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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

#191

Post by Arbalest »

tialaramex wrote: post #188
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qr code readers show you the url, you have push a button to navigate to it. So it's no different than having it copied manually. Not that it matters much for most users, as I said earlier, they blindly type url. They have no idea what it is. You could put a warning saying "are you sure, this is going to kill your mother and steal all your money" and people would click on it if it's easy to do.

Microsoft did that research. Well, they didn't propose to kill anybody's mother but the test participants used their real bank credentials and Microsoft tested different behaviours in IE to see what would deter users from giving these credentials to a bogus site having accepted a task to log in and perform some basic operation. Nothing. Nothing deterred the users. Warning dialogs were clicked past, obvious problems o…

This sounds like something which should be continuously tested, as a litmus test as to how careful people are. I don't suppose you have a link or pointed search terms for this instance?

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

#192

Post by TheGallopedHigh »

inetknght wrote: post #158
ctdonath wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you never click URLs in emails? Of course you do, when you're confident the sender is reputable. Parent was referencing trusted contexts: the default password printed on your wifi router, the bill a cashier just handed you for what you just bought, the legal papers you just signed, etc. The QR code just links the trusted document with trustworthy digital versions & extended content. I'm not worried a spammer is go…

> Do you never click URLs in emails? Of course you do, when you're confident the sender is reputable. Nope. I go to the sender's URL manually and look for what it is they sent an email about.

You’re the exception that proves the rule

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

#193

Post by ShorsHammer »

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…

> Unfortunately most users have no idea what it is.

In the west, yes, it's absolutely prolific in Asia though. Even the most technologically illiterate people over there know and use qr codes all the time. A huge divide.

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

#194

Post by MrStonedOne »

jlgaddis wrote: post #168
MrStonedOne wrote: post #110

If you are going to write an article about this on a website with geek in the domain name, and post it to hacker news, you are going to have to get more technical than that. Explaining the "WIFI:T:WPA" bit would have been nice to see. At the bare minimum a link to an article that explains it would be necessary to meet the bar. In the current state this article is a users level how to document, and fails to met the ba…

If you are going to comment on threads on a website, how do you know where the "bar" is? By reading the "Guidelines" [0], of course! In fact, the very first item on that page is titled "What to Submit" and explains exactly where that bar is: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything…

Your comment breaks hacker news guidelines.

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

#195

Post by toxik »

pmccarren wrote: post #153
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…

FWIW, I know iOS's camera natively detects QR codes, and I believe Android does as well. In my opinion, the ability to use the native camera app to read a QR code significantly reduces the barriers-to-read for general users

Absolutely game changing for the technology! And very convenient too

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

#196

Post by sp332 »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #152
Spare_account wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison, my phone shows me the URL that the QR code decoded to, and prompts me to confirm that I want to browse to it

Remember bitly, AMP, CDNs? Also, as to something like a javascript exploit in a URL itself, QRs can hold a surprising amount of data, enough to max out most URL browser limits around 2,048 bytes.

At least bitly lets you look before you keep. Add a + to the end of any bitly URL to see where it goes, when it was created, and how many peole clicked it.

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

#197

Post by jeremyvisser »

kohtatsu wrote: post #135
ctdonath wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you never click URLs in emails? Of course you do, when you're confident the sender is reputable. Parent was referencing trusted contexts: the default password printed on your wifi router, the bill a cashier just handed you for what you just bought, the legal papers you just signed, etc. The QR code just links the trusted document with trustworthy digital versions & extended content. I'm not worried a spammer is go…

I can't imagine a qr code on a receipt being anything but tracker-infested spam.

Can confirm.

I was visiting a nature reserve where the trail opened to a resting area with some seats. A tree had a woodcut QR code on it, so I thought I'd scan it to find out more about the area.

Turns out, the QR code linked to some tracking site with a short URL. Even worse, the short URL had since been deleted, so I have no way to know the original URL it went to.

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

#198

Post by wlesieutre »

sirsuki wrote: post #107

I do this in our house and it works great. I discovered one flaw though. When I say scan the QRCode I am immediately told “i don’t knows how” Or asked “the what?” Or disapproved of with “I hate those things.” Fun fact no one has ever actually scanned the code... ever! Maybe if I was a cafe but not for house guests.

Instead of "scan" have you tried telling people to point their phone's camera at it?

"Scan" sounds to them like some separate action that they would need to know how to do. But at least on iOS all it takes is opening the camera and pointing it at the code - you get a pop up notification asking you to join the network.

I bet people know how to point the camera at something even if they don't think they know how to scan it.

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

#199

Post by tzs »

michaelt wrote: post #123
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The largest QR code in the standard, "version 40" - can only store 3 kilobytes at the lowest level of error correction and 1.2 kilobytes at the highest level [1]. And that's a pretty huge QR code [2] My back-of-the-envelope calculations say you'd need 61 bits per line on a receipt just to encode UPC, quantity and price. So the largest QR code would only allow 19-50 lines. And that's without including data like the st…

1.2 kilobytes = 9.6 kilobits. If you need 61 bits per line, you’ve got enough bits for 157 lines. 393 lines if we go with 3 kilobytes. I think you may have used 61 bytes per line in your calculation rather than 61 bits.

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

#200

Post by tzs »

gruez wrote: post #119
kokada wrote: post #60

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.

Also, there's no need for 63 character passwords. You can get ~128 bits of entropy with around 22 alphanumeric characters.

On some devices it may be easier to enter a long password from a restricted character set than to enter a shorter password from a richer set.

For example, I've seen TVs that allow using a numeric keypad on the remote for entering digits in text and password fields, and require use of a clumsy on-screen keyboard for entering letters or punctuation. The on-screen keyboard is navigated with the up/down/left/right/ENTER buttons on the remote, and might have multiple shift states for case and punctuation requiring navigating to and pressing a shift key whenever the password has adjacent characters that need different shift states.

On such a TV, I'd rather enter a 39 character all numeric password than a 22 character alphanumeric password. Entering 39 characters on a hardware numeric keypad is way faster and way less error prone.

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