I see people clicking on QR codes all over the place, willy nilly.

Is this tantamount to eating at a buffet while blindfolded without taste buds?
Or
Shooting at targets with out seeing the back stop and what's behind the target?

80% of these codes don't list why you should click on it or what it contains.

What if there were a dedicated separate device specifically for the purposes of reading the QR code and detailing exactly what it contains and it's abilities, once entered in to your computer or hand held device.

That's all it does.

Almost all the QR codes I see are simply encoded URIs that point to websites. What happens when you load the site has nothing to do with the QR code itself, nor do I think that devices are configured to execute code that could be embedded in a QR code. But, yeah, I could see the value in a preview capability. Conceptually, there is no difference between a QR code and any othe barcode, it just allows a higher information density in a given space.

The Android app "Barcode Scanner" published by ZXing allows one to view the content of a QR code without actually following the reference. There are many similarly-named apps that just automatically pass the link to a browser or other hopefully-relevant app, some of them may have preview too. I'd be surprised to learn that something similar is not available for iOS.

I doubt a tool would be useful because the idiots who just willy nilly scan them will still do that.

There's no reason to scan one unless you have a purpose. Restaurant menus come to mind, or public transportation maps. Those QR are posted where a person would be interested.

I never scan one that there is no reason for.

If they (bad actors) can embed malware in a charging cable, why not a QR code?

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
If they (bad actors) can embed malware in a charging cable, why not a QR code?

Little bit of a difference between a QR code & something that can contain a microcontroller with megabits of storage.

Unless your reader app can execute machine code or some interpreted programming language, whatever is in the QR code is harmless. It would have to be some damn small code, I don't remember the total, but the max size of most QR codes is in the low-hundreds of characters. Think text message. It's also pretty easy to see what is actually IN the QR code.

The bigger risk is malware injected into a website. How secure do you think a restaurant keeps it's menu webpage?

The QR code (and Data Matrix) reading apps I've used have had a "text preview" of the link it wants to direct you to, and a button to touch before actually loading the page at that address.