A decade ago I remember writing that one of the problems with QR codes is that there is no security. Some years later I wrote an article pointing out that NFC ought to be safer than QR codes because NFC included a standard for digitally-signing tags (although I did also note that no-one used it) whereas anyone could easily create bogus QR codes.
Well, I might not go so far as to call [QR codes] evil, but they certainly have the potential to enable person or persons unknown to act with evil intent.
I suggested, in connection with a couple of projects we were working on at the time, that the mobile operators do something about this by creating a digital signature standard for QR codes so that phones could be set by default to ignore unsigned codes. None of this happened, as I’m sure you are aware and QR codes became popular precisely because any app could read any code anywhere.
The security problem never went away though. I notice in the South China Morning Post that in March 2017 some 90m Yuan was stolen via QR code scams in Guangdong alone (a suspect in the case replaced merchants' legitimate bar codes with fake ones that embedded a virus to steal personal information) and that in China as a whole, a quarter of viruses and trojans come in via QR. Despite the incredible success of QR there, we need to do better.
Even the man who invented QR codes says that they are an interim technology.
From Never mind the last mile, what about the last millimetre? | Consult Hyperion
Now, also back in the day, I had originally assumed that Apple would add NFC to the iPhone. I was wrong about this for years, so eventually I assumed that they were going to bypass the technology and go to Bluetooth. Yet what I said at the time still holds: NFC is undeniably convenient.
NFC is a convenience technology, and Apple loves convenience
I was drawing on Consult Hyperion’s early experiences with NFC (remember the Nokia 6131?) of tag reading and writing. I also noted surveys that showed that NFC generated better results for merchants, but only once consumers could get it working. As my good friend Osama Bedier, then head of Google Wallet, pointed out, this is was some barrier because of the amount of “futz” it took to get NFC working.
But there was another reason that I was so interested in NFC as QR alternative back in this days. Let’s go back to that standard for adding digital signatures to NDEFs (the “NFC Signature RTD Technical Specification”) to build a safe tag infrastructure. After hawking this around a few different projects, to general disinterest, I figured that the telcos weren’t interested in using it to deliver secure infrastructure, so I said...
"Someone else will build this business (Apple? They seem to be getting all sorts of NFC-related patents at the moment) and then the operators will once again complain about being pipes. Is Tom Noyes right to say that “...Apple and Google will be further ahead in coordinating value in new networks"
Well, well. Tom was right as usual, even if it took a few years for the hand to play out. At WWDC, Apple announced that IOS11 will indeed include the ability to read NDEF data from tags.
"Using Core NFC, you can read Near Field Communication (NFC) tags of types 1 through 5 that contain data in the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF)."
via Apple adds support for NFC tags to iPhone 7 and Apple Watch • NFC World
So now both IOS and Android can read standard tags and action them. I want to make a couple of quick points about this before I head off down to our Hyperlab and see what our developers make of the new toolkit...
First of all, this technology will inevitable be used for triggering in-app payments that work in a very convenient way for consumers. Instead of having to open your Tesco Payqwiq app and then scan a code from the POS, the POS will write a dynamic tag on the fly: then you just tap the phone on the POS and the operating system will automatically open the Payqwiq app and route the data to it.
Secondly, since tags are inexpensive, they will be used for a wide variety of different applications. Tickets for pop concerts, information about products, name badges, all sorts of things that can be read by a phone rather than by a specialist reader, Therefore I expect new standards for NDEF content to spring up. One of our favourite apps, back in the day, was the phone number tag that men could put in their back pocket at a nightclub: admirers could wave their phone in an appropriate area to get the number and send a text message.
Lastly, note that NFC tags can be read through packaging. Unlike QR codes that need to be printed on the outside of a box, tags can be inside. Where would this matter? Well, take a current UK example. Cigarettes now have to be in plain packaging. Tobacco companies don’t like this - for obvious brand reasons - but they do have a point: plain packaging makes like easier for counterfeiters. So suppose packs had a cheap tag inside: then your phone could tell you whether you’ve got real Marlboro or a knock off. You download the Marlboro app, then from then on when you tap a pack if the app doesn’t pop up with a big green tick you know you’ve been done.
Note, however, that IOS11 also includes ARKit to add augmented reality. So, when you look at your pack of plain cigarettes through your app (after you’ve tapped, so the phone reads the tag and knows that they are real Marlboro) you don’t see plain packaging any more you see… well whatever.
All in all, Apple’s announcement - whether the culmination of a clever plan or a response to Android market share - is a big deal. I found a whole bunch of blank NFC tags in my desk drawer so I’m off to start programming them now.
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