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Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

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Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#51

Post by BiteCode_dev »

matt-attack wrote: post #47
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

Most ISP put this kind of QR code on the provided "modem" in France with the default Wifi password of the device. I love QR code. I think it should be everywhere. All legal documents and forms should have one. All supermarket bills should have one. It's a fantastic way to transition from paper to bits. Unfortunately most users have no idea what it is. They don't know what a URL is, so a QR code is out of the question…

Are you not concerned that QR code’s are just completely opaque URLs asking to be clicked? Do you confidently click on URLs in spam emails? Of course not since we all know URLs can point to malicious payloads. So why should we love QR code’s that could just as easily do the same. If I’m a spammer trying to get people to click on my bogus links in my email messages, why wouldn’t I also print those same URLs as QR code…

No more than regular url written in a paper. People write them blindly anyway, they don't know what it means nor how to read it.

But QR code are not just for URL, they can contain up to 7k, which is a lot for text and numbers. And you can have several of them, use compression, etc.

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#52

Post by james_s_tayler »

speleding wrote: post #46

Instead of installing a package to generate a QR code, you can simply use this free Google service: https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=120x120&cht=qr&chl=WI... ;; Remember to URL encode the SSID en PASSWORD if you have any characters that can't go into a URL. (Also, you have to trust Google to not store that URL anywhere)

>you have to trust Google to not store that URL anywhere

You also have to trust Google to still be operating the service by the time you come to use it.

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#53

Post by BiteCode_dev »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #48
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

Most ISP put this kind of QR code on the provided "modem" in France with the default Wifi password of the device. I love QR code. I think it should be everywhere. All legal documents and forms should have one. All supermarket bills should have one. It's a fantastic way to transition from paper to bits. Unfortunately most users have no idea what it is. They don't know what a URL is, so a QR code is out of the question…

They can’t be used to encode very much data though. They wouldn’t be suitable for storing documents, but could be used to store the location of a document. I was trying to be clever once and thought I could encode X.509 certificates in QR codes. Even that much data was pushing the hard limits of what they can store, and became very hard to scan (I quickly realised this wasn’t actually very clever).

7kb for a supermarket bill is plenty, and you can have several of them.

Forms and legal documents should all have an immutable official url and uuid anyway to point to their legal and administrative context.

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#54

Post by hamhand »

tialaramex wrote: post #43
hamhand wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guest network with no password is the way, some firmware allow you to turn the reset button into this function's switch.

Before WPA3 a network with no password offers less security than a network for which everybody knows the password. In WPA3 finally the no password ("guest") case has randomly chosen keys using RFC 8110 instead of being unencrypted, so it's equivalent security to everybody knowing the password. I agree no password is the best outcome, and WPA3 makes that finally no more dangerous than it needs to be.

I mean turn if off once guests are gone, yes it's not safe as everything on the network can be sniffed by your nosy neighbors, you can quanrentine this guest network from your ethernet to make it less revealing. It's meant to be a one-off thing to avoid hassle. Good to know they have that in WPA3.

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#55

Post by AmericanChopper »

elcritch wrote: post #50
AmericanChopper wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can’t be used to encode very much data though. They wouldn’t be suitable for storing documents, but could be used to store the location of a document. I was trying to be clever once and thought I could encode X.509 certificates in QR codes. Even that much data was pushing the hard limits of what they can store, and became very hard to scan (I quickly realised this wasn’t actually very clever).

Can X.509 ceros use elliptic curve? They’d be much smaller.

Even without the key they start to look pretty dense. You can definitely fit one in a QR code, they just start to become less reliable to scan (especially on cheap devices), and they go from looking nice to looking quite ugly. Technically most X.509 certs would have been within the limitations of QR codes (though I don’t think there is an upper bound to how large they can get), but I realized it just wasn’t fit for purpose and moved on to something else.

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#56

Post by nemetroid »

speleding wrote: post #46

Instead of installing a package to generate a QR code, you can simply use this free Google service: https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=120x120&cht=qr&chl=WI... ;; Remember to URL encode the SSID en PASSWORD if you have any characters that can't go into a URL. (Also, you have to trust Google to not store that URL anywhere)

Instead of using a Google service to generate a QR code and hope they don’t store that URL anywhere, you can simply install a package.

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#57

Post by dnpp123 »

matt-attack wrote: post #47
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

Most ISP put this kind of QR code on the provided "modem" in France with the default Wifi password of the device. I love QR code. I think it should be everywhere. All legal documents and forms should have one. All supermarket bills should have one. It's a fantastic way to transition from paper to bits. Unfortunately most users have no idea what it is. They don't know what a URL is, so a QR code is out of the question…

Are you not concerned that QR code’s are just completely opaque URLs asking to be clicked? Do you confidently click on URLs in spam emails? Of course not since we all know URLs can point to malicious payloads. So why should we love QR code’s that could just as easily do the same. If I’m a spammer trying to get people to click on my bogus links in my email messages, why wouldn’t I also print those same URLs as QR code…

Use bit.ly it's quicker ;)

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#58

Post by nabla9 »

speleding wrote: post #46

Instead of installing a package to generate a QR code, you can simply use this free Google service: https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=120x120&cht=qr&chl=WI... ;; Remember to URL encode the SSID en PASSWORD if you have any characters that can't go into a URL. (Also, you have to trust Google to not store that URL anywhere)

pure JS WiFi QR Code Generator

https://qifi.org/

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#59

Post by input_sh »

nemetroid wrote: post #56
speleding wrote: post #46

Instead of installing a package to generate a QR code, you can simply use this free Google service: https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=120x120&cht=qr&chl=WI... ;; Remember to URL encode the SSID en PASSWORD if you have any characters that can't go into a URL. (Also, you have to trust Google to not store that URL anywhere)

Instead of using a Google service to generate a QR code and hope they don’t store that URL anywhere, you can simply install a package.

I'd trust a Debian package over Google's service any day.

Re: Encoding your WiFi access point password into a QR code

#60

Post by kokada »

This is interesting, however my main problem with really long Wi-Fi password are devices that have bad ways to input text. Things like media box using a remote controller or a video game console using it's controller.

WPS was born to fix this, however the specification is so broken that it is literally useless from a secure standpoint.

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