ive just heard of an incident where students redirected their books codes to p**n. can i make sure that doesnt happen? also, im using google to generate them, is there a foss alternative as im scared of tracking. lastly, can i make the qr code redirect to a specific page of a pdf as i want people to be able to scan them and immediately land on a specific part

  • shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit@sh.itjust.works
    104·
    8 months ago

    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.

        • shikitohno@kbin.social
          10·
          8 months ago

          Could be for the sort of awful filters so frequently employed by schools that just block content based on matching a list of banned words exactly, like I used to have in high school years ago. We couldn’t visit a page on breast cancer without an admin override while learning about cancer in the school library as part of an assignment, all because their awful content filter flagged the page as porn for having the word breast in the page.

          • Devi@kbin.social
            3·
            8 months ago

            I worked for a college that banned the word ‘adult’. We had a course called ‘Adult nursing’. You could not access the course list of the colleges own website because of this.

            Fun addition, I was the IT tech, I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time whitelisting different domains.

  • zero_gravitas@aussie.zoneEnglish
    25·
    8 months ago

    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 😆 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

    • intensely_human
      1·
      7 months ago

      Also, visiting that URL in a web browser should mostly be safe due to the fact web browsers are based on the notion of bad actor websites existing.

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    9·
    8 months ago

    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

    • intensely_human
      1·
      7 months ago

      To be more specific, a QR code encodes a string of text. You can put the words “Happy Birthday Nerdlinger” in a QR code if you want.

      If the string happens to match the pattern of a URL, then most readers are configured to automatically turn that into a “visit this URL” command for the default web browser.

      • Pantherina@feddit.de
        1·
        7 months ago

        Yup. Some apps are great for that and also allow stuff like calendar events, contact, mailto, matrix or any other link. I mean you could just write it yourself

  • CoriolisSTORM88@lemmy.world
    5·
    8 months ago

    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.

  • m105@discuss.tchncs.de
    61·
    8 months ago

    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.

  • juliebean
    2·
    8 months ago

    as for foss generators, there’s an app on f-droid called Binary Eye for reading and generating assorted bar codes, including qr codes.