code corresponding to the bus stop whose schedule you wish to view. Couldn't be easier!
ColinDabritz 14y ago
This is pretty darn dangerous already, but I would note you may not need a website at all for this. From my understanding, the problem is in the stock dialer, and it automatically executes when the number is entered. I will quietly note here that, as part of the standard, QR codes can embed phone numbers. I do not have a samsung phone to test this with. Anyone?
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Used a QR code scanner on http://qr.kaywa.com/?s=8&d=tel%3A%2A%252306%2523 http://qr.kaywa.com/?s=8&d=tel%3A%2A%252306%2523 (QR Code of tel:*%2306%23) - was picked up as a telephone number QR code by some barcode scanning app I have. Clicked dial number. Showed IMEI. Yeah, this would probably work.
  - efraim 14y ago
    Using the app Scan[1] it immediately showed the IMEI without promt. I'm not going to scan any QR codes of unknown origin any time soon. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.scan.android.client https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.scan.androi...

by aw3c2 14y ago

If I was really bored and feeling malicious, printing QR codes to point to this "exploit" and then pasting them over QR codes on random advertisements in the streets seems like a terrible idea.

asmithmd1 14y ago

It wouldn't affect anyone because no one has ever scanned a QR code in an ad

prof_hobart 14y ago
My 6 year old daughter is absolutely fascinated by QR codes. I've been nagged into scanning ones on posters, in magazines, and even one that showed up in the middle of a TV show...
- mibbitier 14y ago
  You can pick up barcode battlers on ebay for cheap. Although they're probably antiques now.
  - prof_hobart 14y ago
    I've got some somewhere, but I don't think they did QR codes and they certainly didn't launch a link - that's what she enjoys. No idea why, but I'm not going to discourage her from anything that gets her interested in technology. We're going to get a t-shirt printed for her with a QR code saying "If found, please ring [phone number]".
  - GFischer 14y ago
    First thought: this might be a neat Android game Second thought: this has already been implemented And.. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fawepark.android.barcodebeasties https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fawepark.a... (by the way, this displays in an awful Spanish for me, because of my default language)
- dowskitest 14y ago
  I have a six year old son with this same fascination. Sometimes I'll walk into my home office and find some mailer with a QR code sitting there waiting for me. His inquisitive mind just has to know what the phone will do with the code.
klausa 14y ago
http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/
- Aardwolf 14y ago
  But good sir, it's empty!
- rootedbox 14y ago
  This needs a QR code sticker. http://qr.kaywa.com/?s=8&d=http%3A%2F%2Fpicturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com%2F http://qr.kaywa.com/?s=8&d=http%3A%2F%2Fpicturesofpeople...
- bduerst 14y ago
  I chuckle every time I see this.
- 89a 14y ago
  This will never stop being funny
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- noonat 14y ago
  I actually found them quite useful as a bookmarking tool when comparison shopping appliances at retail stores. They usually had code to the retailer's page for the appliance, and another for the manufacturer's page.
culturestate 14y ago
Every Android phone in Japan would be wiped out in a matter of hours. I see people scanning them in Tokyo constantly.
c0nsumer 14y ago
I do mountain bike (and thus indirectly hiking) trail development, construction, and maintenance as volunteer work. This has shown me a surprisingly useful place for QR codes: on trailhead map boards. The code just links to a (well optimized) PDF of the map itself, along with some text that says "Scan this with your phone to download a copy of the map.". It amazes me how many people I see scanning the QR code to get a copy of the map before they head out on the trails.

mibbitier 14y ago

I've yet to scan one of these codes, or see anyone scanning one. It seems like something from the 90s just came back for one last dying breath.

ljf 14y ago
I was in a British train station the other day and saw a poster containing 20 QR codes, one for each of a set a possible journeys from the station. Since I'm techy and had time to kill I scanned it, waiting to see the timetable information. Sadly the company who installed the posters was having some downtime, so it just errored. The annoying thing was that they were really just a URL shortening company, forwarding you on to the correct mobile friendly page of the trainline website. I really don't know why the trainline couldn't have just made some nice short, typing friendly short URLs of their own, and posted these on the poster. Or just posted the actual time tables like they used to. In the olden days. Whilst scanning it and trying to figure out what was wrong, the station master approached me to see what I was doing - since the poster had been installed he'd yet to see anyone use it, and had been waiting to ask someone what on earth it was for. Still - if there is someone out there that wanted to hack me, they just have to place a qr code in a place where I am likely to have nothing to do for a while... At least with this poster it was actually easy to scan the codes, unlike those on billboards or posted on the tube here in the UK.
- timrogers 14y ago
  This sort of thing is common from what I've seen. More traditional businesses (like phone companies) don't know how to "do a QR code" (as it were), so they pay a company to make them for them. Such companies are just selling a glorified URL shortener, but the other businesses don't know that.
- ZoFreX 14y ago
  My local bus company has failed to grasp QR codes in a mind-bogglingly thorough way. Every stop has a poster with a QR code on it, advertising that you can now look up when the next bus will be here by scanning the QR code. The first thing you might notice is that the poster is actually a photo of a QR code on a poster, and is taken at an angle sufficient to render scanning the QR code impossible. The second thing you might notice is that all the posters are identical - they are, in fact, an advert for the QR code you are meant to scan and not the QR code itself. So where are these QR codes? Somewhere else on the bus stop? On the post for the sign? No. Reading the smaller print on the poster reveals all: You simply visit their website on your PC and go to a specific URL, which delivers you a page full of QR codes. You then scan the QR code corresponding to the bus stop whose schedule you wish to view. Couldn't be easier!

ColinDabritz 14y ago

This is pretty darn dangerous already, but I would note you may not need a website at all for this. From my understanding, the problem is in the stock dialer, and it automatically executes when the number is entered. I will quietly note here that, as part of the standard, QR codes can embed phone numbers. I do not have a samsung phone to test this with. Anyone?

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Used a QR code scanner on http://qr.kaywa.com/?s=8&d=tel%3A%2A%252306%2523 http://qr.kaywa.com/?s=8&d=tel%3A%2A%252306%2523 (QR Code of tel:*%2306%23) - was picked up as a telephone number QR code by some barcode scanning app I have. Clicked dial number. Showed IMEI. Yeah, this would probably work.
- efraim 14y ago
  Using the app Scan[1] it immediately showed the IMEI without promt. I'm not going to scan any QR codes of unknown origin any time soon. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.scan.android.client https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.scan.androi...