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devyyesterday at 9:34 PM4 repliesview on HN

I can't believe promoting the QR code-based challenge as the agentic way of fraud defense. Having non-human readable data input is dangerous if somehow the QR code is comprised with a zero-day URL, it's game-over.

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.


Replies

xp84yesterday at 10:30 PM

But a QR is a URL. If visiting a certain URL pwns your device, complain to whoever made the device or browser.

Not that I like this thing at all. But using a QR isn’t exactly why it sucks.

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a2128today at 12:58 AM

2020s will be remembered as the decade when companies stopped behaving in a trustworthy way, and normalized scanning random QR codes, downloading random apps, uploading photos of your face or documents, all as strange convoluted "verification" procedures. Scammers will love this

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classifiedtoday at 7:30 AM

Unregulated greed doesn't care if every user gets robbed and their identity stolen.

shit_gameyesterday at 11:49 PM

Whats to stop malicious actors (bad extensions, compromised cdn, etc.) from painting over the qr code or injecting their own? This is so incredibly terrible.

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