this post was submitted on 19 May 2026
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As we know, only humans are capable of reading QR codes.
That's not the point of the QR code. The point is Google is requiring a certified Google account and phone to allow access. Privacy-based phones are not welcome. I would suggest closing the tab when these pop up.
reCAPTCHA Mobile Verification is the section at the bottom that's relevant.
https://support.google.com/recaptcha/?hl=en
Yikes. I was imagining they were only trying to trick people into using their phones that could be tracked (in addition to jumping through arbitrarily placed hoops in the traditional captcha style) not that they were actually requiring a phone running Google spyware. That's insane.
Eh? Since when can humans decode a QR code on the fly, we always need a machine to do it.
This is a method Google is using to track website usage to actual people by making them scan a code on a device attached to a Google account.
I think you missed the sarcasm.
Always a possibility.
If you read the spec it isn't impossible to decode QR codes by hand. It isn't what I'd call easy, but it is more tedious than hard.
That's the point. Recognizing a car; stairs; busses; motorcycles; stoplights; we used to be the only ones who were able to do this, but now LLMs can likely do them better and faster than we can.
But QR codes have always been deciphered by machines, so how would me using a machine to scan the QR prove my humanity? It just shows there's a phone with my ID on it. It's just 2FA, not are-you-human.