Making QR Codes & Spotting Fakes

What's inside a QR

A QR code is text drawn as a picture: URLs, phone numbers, Wi-Fi passwords as plain text.

So codes never expire. Print it once and it keeps working until you replace it.

4 everyday QR types

URL codes for posters, text codes for notices, Wi-Fi codes for cafés, contact codes instead of business cards.

A Wi-Fi QR is just text like WIFI:T:WPA;S:name;P:password;; — paste it into a generator as is.

• URL — homepages and forms
• Text — notices
• Wi-Fi — network name and password
• Contact — name and phone