alt Hacker NewsAnyone else scan their random junk that has QR codes to see where it goes? I've found a fair number of stuff has codes that do nothing. Bought an extra garage door opener remote, qr code on it does nothing. Got some SwitchBot gear, qr codes do absolutely nothing.
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QR codes were invented for inventorying and labeling. Sending links to your phone is a side effect.
I work in hardware manufacturing. Our PCBs have QR codes both on the silkscreen and on stickers, but they don't encode websites. Rather, they are part numbers and serial/lot numbers for traceability and to assist manufacturing/inventory. Unless you know our (and our upstream manufacturers') specific patterns, they'll be irrelevant to you.
I used to in the mid 2000s but they kinda lost their magic for me at some point. They briefly regained the magic when I realized I could encode arbitrary text and make my own, but then I had so much trouble scanning the giant QR code I made (from printer paper) that the magic was gone again.
They likely encode not URLs for the public, but internal identifiers that are only useful internally.
>qr code on it does nothing
It's like in the 2000s when you opened an .exe and nothing seemed to happen ... bad news.
QR codes, like other barcodes, store information. They never "do" anything.
Or are you saying the ones you found failed to checksum?