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What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

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Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#41

Post by mikro2nd »

PUSH_AX wrote: post #37
rapnie wrote: post #13

> Is this what the peak ordering experience looks like? Call me old-fashioned, but to me the peak experience is a paper menu to choose from, and a waiter that patiently takes the order. Far prefer that to everyone at the table fiddling on their phones in some weird-ass website or even god forbid custom app.

I’m not sure if this could be considered “peak”. The ratio of waiting staff to customers is an obvious bottleneck. This inefficiency is simply accepted and not even really thought about, it’s just the way things are. But one thing I can say for this tech is it fixed it and the difference is noticeable.

In most restaurants the kitchen remains the bottleneck. Tech has not fixed that.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#42

Post by yuye »

laeri wrote: post #2

I am confused, they didn't contact the company at all and just disclose this publicly? Very immature handling of a vulnerability finding.

And to add that he tried out the exploit on unknowing participants. It would be better to try this with a friend in-the-know at a separate table. It makes me think he did it more as a practical joke than testing his exploit, especially because he mentioned they were "not-too-intimidating-looking guys".

I'll admit it is a bit funny and the damage caused is tiny(just the price of the food). However, things like this do harm the reputation of bug-bounty hunters.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#43

Post by Dalewyn »

PUSH_AX wrote: post #37
rapnie wrote: post #13

> Is this what the peak ordering experience looks like? Call me old-fashioned, but to me the peak experience is a paper menu to choose from, and a waiter that patiently takes the order. Far prefer that to everyone at the table fiddling on their phones in some weird-ass website or even god forbid custom app.

I’m not sure if this could be considered “peak”. The ratio of waiting staff to customers is an obvious bottleneck. This inefficiency is simply accepted and not even really thought about, it’s just the way things are. But one thing I can say for this tech is it fixed it and the difference is noticeable.

Much like how widening the I-405 does not improve Los Angeles's legendary traffic jams, slabnus do not improve the bottleneck.

Namely, restaurants who move to slabnus simply get rid of the waiters who would have taken the order. You're left with even fewer waiters serving food and drinks, let alone taking orders.

The coup de grace is I don't even get a discount for the degraded service.

Note: Slabnu because I'm pecking at a slab of silicon instead of a proper menu.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#44

Post by captn3m0 »

tomw1808 wrote: post #15

Next up: "How I became a millionaire by consulting restaurants on Menu items and targeted Text Message Ads" ... Seriously, its a PII leak and it should be reported. And since you said Google is an investor someone (theoretically) should care.

I looked around to find a security contact at DotPe, and couldn’t find anything. Hopefully, this HN post raises enough alarms.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#45

Post by consp »

digitalengineer wrote: post #38
PUSH_AX wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if this could be considered “peak”. The ratio of waiting staff to customers is an obvious bottleneck. This inefficiency is simply accepted and not even really thought about, it’s just the way things are. But one thing I can say for this tech is it fixed it and the difference is noticeable.

inefficiency? It's part of the experience. I'm not in a restaurant or café to drink as fast as possible. I'm there to socialize as well. Waiting a bit is not a bottleneck, but a feature. (If I wanted speed, I'd take the drive-through).

Might be nice to have but its also expensive in a low margin business. Maybe waiters get paid like crap enough for it to not matter in the US but other parts of the world have labour laws to abide to making it the biggest expenditure (and thus the one to save on by cutting out staff and replacing it with an app)

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#46

Post by Tepix »

rococode wrote: post #32

Not to be a party pooper, but posting detailed financial analysis of the exact sales data of a multi-million dollar business using numbers obtained through an obviously overlooked backdoor seems like a very bad idea. Haven't people have gone to jail for less? (iirc "but it was an insecure API" has not held up in court in the past) On a more positive note, I've used a QR menu recently and it really is a game changer.…

> Looking forward to seeing it more often

Not sure if you're serious after reading the paragraph where he ordered food for another table ;-)

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#47

Post by grues-dinner »

prmoustache wrote: post #18
yawnxyz wrote: post #12

reminds me of this Aussie cleaning company's website that forced you to create an account to take an order. With a couple of clicks on the web app, you'd encounter a bug... and then you can see every single person's orders, email, and personal addresses. And it was my partner who discovered it (she was struggling to order service through the website bc it kept failing). Oh and they also never charged us for service d…

Isn't service taken into account in the price of the meals?

Probably depends if the cleaning company is bringing meals because it's an extra service they provide, or the place is such a mess they they think the customer deserves some charity?

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#48

Post by sebtron »

rapnie wrote: post #13

> Is this what the peak ordering experience looks like? Call me old-fashioned, but to me the peak experience is a paper menu to choose from, and a waiter that patiently takes the order. Far prefer that to everyone at the table fiddling on their phones in some weird-ass website or even god forbid custom app.

In this case, a weird-ass website that immediately demands your personal data.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#49

Post by TeMPOraL »

consp wrote: post #45
digitalengineer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

inefficiency? It's part of the experience. I'm not in a restaurant or café to drink as fast as possible. I'm there to socialize as well. Waiting a bit is not a bottleneck, but a feature. (If I wanted speed, I'd take the drive-through).

Might be nice to have but its also expensive in a low margin business. Maybe waiters get paid like crap enough for it to not matter in the US but other parts of the world have labour laws to abide to making it the biggest expenditure (and thus the one to save on by cutting out staff and replacing it with an app)

Low-margin businesses have you order by the counter and then the food is either delivered, or you pick it up yourself.

The app isn't there to improve on this. The app is there to maaaybe cut a little bit of hassle with replacing paper menus, but mostly promises to improve the business analytics site and creates many marketing opportunities, including but not limited to screwing with (er, personalizing) recommendations, creating incentive structures, and better tracking thanks to tricking the user into giving the vendor their phone number and bunch of other data.

And, whatever else on top it is, one thing the app is not is an improvement in convenience or experience to the user.

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