A QR code just links to a URL. If you link to a URL that you own or control, it'll be fine. The problem comes when people use a link shortener that allows the destination to be changed later, or if they lose control of the domain or its backend.
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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What does censoring the "or" in porn accomplish?
ive just heard of an incident where students redirected their books codes to p**n. can i make sure that doesnt happen?
This is kind of confusing, or at least leaves a lot of detail out ๐ Did the domain lapse? Did their short-URL account get hacked? In any case, your QR code will just be encoding a URL. Ultimately, any URL can be redirected by someone out there; so it's just a matter of trusting that whoever has that access won't act maliciously, and that malicious actors can't gain access.
also, im using google to generate them, is there a foss alternative as im scared of tracking.
There absolutely are, just search and you should find plenty. Again, though, the QR code is just encoding a URL. Does Google use their own short-URL service for their generated QR codes? Just scan the QR code and look at the URL it encodes. If it's only the URL you want - not some Google short-URL that then redirects to the URL you entered - then there can't be any tracking done on it by Google.
lastly, can i make the qr code redirect to a specific page of a pdf
Covered by another commenter already, but for completeness: yes, you just add #page={n) at the end of the URL, e.g. https://dagrs.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/2020-01/sample.pdf#page=5
ive just heard of an incident where students redirected their books codes to p**n
Where did you hear about this? It sounds suspiciously like someone misremembered the following incident where there was no malice or even intent, just incompetence and happenstance:
Children's snack recalled after its website caught serving porn
No, its just a coded form of a URL. People just dont know this and use weird online generators / link grabbers. Sometimes these use URL shorteners too, where easy typos can happen
Sure there are foss qr code generators, I don't know any at the moment but with a simple google search you should find what you want. About the pdf on a specific page, I think you can add #page={pageNumber} in the url and should open it at the given page.
Yeah, #page={n) works, e.g. https://dagrs.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/2020-01/sample.pdf#page=5
There is also a PC based offline barcode generator called Zint. I've used it a lot over the years. It can generate regular barcodes, QR codes, or other ones. It's very handy. You can generate using batch files with it also, if you have a lot to do.
as for foss generators, there's an app on f-droid called Binary Eye for reading and generating assorted bar codes, including qr codes.