Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Guest WiFi using a QR code

blog.jgc.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 284 posts

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#71

Post by jimmaswell »

dotBen wrote: post #67

Sure a QR code is cool, but it's pointless for getting laptops onto a network and for the most part isn't that the main usecase for needing to get onto someone's 3rd party wifi (eg at an office, airBnB, etc?). My phone has existing connectivity most of the time and it's rare that I need to connect it to wifi. Or that wifi would be preferable over my own 5G (or LTE) data connection. Not hating, this is neat, but it se…

I find service often poor inside buildings even with a new phone and using Verizon towers, so I always connect to WiFi if it's present.

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#72

Post by koins »

jgrahamc wrote: post #23
koins wrote: post #20

Bit of a self-plug I know, but this reminds me of something I had made a while back ( https://github.com/kmanc/wifi_qr ). Nice work! Always fun to see others' take on neat projects

Amazing. I literally did this and then decided it was overkill. Almost with the same hardware!

Lol that's awesome

EDIT - I had an idea that I'm currently working through that I like but am a little stuck so taking a break before I revisit. TLDR is to use an ATTINY85 to auto-"type" the password in for folks who bring a laptop and can't scan the QR code. I wrote the Python code to generate the .ino script that would actually do the writing, but I'm having a little bit of trouble getting micronucleus to write the script to the ATTINY without an un/re plug. You can see the WIP on my digispark branch in that repo

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#73

Post by usr1106 »

Fnoord wrote: post #62

I tell guests its a long, complex password (it is, and it is on a separate VLAN where all my IoT resides, too). I then ask them to hand over their device so I can enter the password. There's a trust thing going on there, but this is deliberate as the trust goes both ways (my internet connection). If they don't trust me to fill in my password on their device (they may of course watch me do it), I wouldn't want them on…

Using WiFi hotspots is very much history in Finland. Nearly everyone has unlimited 4G at least and most populated places have coverage.

Using a laptop in a café might still be a use case if you don't want to run your phone hot and drain the battery.

We enjoy the cheapest data rates in Europe and certainly cheaper than in the US. Which is kind of weird because in general price level is everything else but low.

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#74

Post by noobermin »

I am freaking tired of QR codes. I recently moved to another country (SG) and QR codes are literally used for almost everything now, essentially requiring a phone (and good lighting and a clean camera) to do almost anything. At least once a week I have to idle around waiting for a link to load in order to pay a vendor because scanning a qr-code under a glossy plastic standee is taking too long to read.

I love how developers are all so lovingly inconsistent. On one hand they swear up and down that binary formats are shite and now human-readable formats are the new thing (or at least that was the story a few years back with various markup languages and json) but now, for those stupid fucking idiot users opaque formats that require a functioning camera line of sight clear to a piece of paper are now IN. Minimized urls are too passe, I suppose?

And it's great too, because scammers and hackers are now dropping QR codes on the ground or leaflets, or placing stickers on the QR codes that dot the landscape (like on public info posters or ads put up in HDBs) so poor folks who have learned that the QR code is how you do things now just load up the QR codes without asking. Again, opaque formats are NOT good for many reasons, ease of hacking/social engineering is one reason obvious reason! Of course you can put a sticker on poster on a url but it's easy to recognize the difference between mysite.com/about and something else vs qr code 1 and qr code 2.

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#75

Post by volume »

eimrine wrote: post #70

This weekend I went to my dacha neighbor to ask a wifi password. All I had is a laptop with half-tuned Debian (do not use no smartphones). He gave me that QR and I could not read it because QR is not text. He is not a technician and I did not want to persist in my ask, so the situation ended up with no internets for me :( Please stop using human-unreadable protocols if opposite is possible.

> Please stop using human-unreadable protocols if opposite is possible

how about use both

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#76

Post by usr1106 »

eimrine wrote: post #70

This weekend I went to my dacha neighbor to ask a wifi password. All I had is a laptop with half-tuned Debian (do not use no smartphones). He gave me that QR and I could not read it because QR is not text. He is not a technician and I did not want to persist in my ask, so the situation ended up with no internets for me :( Please stop using human-unreadable protocols if opposite is possible.

Of course using Debian you can decode that QR (don't remember how from the top of my head, but I remember decoding my EU COVID-19 certificate. Well, unless you don't even have a digital camera with some data path to your Debian.

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#77

Post by sokoloff »

koins wrote: post #72
jgrahamc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing. I literally did this and then decided it was overkill. Almost with the same hardware!

Lol that's awesome EDIT - I had an idea that I'm currently working through that I like but am a little stuck so taking a break before I revisit. TLDR is to use an ATTINY85 to auto-"type" the password in for folks who bring a laptop and can't scan the QR code. I wrote the Python code to generate the .ino script that would actually do the writing, but I'm having a little bit of trouble getting micronucleus to write the…

Wouldn’t it be easier/maybe more practical to print the password to the e-ink screen as well?

(QR code error correction is usually enough to let you just knock out part of it and put the text right there.)

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#78

Post by cowtools »

noobermin wrote: post #74

I am freaking tired of QR codes. I recently moved to another country (SG) and QR codes are literally used for almost everything now, essentially requiring a phone (and good lighting and a clean camera) to do almost anything. At least once a week I have to idle around waiting for a link to load in order to pay a vendor because scanning a qr-code under a glossy plastic standee is taking too long to read. I love how dev…

What if instead of QR, it was a special human-readable text format that was optimized for image recognition? Like a special font or something.

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#79

Post by samstave »

noobermin wrote: post #74

I am freaking tired of QR codes. I recently moved to another country (SG) and QR codes are literally used for almost everything now, essentially requiring a phone (and good lighting and a clean camera) to do almost anything. At least once a week I have to idle around waiting for a link to load in order to pay a vendor because scanning a qr-code under a glossy plastic standee is taking too long to read. I love how dev…

QR codes should be REVERSED.

ALL vendors should be required to have a camera. I have an app that produces a unique QR code for each transaction.

The VENDOR scans MY QR code and REQUESTS for my to PAY them, showing me my receipt for auth on my device.

The only VENDOR QR-read codes should only be for information about the product, menu etc.

-

I used QR codes on product descriptions that led to the product page and lab testing results for said product onto which the physical size of the product was not large enough for pertinent information -- this was for cannabis product company for which I did some contracting labeling...

The upside of this, is that it ran through bitly and I was able to also, included with the QR scan, the geo-loc of the product scan which allowed me to map out the interest of various products based on the scan and location...

QR codes are FANTASTIC, but implemented so poorly...

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#80

Post by itake »

cowtools wrote: post #78
noobermin wrote: post #74

I am freaking tired of QR codes. I recently moved to another country (SG) and QR codes are literally used for almost everything now, essentially requiring a phone (and good lighting and a clean camera) to do almost anything. At least once a week I have to idle around waiting for a link to load in order to pay a vendor because scanning a qr-code under a glossy plastic standee is taking too long to read. I love how dev…

What if instead of QR, it was a special human-readable text format that was optimized for image recognition? Like a special font or something.

I suspect that the cameras on low-end phones would struggle with OCR text in suboptimal conditions (low-light or damaged text).

QR codes have redundancy, which makes them resilient in a variety of conditions that plaintext isn't.

Also, you can 'hide' ugly tracking urls in QR codes (e.g. a short-link that lets you count number of scans or update the redirect location).

Post reply on HN