| ▲ | weli 4 hours ago |
| This is pretty dangerous. At least in my country the displayed price must be honored and they cannot refuse the sale. |
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| ▲ | rickdeckard 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Usually the advertised price must be honored, because it may have brought the customer to your store. For prices displayed on the shelf-label inside the store the law is usually not that strict (YMMV), as a shop-owner can refuse sale on check-out (otherwise I could put a pricetag on e.g. a shopping-basket and the shop-owner would be legally required to sell me the basket...). Besides, most shops I've seen (in Europe) already moved from Infrared communication to RF (NFC or proprietary), for centralized shelf-label management without handheld devices. So all this study (and the underlying reverse engineering of the IR-protocol) might do is probably accelerate the transition from IR to RF-based ESL... |
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| ▲ | rimunroe 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Usually the advertised price must be honored, because it may have brought the customer to your store. This is not the case for groceries in Massachusetts at least. If there’s a discrepancy between the tag’s price and the scanned price the store must charge the customer the lowest of the two: https://www.mass.gov/price-accuracy-information | | |
| ▲ | devilbunny an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I suspect this law does not apply in cases of fraud. If not, simple tag-switching would be rampant. | |
| ▲ | stevekemp 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I recently learned that in some cases fines of mispriced goods were very low, leading to companies repeatedly failing tests - and over/undercharging their customers. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pa... That seems shocking to me, but I guess I live in a country where the prices on the shelves are "final" (with no need to add taxes) and I think it would be immediately obvious if I'd been charged the wrong price for goods. |
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| ▲ | teeray 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It definitely varies by jurisdiction, but the register price always loses to any printed price in the US states I’ve lived in. This is a protection since retailers have used pricing mistakes to unfairly profit. Watch your receipt like a hawk at the dollar store[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pa... | | | |
| ▲ | master-lincoln 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How is the transport medium changing anything? To me this is about having protocols that are suitable so not anybody can write to these labels without knowing a store secret or using replay attacks. | | |
| ▲ | mschuster91 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > How is the transport medium changing anything? it's mostly about efficiency. IR based, an employee needs to physically walk around. RF based, place a transmitter or two in the building and the system now works fully automated. | | |
| ▲ | master-lincoln an hour ago | parent [-] | | Sorry about not being explicit. I meant how it changes anything security-wise. With the same vulnerable protocol the RF system is as easy to attack with bigger consequences then it seems.... | | |
| ▲ | rickdeckard an hour ago | parent [-] | | The RF system doesn't use the same protocol, it's a new protocol (to potentially hack and reverse-engineer). The early shelf-label systems were IR-based, sold in bulk and were programmed manually using handheld devices held against them. Most shelf-label solutions of today are part of a service-model, where gateways are mounted in the store to wirelessly update any label on price-change, often orchestrated remotely so store-chains can update all shops simultaneously. |
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| ▲ | wyldfire 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In your country merchants are not obligated to honor fraudulently altered price displays. |
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| ▲ | dewey 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Probably mostly dangerous for the user, or are people routinely writing their own price signs in the store and then "buying" it for less? Walking up to the lot at the car store and crossing out some zeros? Don't see how this would be any different. |
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| ▲ | xingped 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Back in the day people used to swap/edit price tags a lot. Also making fake coupons with the same knowledge. It was a pretty common and easy form of shoplifting since all barcodes used to do was just encode the pricing/discount information. | | |
| ▲ | bombcar 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | This is why the stickers have cuts in them, and why the barcodes cross-reference other things. |
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| ▲ | ModernMech 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | What they do is swap bar codes, or they code organic fruit as regular, or they "forget" to scan in the self checkout, but yes. | | |
| ▲ | dewey 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | So it's just stealing with extra steps. | | |
| ▲ | bombcar 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Amusingly enough the extra steps likely make it worse once caught as it shows intent to defraud and planning. In some places walking out with a MacBook Neo is a misdemeanor-but putting a barcode for bananas on it and checking out would be one or two felonies. |
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| ▲ | walrus01 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is a big reason why retail product barcode stickers (not barcodes printed directly on a package as it comes from the manufacturer) are now commonly printed on frangible stock with built in slices in it which breaks apart in 3, 4 or more pieces if you try to peel it off. | | |
| ▲ | rithdmc 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Hardly matters when one may print their own barcode on labels and cover the frangible one. | | |
| ▲ | gruez 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | printing your own sticker requires way more prep than ripping one off a pack of ground beef and sticking it on a pack ribeye steak. |
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| ▲ | gus_massa 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I guess they can use the cameras to show you were tampering with the labels and call the police. Somewhat related xkcd https://xkcd.com/1494/ |
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| ▲ | rjmunro 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| In which country? |
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