{"slug": "stop-scanning-qr-codes-you-dolts", "title": "Stop scanning QR codes, you dolts", "summary": "QR codes, originally designed for machine readability, are increasingly used as verification tools across the internet, requiring humans to scan them to prove they are not bots. This practice, which surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, has normalized opaque digital rituals that users cannot interpret, raising concerns about privacy erosion and the destruction of anonymity online. Security experts warn that the widespread adoption of QR code verification could lead to a future where humans must constantly submit to machine-readable checks to access basic internet services.", "body_md": "Updated: June 3, 2026\n\nImagine the following scenario: Every day, you wake up, and you want to go online. You are asked to scan a QR code. Then, another. And another. As part of your Internet habits, every now and then, this or that site, this or that service challenges you, requesting identification and verification and whatnot. Like an obedient monkey, you whip out your approved latest-generation expensive smartphone running latest approved software, and you scan the QR code, time and time again. Then, you are allowed to continue. You proved your human worth to the machine.\n\nThis may sound like a far-fetched tinfoil story concocted by dinosaur conspiracists on some disgruntled forum or some such. But it may actually become the Internet reality in a few years, considering how things are going recently. As \"AI\" bots flood the Web with their spamminess, ordinary humans will get drowned in the dross, unless they play ball and submit to proving their humanity to the system. This may happen because idiots cannot stop scanning QR codes left and right.\n\n## QR codes promote illiteracy\n\nBack in ancient times, civilization uses hieroglyphs and alike to convey symbolic messages to the masses that couldn't read or write. Then, we got the printing press and things got better. Then, we got touch screens, and things got worse. Nowadays, across the globe, schools are reintroducing pen and paper, because the current slash future generations cannot write. It took only about 10 years of \"smartphones\" to destroy one of the most precious skills humanity has developed. Handwriting. A tool of preservation of culture and history.\n\nEnter QR codes. For all practical purposes, you could show one to someone in Ancient Egypt, and they\nwould nod with approval. But QR codes mean nothing to the human eye. Nothing. It's a square jumble of\nlines, designed to be read by some camera. Why? Because touch interfaces are\n[inefficient crap](windows-blue-desktop-conspiracy.html), and typing in URLs into the browser\naddress bar is oh so hard. To make things easier for the hyperactive generations with the attention span of\na newt, you have QR codes. No reading, no thinking. Simply scan a code and go on.\n\nDo you have any idea what you scanned? Maybe. If you're lucky.\n\n## QR code are an excellent soft indoctrination tool\n\nIf you think about it, the world is upside down. You, a human being, are now being asked to perform machine rituals to satisfy technology (companies), and not the other way around. When you go online, this or that service will often ask you to prove yourself. To \"protect\" against bots. Now, you have two options. You can simply close the site and go elsewhere. Or, you may say, well, it's just a QR code, and relinquish that much of your personal dignity to the Borg.\n\nOver time, the QR scanning ritual becomes a habit. A norm. After all, in the 'rona pandemic, it didn't take much to make (most) people willingly scan QR codes all the time. Efficacy and value of the ritual aside, it gave the normies a sense of \"social contribution\", in that their little action helped the greater good. It also created two precedents. One, ever since, tech companies (and governments) have had a neverending hardon for personal data. Two, it showed how easy it is to convince people to perform opaque software rituals.\n\nToday, QR codes are mostly a convenience for people using touch screens. But tomorrow, the ritual may include all sorts of checks and verifications. Choose and name your favorite moral virtue. Security, anti-bot measures, proof of identification or age, and so on. As humans have no way of knowing what QR codes show or display, and as they have no idea what happens on the server side that shows these QR codes or similar pictogram symbols to the end user, it doesn't take a genius leap to see that this scanning ritual can be used, extremely easily, to destroy any last shred of privacy and anonymity on the Web. You asked for Web 3.0. This is your Web 3.0, plebes.\n\nI mean, take a look at Google's latest\n[CAPTCHA\nidea](https://www.androidauthority.com/google-recaptcha-play-services-requirement-3664806/). To solve these \"puzzles\", your device needs to be running certain software, including Google Play\nServices, or you may \"have to\" use an app. Think about it. You could be using your Internet on a\n10-year-old computer. But hey! That does not stimulate the economy, does it. However, if you \"must\"\nuse a modern mobile device that meets the requirements, then all of a sudden, you are beholden to\ntechnology. You must carry a new and supported smartphone around, and every few years, you must refresh\nthis device, so it meets the software standards. Just so you are ALLOWED to utilize certain content.\n\nFor all practical purposes, QR codes and whatever other alien-looking symbolic challenges you can think of are one and the same. It's the same idea. You \"prove\" your humanity to the machine.\n\n## What can you do?\n\nOh, it is utterly simple. Do nothing. If you ever get asked to scan a QR code or prove anything to some random service out there, simply stop. As a human being, you have no obligation to \"show your papers\" to the Internet \"police\", or play along with idiotic nannying.\n\nIf you think about it, as a consumer, you really have[all the power](../life/schadenfreude.html). All these online services are all built on \"user engagement\". If fewer people decide to stop using said services, then said services will start losing precious precious profit. If as little as 10-20% of users decide not to cooperate with this nonsense, you can bet both your kidneys the tech companies will suddenly go OH NO, and there will be a quick reversal to these stupid ideas. It seems the best way to defeat 2026 crap is to gently but firmly embrace\n\n[1986 behavior](../life/digital-dystopia.html). Boomer away.\n\n## Conclusion\n\nHere you go. We live in a world where soon the only \"approved\" way of using the Internet is by being forced to carry a smartphone around. Don't get me wrong. I also carry a smartphone in me pocket. But it's a choice, not a must. A big difference. And I don't want to have to depend on it, let alone have tech companies dictate how and when I use my money (or my devices). Then, I see the normies scan QR codes, and, sigh. Be the annoying nerd and tell them to stop. Really. For the sake of humanity.\n\nBTW, in the same vein, say NO to\n[passkeys](../life/passwords-passkeys.html). Whatever security problem the technology fixes, the\nimplementation is broadly and largely tied to rather specific software, including the use of \"latest\"\noperating systems, browsers, specific authenticators, and, based on every single article I've ever read\nonline, the use of a smartphone. I may be wrong, but then, I may not be. In any case, I definitely don't\nwant to use technology that mandates me spending money to satisfy random companies out there. And spending\nmoney on silly devices at that. Not my job, or my purpose in life. If my ability to use certain aspects of\nthe compute world rests on the goodwill of some smartphone vendor or alike, not interested. Nope.\n\nIf you're not keen on a digital future, then don't scan QR codes. Keep it real. Use words and letters and symbols that humans can sort of understand, as much as possible. I know, I know. Sometimes, you really won't have a choice. You will have to scan. I understand. But when you don't, don't. And tell your clueless friends and family. Explain how pointing a magic camera reader at a modern-day hieroglyph is the sum of all that is wrong and pointless about the modern Internet. They might listen. Or in all likelihood, they won't. My rant is done.\n\nCheers.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stop-scanning-qr-codes-you-dolts", "canonical_source": "https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/qr-codes.html", "published_at": "2026-06-03 11:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-05 19:16:03.977245+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-policy", "ai-ethics"], "entities": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stop-scanning-qr-codes-you-dolts", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stop-scanning-qr-codes-you-dolts.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stop-scanning-qr-codes-you-dolts.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stop-scanning-qr-codes-you-dolts.jsonld"}}