Episode 37: The Quickest Response (00:52:12)
Scanning… Scanning… oops too slow! You know what would have been faster? A QR Code! Quick response codes are all the rage these days- they’re showing up in magazines, on ads, billboards, even on TV (and wedding invitations). Are they just a passing fad, or are they a revolution in the way that we pass data to each other in a physical medium? Today we discuss it!
Certainly it has been the explosion in the smart phone market that has made QR Codes a staple of daily life, without smart phones, they would just be a pretty two dimensional matrix of black squares on a white background. But now, we all have access to the internet in our pockets, and we don’t want to type stuff into our phones to get there- so why not just point your camera at what you want to see and have it show up in your phone? Easy! These things are very big in Japan and Korea, and are popping up everywhere in the U.S. — perhaps it’s not a fad after all!
Now even boarding passes can be downloaded as a QR Code- and you can check-in via your phone, speeding you through the airport and security. But QR codes aren’t the purview of big companies who can hire graphics artists and computer scientists to construct these codes- free software, easily available on the web will get you generating your own QR codes at will (or at Will). Check out the links below for more.
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3 comments
Devi says:
June 25, 2011 at 9:06 am (UTC -4)
When scanning a qr code off your phone, say at an airport to have your boarding pass scanned, is it possible for other personal data to be pulled from your phone? In other words, are there privacy concerns for having your phone scanned willy nilly? Are there virus qr codes out there that can do bad things to your phone if scanned?
Will says:
June 25, 2011 at 10:40 am (UTC -4)
Even though Ben’s the expert, I’m going to try to chime in!
Having your phone scanned presents very little security risk. QR codes are designed to be one way. Someone scans them, then extracts the information. So displaying a boarding pass wouldn’t allow the scanner to attack your phone in any way.
Now, scanning a QR code with your phone presents something different. A QR code might have a malicious URL in it that brings you to a malware site. This is especially risky because there’s no way to know what URL you’re scanning before it’s scanned. Of course if it’s a bit.ly link, then even knowing it before scanning wouldn’t help!
Here’s a little link on the subject.
Ben says:
June 25, 2011 at 8:24 pm (UTC -4)
What a great question!
Will is right- the scan is fairly risk free, those QR codes are pass through, meaning you get them from the airline, and do not do anything to them until the scanner scans them. Those QR codes do carry your boarding pass information, so if someone scanned it they could get that information, but the same thing can happen if you lose your paper boarding pass (and probably easier).
Android phones and iPhones do have a middle layer that prevents you from just automatically following links, but that isn’t helpful if you don’t recognize the link, however, they also ask before downloads, so that woud also stop things.
All in all, QR codes by themselves do not inject any new risk to mobile platforms, no more than browsers on phones do.