Cloudy QR code bike theft stopper gets Police thumbs up Police in Victoria have started recommending a cloud-and-QR-code-driven product that aims to make retrieval of stolen bicycles easier. The product is called MyBikeRego, the eponymous creation of an Australian startup. The product offers buyers – who stump up $30 a year – three QR codes to affix to their bicycle. That QR code is …
In the old days you'd engrave a registration number into your belongings that could be used to relocate lost stuff. This is just a more modern way of doing things, and the type of sticker Robert mentions is pretty tough to shift.
I think the goal was not to provide a completely permanent 'rego' for use when tracking down lost stuff, it's more for Lost and Found - ie: a thief pinches a bike and dumps it somewhere else. The sticker could then be scanned and the owner notified.
..... Just print the QR code with 'stretching' at the edges so that the data blocks look square when viewed centrally head on with a camera. This would mean that you'd need to stick them to the bike frame with a particular 'curve orientation' but people willing to pay $30 a year to get this protection should be willing to read the instructions carefully.
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Redundancy...
Variable. IOW, something you can configure when you do the encoding. Try Google's own generator, looking for the Error Correction setting near the "Generate" button. Not sure what the specifics are for the L, M, Q, and H, but suppose low, medium, and high, plus something.
On a related note, if the sticker 'burns' itself into the finish/paint or into the (likely) aluminium or (less likely) titanium, then wouldn't it make some sense for thieves to acquire the same type of sticker, duplicate (what's on) the existing QR, print a negative of that, and afix that directly over the initial one? 'Yes, it's stolen, obviously, but who's to say from whom...'.
Since there's more than the slightest hint of an IT angle, where's the F/OSSil version of this business?
For our foreign guests, a little background. Victoria is Australia's police state, followed closely by South Australia. Any nut job legislation (like 3km/h tolerances on speed limits or mandatory bicycle helmets) is first trialled in Victoria and then rolled out to the rest of the country - to bring us in line. What we have is a voluntary $30 bicycle registration scheme that will for all sorts of nefarious social benefits be made mandatory and will probably then be linked to 3rd party insurance requirements. We will arrive at a place whereby the police can fine cyclists and check their papers as easily as they currently do other road users - assuming they don't shoot them first.
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