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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?

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering it’s a API available without any authorization, the better comparison would be walking around on unfenced private land. There’s nothing to indicate they don’t want people on it but it’s also obvious it’s private land.

It doesn't matter. It's still just as illegal to get into an unlocked car or one with wide open doors without permission. The same premise applies to computers in a lot of places, access controls don't matter. If you access something on a computer not indented to be accessible, it's considered a crime.

Is it illegal, in fact? If a cop saw you, you'd be arrested and prosecuted for attempted auto theft, and your "I just wanted to see how comfy the driver's seat was" defense would ring hollow in court. But sitting in an unoccupied car without authorization isn't trespassing unless it's parked on the owner's land, and I'm not sure what other laws would apply to that specific act.

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printing is cheap and, even with a half-decent consumer-grade inkjet or laser printer, takes very little labor. Laminating is much more labor-intensive, though it's not bad as long as you stick to a standard paper size[0]. In my experience, somehow, in the transition to digital and past worries about "dead trees", most people missed the fact that paper and printing are dirt-cheap these days[1], and if you account for…

I've been to restaurants with home printed laminated menus. It cheapens the entire experience, to an incredible degree. The inks fade very quickly, the lamination job feels like, well, a elementary school art project, and there is no way a nicer upscale establishment is doing this. (And with food prices being what they are, almost everyplace now days is a "nicer" place!) Meanwhile there is a damn good reason that the…

Yeah, fancy restaurants will often use non-laminated paper menus that I assume they have to reprint frequently.

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of how some people mocked me for having O'Reilly and such massive reference books when I started learning Python and Ruby. "But everything's online!" they claimed. Sure, but nothing's faster than browsing the index for what you're looking for and then skimming the section you're interested in, as opposed to going back and forth StackOverflow threads and random blogs. Currently renovating my house and I aga…

Online documentation is good if you already know what you're looking for. It is shit if you want to discover what is available. I am specifically thinking of the python docs and the time I, as a not-python programmer, wanted to see the various "grouping" types (lists, arrays, sets, dicts, tuples, whatever).

The Python core docs are uniquely terrible, though.

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

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I believe they're posting as if the ethical standpoint is normalized, to further highlight the absurdity and injustice of the current legal framework.

Why is it unjust to prosecute people who harm a business and unsuspecting customers of that business by disclosing 0-day vulnerabilities publicly without giving them even a chance to patch? The poster here has no proof that the vulnerability was already being exploited. For all we know, as obvious as this was, no one else had yet thought to look. This is like going around people's house doors, testing to see if they…

Your metaphor is a big stretch. We're talking about a business and the expectations we should have for businesses.

Noticing an overhead pipe at McDonald's is dripping onto the griddle and pointing it out to people isn't harming the business, it's pointing out the business' gross negligence.

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

#316

I like to scan the "specialized" bar/QR codes I come across in my daily life in case they're not just URLs. Sometimes I find some interesting stuff and possibly some opportunities for mild exploits. The other day I was at burger king. They allow you to refill your drink as many times as you like within 60 minutes of purchasing it, and the way this restriction is implemented is by having you scan a QR code they print…

> Can you craft a QR code with the same data but change the timestamp to achieve for infinite refills? Well, can you? :). It's the obvious next thing to try, given that Binary Eye is conveniently also a barcode generator , not just a scanner.

I know, but sadly I did not have enough time to stay there for more than an hour and try it out.

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to restaurants with home printed laminated menus. It cheapens the entire experience, to an incredible degree. The inks fade very quickly, the lamination job feels like, well, a elementary school art project, and there is no way a nicer upscale establishment is doing this. (And with food prices being what they are, almost everyplace now days is a "nicer" place!) Meanwhile there is a damn good reason that the…

Yeah, fancy restaurants will often use non-laminated paper menus that I assume they have to reprint frequently.

Really fancy restaurants update the menu frequently as well, at least seasonally if not more often. Sometimes they leave a version number or revision date at the bottom!

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

#318

I like to scan the "specialized" bar/QR codes I come across in my daily life in case they're not just URLs. Sometimes I find some interesting stuff and possibly some opportunities for mild exploits. The other day I was at burger king. They allow you to refill your drink as many times as you like within 60 minutes of purchasing it, and the way this restriction is implemented is by having you scan a QR code they print…

>Can you craft a QR code with the same data but change the timestamp to achieve for infinite refills? I'm hoping nobody is this naive to let your client have mission critical info to implement something as crucial as giving a discount or refills in your case. It would be just be an extra column in your db table, the only identifier available to the user should be just the UUID, along with some identifier.

I don't think this is that critical; if you stay there long enough and regularly go to refill your drink or come back the next day and make a beeline for the drink machine I think the staff would notice something's off.

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Soylent and Huel seem to have fixed that issue, for their target market.

I've never yet heard of any restaurants that serve Soylent or Huel.

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unjust to prosecute people who harm a business and unsuspecting customers of that business by disclosing 0-day vulnerabilities publicly without giving them even a chance to patch? The poster here has no proof that the vulnerability was already being exploited. For all we know, as obvious as this was, no one else had yet thought to look. This is like going around people's house doors, testing to see if they…

Your metaphor is a big stretch. We're talking about a business and the expectations we should have for businesses. Noticing an overhead pipe at McDonald's is dripping onto the griddle and pointing it out to people isn't harming the business, it's pointing out the business' gross negligence.

I don't agree with your alternate metaphor. In your example, publicly pointing out the leaking pipe can't cause any damage to the existing clients. In this case, publicly pointing out an exploitable vulnerability that gives access to personal information does bring extra harm to the customers.

If you want, a more apt comparison might be going around a business park and sticking big signs on every unlocked archive door you find. The companies not properly locking the doors are at fault, and customer data may already have leaked; but, you are virtually guaranteeing that even more customer data will leak by doing this. It should absolutely be illegal.

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