Most services that convert a link to a QR code absolutely track their users. bit.ly (the URL shortening company) has a paid service to track where, when, and device IDs of who accessed the link whether it was through their shortened URL or the conveniently generated QR code that they can also make you.
Pretty much any webhosted service out there essentially needs to track ip's (unless they want to be ddos'd), so even the server thats serving the pdf can and will track you
They could even go the easy route and use something like bit.my to do it for them too
Yeah, but want I want to say with this: the restaurant gets nothing out of providing the menu only as a PDF. It's stupid, just give me the OPTION to use a paper card, even though I prefer the PDF
If you're on their WiFi, then they're just getting the restaurant's IP. If you're on mobile data, then they're getting your carrier IP, which is often inside layers of carrier-grade NAT. Either way, they don't get much besides knowing you're attached to a specific carrier.
Even then it usually goes through the device's browser and fingerprints as hard as some JavaScript virtually can, but I figured that was a bit long for the original post
(I mean shit your device probably tells google itself where its going, much less the connections on the other end)
edit: and of course this isn't just the restaurant collecting it cause why would they care, usually its a shady 3rd party that already has a massive profile on you they can cross-reference
While I think your opinion is vile, detestable, loathsome, abominable, and evil, I don't understand why you're being down voted.
Thank you for sharing your abhorrent, outrageous, and revolting opinion as it does contribute something meaningful to the discussion.
Same, but it was so busy that nobody at the table could load the menu; The restaurant’s tiny little closet server was essentially DDOS’ed. So the waiter had to verbally list the entire menu in the noisy restaurant.
Even worse, it was a restaurant where you order in rounds (Korean BBQ.) So every time the waiter came back to see what we wanted next, they had to list everything off again. By the third round, he just had a handwritten list he was handing to the table.
I love tech. But there are some things that just don’t need to be replaced by tech. And the fact that the restaurant didn’t even have any paper menus as a backup was jarring.
Meh. I didn't like it at first because it was unfamiliar, but I really don't see anything wrong with it, especially if you can order and pay directly from your phone instead of waiting for a server to show up.
if you can get a qr code on a current day phone that can auto install an app or tunnel, there are further issues at hand. the most a qr code might be able to do is redirect you to a website where it might try to prompt you to do something stupid with the phone.
I likely wont be fooled but i am not the target demographic to visit many bars or restaurants.
Soms people are easily fooled, shady people will exploit this.
Industries will also exploit this, if you’re on your phone anyway can easily serve you a form request for private information as well as picking up phone details trough their website already, over time i would not be surprised if the menu gets personalized in price and content to make sure they get the most they can.
See, Im going to speak in defence of the QR code in some places. If I go to a pub, staffed by interchangable 20 somethings who are simultaniously taking orders, wiping tables, pouring drinks, clearing tables... yeah I dont think those menus are getting wiped down all that often.
If its a restaraunt, or trying to be upmarket... yeah make menus.
1½. Install our app.
2½. Give us your email and link to your socials.
3½. Install our app.
3⅔. Install our app.
4½. Push notification? Push notifications.
5½. Install our app.
I love people’s absolute moral outrage about scanning a QR code. The same folks crying bc they have to ask for a plastic straws or wear a smal piece of cloth on their face in the grocery store.
Yeah, I get wanting to not reprint menus every time something changes, but there are ways to do that which are more convenient and accessible than "scan a QR code to go to a random website and pray you have working internet access and also the site is working and up to date." Y'know, like a damn menu board on the wall. Whiteboard/chalkboard even!
This is my personal preference, a place I used to go a lot had a black board across one whole wall and the menu was hand written on it. The menu changed frequently and it was often full of flourish and creativity from some employee.
If you're using these links as restaurant menus as opposed to ordering platforms (this is how I use them, and how this post & other commenters seem to be presenting the concept) that's kind of limited to a risk of straight up being phished in a situation where you don't really have any reason to hand over your information.
In a pub/bar setting it's helpful to know what's available at the bar before I'm standing at it, especially if I'm buying a round. That is to say it generally lowers the bar to menu availability, not raise it. Because before the pub/bar would simply have no table menu and you'd figure out what you wanted by asking or looking at the taps
There are clickless exploits and other methods that don't require you to enter information, nevermind that nearly all of these menus have ordering and payment available through them and mimicking websites is fairly simple.
QR codes cannot be trusted just like links from unknown sources cannot be trusted.
I think you'll find there isn't an Android or iPhone on the market today vulnerable to SQL injection or XSS etc via scanning a QR code. You're talking about device vulnerabilities that get patched and it's equally possible to encounter these exploits with plaintext URLs
My whole point is that the perfectly good extant solutions are equally flawed. QR codes don't create a situation where e.g mimicing a website is easier. It is already easy. It is not any more difficult to mimic a website with a fake domain name purposefully named in plaintext in a way to deceive.
Literally the only difference is you are looking at letters, which you are confident in your ability to parse, with a code which you are not. A URL being short and easy to type doesn't make it less likely to be malicious.
The key thing to remember is that yours, my, everyone's assessment of perceived risk is very incomplete. Your specific comfort with plaintext is itself a potential attack vector. So an approach to privacy/security where you simply avoid all possible circumstances with any perceived risk attached to them is a shitty approach. Engaging with an acceptable risk level is the only way to teach yourself vigilance.
People recently started seeing QR codes everywhere and feel confronted by this new reality, that's natural. But the truth is that this is fear of QR codes is irrational where it is not reconciled with the perceived risk of generally using the internet and following links. There might be a difference in the physical characteristics of the link format, but in terms of computer security the difference doesn't matter.
Just because some commenters here remember seeing a CVE in 2016, or read about QRgen one time, doesn't mean QR code protocol is inherently vulnerable. It is in fact quite ridiculous to suggest that would be the case and all the manufacturers would continue to support it.
If we only focus on the security part, how the do you know it's even their site you're visiting? Often those qr codes are just stickers on table, trivial to slap a new one there
But it also adds a lot of annoyance for customers who came to eat food, not doomscroll on their fucking mobile phone
If the restaurant doesn't have a good enough reputation that I couldn't trust the QR they provided (which displays the URL so I can inspect it before launching the web browser), I also wouldn't want to trust my health to eating there.
It isn't like some random thing you found on the sidewalk.
I'm pretty sure these are just an echo of the same concerns people put forward when URLs first started being included in signage, due to general privacy/security concerns with the internet. Somehow we got through it!
The QR code would be so big you may as well just print a full menu instead. Here, for example, is a QR code containing the first two paragraphs of the US Declaration of Independence:
I dislike qr menus mostly cuz their websites suck and I often don't carry a phone.
Edit: Let me just add that as a coder my dream is to one day be hired for a really expensive and complex project and to give them a solution that only uses paper.
Paper menus are just full color e ink large foldable ipads that don't weight a thing and are cheap, and have a super accessible interface.
I've used exactly one QR coded menu that didn't suck. Every other one was some manner of infuriating, top method being "every item takes up 75%+ of your phone's screen and is all arranged vertically so it's impossible to compare two items without scrolling through 3-40 screens worth".
That last bit is the most annoying part. I can't stand not being able to quickly skim and compare and since most restaurants have too many items on their menu at it is I find it especially annoying.
I wear masks, carry stainless steel straws so I don't have to use paper ones. You want me to eat at your establishment more than once, don't make me use my phone at meal time.
Just been in a restaurant in France that thought a tablet would be a good idea for a menu. Fucking dimwits hadn't switched off the screen sleep though, and you had to tap it to wake it every thirty seconds
Plus it was an iPad, which only pensioners use, it was fucking awful
That sounds like an entirely unpleasant experience.
Reading your post inspired me to write a wryly informative yet droll linguistic comment for your edification and enjoyment (and my own entertainment). However my comment may strike you, in any case, I am certain it is entirely unrelated to the miserable experience you describe in your comment, as well as the content of the original post. Ready? Ok.
At face value, the message is entirely clear from what you've written. The restaurant owners required you to use a tablet to browse the menu items they have on offer, and that tablet had a particularly poor user experience.
However, I found your last sentence quite ambiguous, and interestingly so:
...it was an iPad which only pensioners use,...
I see at least three interpretations of this sentence fragment:
iPads, as a category in general, are devices used by pensioners and no one else. (Note: my guess is that this is what you actually meant)
This particular iPad had specific features that indicated all preceding users were pensioners. You don't mention any of these features, but perhaps there were fingerprints of denture glue on the screen, or a distinct odor of moth balls.
The particular iPad was restricted for use by pensioners only and no others, in which case you've broken the law and the Police Nationale are on their way. The laws are strict in France, I don't make the rules.
Okay, yes yes, readings 2 and 3 are hyperbolic; however, this was intentional, partially for the lolz, but also to convey a sense of saliency for the respective interpretations.
The internet comment section is such an interesting treasure trove of human language. See, in typical language use (by typical, I specifically mean how language evolved, as humans in the bush, making sounds at each other around a fire), there are a multitude of cues that go beyond the simple string of words, collectively referred to as "pragmatics." These are nonverbal cues like body language and facial expression, but also verbal cues like prosody, intonation, and stress. There are also "discourse" level aspects, like how we can follow the overall point of a speaker. (As an example of discourse, I told you up front that my comment would be somewhat amusing and educational, and hopefully I have delivered that to you - if I haven't, well it's still the discourse level pragmatics that underlie your feeling of annoyance or disappointment.)
Another pragmatic element is shared knowledge. Off the bat, we both have some fluency in English, but pragmatically (ha, see what I did there?), that's a given, but it goes further than that. Friends and family have a history of shared experiences. On the Internet, well we're both Lemmings, so we likely have an aptitude for technology, as well as other niche hobbies or interests. Shared knowledge is more or less anything that one speaker can assume about another on the basis of experience or overt group membership.
This is what is so interesting about Internet comments though - the pragmatics of language are often missing! This sentence might have been 100% clear if we had more shared knowledge. Perhaps all that was needed was hearing you say it, which would have carried prosody and stress.
Sounds about right for French cuisine. Yes, I said it - French cuisine ain't that great, it's just buttery.
"Reasonable, but not exceptional, and ridiculously overpriced..." Could be an apt descriptor for the iPad too!
It's a bummer that they kind of dominate the tablet space though... I want a tablet, but have been avoiding pulling the trigger because iPads are designed for the sticky fingered folk.
I dunno, France is one of the rare places where it's difficult to find a bad restaurant; they just wouldn't survive as food is so ingrained in the culture.
The problem was, I was in a ski resort; the menus are designed by culinary geniuses but cooked by bored season workers who are only interested in their next red piste or their next chalet girl's vag
Re tablets, was surprised by the S8 I got for my wife; it's an absolutely cracking piece of kit that's as good as any Crapple offering without being tied to a walled garden
Fair enough. Ski resorts in the US mostly only offer burgers and fries, so the seasonal worker attitude is more understandable. Leave it to the French through to try to put a fine dining experience atop a ski slope.
Will check out the Samsungs, thanks for the recommendation. Cheers, good chatting with you :)
The Kelly cartoons are done by a progressive pretending to be a conservative. The Onion often gets hate letters from progressives who think it's genuinely conservative, and more glowing letters from conservatives who think the same.
