Note: I know QR code is ubiquitous these days, but still blinding scanning a QR code to go to accessing an URL is like running a binary downloaded from the internet.
Note2: yes, the `curl $URL | bash` installation approach is essentially just that, yet somehow became popular.
Not that I like this thing at all. But using a QR isn’t exactly why it sucks.
https://rt434.mjt.lu/lnk/GN2PVLyAIiUHuMqkGcjHkjkcRBtF/zJfB7p...
Oh wait, never mind. I guess I won't be signing up for electricity, then?
Also, the vast majority of people don't know that google.com and loginto-google.com aren't the same website, or that google.com.securesigning.net isn't real Google.
If your device gets busted by opening a URL, without any further confirmation or user interaction, your browser/camera app/third party app is broken.
You ~~will~~ should be picking up your phone and calling the electrical company to confirm and to tell them their links are nonsense. Couldn't bother with AI agent on phone, or 60 min waiting queue to a human? Fuck it, don't pay the bill, figure it out later.
You certainly could operate on policies like this, but I think most people prefer to spend their time differently instead of arguing with strangers who don't have any way to solve your problem.
The problem isn't paying the bills (I can't recall the last time I ever needed to do that manually), the problem is that pretty much every service uses trackers and shorteners. The only way to opt out is to opt out of society.
Maybe I should, but this "read the link before you click" advice isn't just geared towards hardcore privacy advocates. It hasn't worked in ages. It also doesn't help that companies like Outlook rewrite links to make them redirect through their malware scanners as well.
The point of the confirmation is 10% account creation and 90% confirming that the user knows their own email address and can type it in correctly. That's actually more challenging to the wider audience than you might think.
As a side note though, I recently have tried to turn CSP on a website I run and the amount of garbage I see in the reports is astonishing. There's some noise from things like OpenDNS intercepting YouTube or Social embeds for people using the work-friendly or family-friendly options, but the sheer amount of things attempting to phone home to random URLs and random extension scripts injecting ads into the site would astonish you. My mental model of "toolbar hell" from the Windows XP days being gone has completely shattered.