They can try.

Goes to the cell phone thread and how metadata is used - listening to your conversation and then sending related ads on your electronics. While some areas may be using QR for restaurants most here still don't. The "germy paper" issue is bull. Staff wipes them down daily, even hourly. If someone is seeing QR codes in a metro then it might be suggested it's time to move out of the metro into real America.

Metros are just large concentration camps. Ask the folks in Shanghai. 26 million locked down. You can't leave Canada or Australia if you are unvaxxed, either.

QR codes are the least of our problems. It's just a misplaced technology of limited application. Do I really need to scan a code shopping retail to choose the item? The carb and sugar content alone tells me something. A set of LED lights? Road test of ten sets told me which I want.

Imagine scanning four codes for car wax trying to choose which is best. When I was asked which, I always pointed to the most expensive, and the customer always chose the cheapest. Now, if they ask me which I use, it's the middle of road spray ceramic. I can wax the wifes car in 35 minutes, glass and all, it beads for months.

QR codes are very little help determining a products value for point of sale. At a restaurant, I see it as being cheap.

I don't need no stinkin QR code.

https://www.aclu.org/news/priv...privacy-and-security

"If you’ve been to a restaurant lately and scanned a QR code rather than order from a physical menu, you likely paid for that meal with not just your money, but your privacy and security too. Businesses are taking advantage of the rise of touchless services during the pandemic to harvest massive amounts of sensitive information about who we are, where we go, and what we do, including our eating and drinking habits — when all we want to do is just eat a meal."

...

"Whether technology helps or harms us depends on its purpose, the people who build it, and how we control and use these technologies. Based on current privacy and security risks of QR codes, we recommend that people:

Treat any QR code like a link in an unknown email: Be wary and pay attention to the context in which it appears.
When not certain a code can be trusted, consider seeking the information another way, such as by manually navigating to the business or organization’s website.
Use software that allows you to inspect the QR code or the action it will take before it is passed to your browser or any other app.
Keep an eye out for any QR code that has been pasted on top of another one.
In restaurants, continue to use a physical menu. We now know that it’s highly unlikely to spread the virus by touching a piece of paper.
With the privacy threats, equity concerns, and security risks of QR codes, no business should require anyone to scan a QR code or make it difficult for people to continue to use a physical menu if they want one. COVID has already cost our communities so much. Now is the time to make sure that any technology we use is working for us, not putting more of our personal information and power into the hands of companies who profit at our expense."

I'm glad this has been discussed. I've always just asked for paper menus but now understand why it's a really good idea to continue doing so.

If a QR saves me having to manual type a URL I'd otherwise have to enter manually, I'm fine with it.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
If a QR saves me having to manual type a URL I'd otherwise have to enter manually, I'm fine with it.

Of course the risk is you can't decipher the code yourself before you scan the code, so the code could direct you to malicious content instead of where you're lead to believe you'll be taken. It's easy to slap a malicious QR code sticker over a legitimate code, for example.

As these continue to become more prevalent, so will malicious codes being substituted for legitimate codes.

quote:

Originally posted by Tirod:
They can try.

Goes to the cell phone thread and how metadata is used - listening to your conversation and then sending related ads on your electronics. While some areas may be using QR for restaurants most here still don't. The "germy paper" issue is bull. Staff wipes them down daily, even hourly. If someone is seeing QR codes in a metro then it might be suggested it's time to move out of the metro into real America.

A couple of clarifications on my original post.

1. This wasn't a metro area where I found the QR codes, it is a town with a population of slightly over 15,000.

2. None of the places had options for ordering from places the QR codes took you to, they merely brought up menus. You still had to have a waiter/waitress take your order and write it down as usual. One of them was definitely understandable as it brought up the beer menu and they had 48 different beers on tap. I can imagine some idiot coming up and asking what kind of beer they had on tap, thus the QR code.

I'm all for supporting local businesses. That said...if they require a cell number to call you into a place, or a QR code for a menu, or card payments only, I'm done.

Me and my money are going elsewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by TRIO:
I'm all for supporting local businesses. That said...if they require a cell number to call you into a place, or a QR code for a menu, or card payments only, I'm done.

Me and my money are going elsewhere.

They didn't require a QR code for a menu, it was an option that almost everyone took.

Nor did any of them require a cell number or card payments only.

quote:

Originally posted by Tirod:
If someone is seeing QR codes in a metro then it might be suggested it's time to move out of the metro into real America.

Well, guess what, pal? We've got QR codes out here in the sticks, too.


- - - - - -

Like Lefty Sig, my company uses a lot of 2D bar codes -- Data Matrix in particular -- for product identification. We don't encode links or such into them, and the content is [mostly] dictated by the customer. In that usage, these things are extremely handy and definitely non-malicious.

2D codes hanging around here, there, and everywhere in public are certainly something to be a little wary of. As others have mentioned, there's not a quick way of seeing what's encoded within one without actually scanning it. Additional note: Don't always trust the human-readable text adjacent to the code (if it's there), as it's not guaranteed to represent what's actually in the code.

The idea of giving my info just to get a meal doesn't sit well with me. The payment is given to them for the meal. They don't need anything extra from me.

Ads or cold contact offers of discounts weeks later are not desirable to me.

I mentioned about the cell call back and CC only to expand beyond the QR codes being used as the OP message. This push for cell or app usage seems to be getting ridiculous.

I just noticed that my local Waffle House does have a sticker on the napkin dispenser with a QR code for the menu. I'd never noticed it before. The place mats are also the menu, laminated in plastic, and have been so for many years.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by TRIO:
The idea of giving my info just to get a meal doesn't sit well with me. The payment is given to them for the meal. They don't need anything extra from me.

Ads or cold contact offers of discounts weeks later are not desirable to me.

I mentioned about the cell call back and CC only to expand beyond the QR codes being used as the OP message. This push for cell or app usage seems to be getting ridiculous.

You don't give them any info at all, you just look at a menu.

I live in the sticks, yes, QR codes are everywhere. My last retail job was in a town of 10k and I moved into a town of 2k which has grown over 20 years to 5k.

We still get menus handed to us in restaurants here. One reason is that our average annual income is 85% of the national average, and cell phones on plans aren't a guarantee. At $50 a month for a cheap plan, that's the budget for eating out once a month. So a lot of folks get pay as you go phones and limit their expensive use to essential services. Playing around on them to read the menu, no, please just hand one over.

And there is the assumption by eateries who do the QR code thing - "everyone" has a cell phone with unlimited data? No, not so much. What they are insinuating is that if you don't have the phone to do it, you simply aren't good enough to be a customer there. It's subtle class elitism.

I got a lot of that working auto parts, people DEMANDING I give them my number to send a pic for a part they needed. Goes to, didn't even know what it was, if it was the cause, and how to take it off if it was broken. No, I pay for my minutes. The company doesn't give me the phone or the air time. They resolved the issue by calling the manager - who discovered it was a "mechanic" in a shop. Really?

I suppose I could have sent him a pic of the QR code, that should answer all his questions, right?

QR codes are a way to stop interacting with customers and force them into ordering with an app, lower the business costs by firing all the front end workers, and make more profit. Nothing will "improve" using them. It's the "self checkout" Walmart style of cheap service.

I despise them on firearms. Colt has them on their revolvers and Remington has them on their shotguns and rifles.

QR codes do seem to be a way to cut costs. A worker at a local Best Buy said they recently fired 70% of the store staff and moved to a new model. If customers want help with anything, they need to scan a QR code, wait for a text, then go to the front of the store to meet the person that will help them.

quote:

Anyone who enters without using the app. will have their membership terminated.

Simple marketing and tracking, by having all the data on you in a file, and, knowing when you attend, or don't they can calculate the odds of you renewing, send offers all kinds of things without having to have people data entry or some other form of access permits such as a membership card.

Our Range has a locked gate that requires you to present your membership card to an optical reader so you can open the gate to enter or leave.

IIRC one of the superbowl ads was simply a QR code on the screen...

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Nope, they'll have to drag me, kicking and screaming. Don't hand me a tablet, don't ask me to scan anything.

Young folks don't see the dangers of big tech. They look at us like the old lady with coupons and a check book.

100% agree and I work in or on the OSI for a living. The younger gens are hell bent on living their entire live in the metaverse, I am not. Will be moving rural due to the overwhelming changes I'm seeing in society. It's just crazy. People want to live their lives entirely through their phones. Cool, you can count me out.

I use my phone's camera app to read the code. It shows me the decode value, I can then decide to go to the website or not.

quote:

Originally posted by the_sandman_454:

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
If a QR saves me having to manual type a URL I'd otherwise have to enter manually, I'm fine with it.

Of course the risk is you can't decipher the code yourself before you scan the code, so the code could direct you to malicious content instead of where you're lead to believe you'll be taken. It's easy to slap a malicious QR code sticker over a legitimate code, for example.

As these continue to become more prevalent, so will malicious codes being substituted for legitimate codes.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
I use my phone's camera app to read the code. It shows me the decode value, I can then decide to go to the website or not.

An app called i-Nigma is good for that. We use it a lot here. Seems it's only for Android, though.

- - - - - -

And speaking of QR codes... there's this from The Oatmeal:

Just got a copy of the Local Fish Wrapper and for the first time, there are QR codes all over it.

Obviously, they're coming on strong and represent the near future at the very least.