Pulse of Truth

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Someone Built an App to Fight Surveillance Pricing With a Flipper Zero… for Research Purposes (gizmodo.com)

submitted 6 days ago by lemmydev2@infosec.pub to c/pulse_of_truth@infosec.pub

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Electronic shelf labels are surprisingly easy to hack.

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[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 33 points 6 days ago (2 children)

While surveillance pricing is a real problem; digital shelf tags have absolutely nothing to do with it and this doesn't fight it in anyway...

Digital shelf tags are replacing paper tags, but they are simply e-ink displays. They're not networked and don't show different prices per-person. All this person is doing is changing what's on the display, then arguing with a cashier, who doesn't get paid to deal with this crap, over the till ringing up a price different than what's displayed on the shelf (because this person has changed it on the shelf). Plus people after him are going to be confused and cause a fuss over it too.

It's just overly complicated retail theft, unrelated to surveillance pricing; while causing headaches for people just trying to do their jobs.

[–] cheat700000007@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In Canada if the price is higher on the shelf than the till it's $10 off or free in many stores.

https://www.retailcouncil.org/scanner-price-accuracy-code/scanner-price-accuracy-code-frequently-asked-questions-by-consumers/

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago

If you change only the price and keep the same barcode, editing the e-tag will almost certainly work, but it's the other way around.

Just set the item to be a buck or two lower and when it scans you just say that it was less than that where you grabbed it from. They will probably call someone to go bring the tag and a supervisor will key in to change the item price and subtract the price up to a maximum of $10 off the tag price. This was a loblaw example because rob loblaw month is every month, but the specific way it shows up on receipt may vary across different companies.

[–] Dagamant@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It causes a problem for stores that use technology to squeeze more out of customers. It remains that these tags are closely tied to predatory pricing practices and it causes more than just a headache for the cashier, it causes a trust issue between customers and predatory businesses. The goal is to make these predatory practices damaging to the business. the cashier will be fine, they already deal with people being complete garbage for less, at least this gives them an excuse to bring in the manager and send the problem uphill.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It remains that these tags are closely tied to predatory pricing practices

In what way?

Yes, there are predatory pricing practices; but my point is these tags are unrelated to that problem. They're just a display. A non-networked display that's not capable of setting/displaying a per-customer price, as they can't even be changed remotely.

They're no more related to predatory pricing than paper tags are.

[–] plateee@piefed.social 19 points 6 days ago (1 children)

But... It doesn't fight surveillance pricing? It fucks with the tags, sure, but isn't the pricing handled at checkout?

[–] Dagamant@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It is but I can imagine the stink that will be raised when stuff rings up differently than it is priced, especially if it’s mildly expensive stuff that turns out to be 50-100$ more at checkout than on the shelf.

[–] a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago

Prime rib? Gotta be, what, $1/lb?

[–] HocEnimVeni@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Go to a store with their own brand (think "Great Value") and change their brand prices to be much higher than their competitors, or triple the prices of everything nestle, and customers who actually look at the prices will avoid the "higher" priced items at the shelf and get the more reasonable competitors items and will be no fuss at check out and the business management might not realize what's happened for some time but in the long term will see declining sales without realizing why.