Hacker News Reader

I used to see these types of things, all the time, on the Long Island Railroad.

The trains have these big posters, which are ads. They rotate, like, once a month, or so.

Most of these ads have QR codes, to their sites.

I often see that the QR code is a sticker, which means a scammer placed it over the real one.

Moreover, why should there have to be a real one? A QR sticker that's placed reasonably neatly could blend in practically anywhere, now that people expect to see them.

I've thought of QR-encoding the URL to the Rick Roll video and "pranking" people trying to scan ads.

Here come the righteous downvotes; to defend myself, I never went through with it, and they were ads to promote the city's iniative to invite the corrupt organization the International Olympic Committee so they could feast on our tax money.

I think this would be a great way to educate the public about not trusting a QR code they find in public, without first double-checking it. Better than learning the hard way.

A couple of years ago, I was bored at REI while waiting for something and decided to actually scan the NFC on the packaging of some sealskinz gloves. To my surprise, the NFC tag was still writable.

So, if you bought gloves at an REI in Bellevue Washington, and got rickrolled by the NFC packaging, that was me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com