Instagram doesn’t allow links in the captions and comments on posts. Well, you can put links in but they aren’t clickable. I hadn’t realised this until my cousin Polly pointed it out to me on this post. I don’t disagree at all with Instagram’s policy decision on this. I’ve had sites swamped in spam links and it’s painful to see your hard work destroyed by brainless idiots (literally…).

QR code

However as a technologist, it poses a challenge. It’s a puzzle to be solved. Is there a way to work around it? How much work would you put in to follow a link from Instagram? Which of my friends would make the effort, curious and tech literate bunch they are?

Well I have my answer as here you are. Congratulations! I am curious how you got here though, so I’d appreciate it if you could add a comment to this Facebook post to let me know. Three ways spring to mind:

  • a simple but lateral tech hack
  • a convoluted tech hack
  • a piece of social engineering

I’ll add answers to this post when (if?) they arrive.

To anyone reading this going “what the fuck?!”, I posted this QR code on Instagram with a link to this page. Sounds simple enough right? Sure, until you realise most people only use Instagram and scan QR codes on their phone. It’s a simple ingenuity test somewhat akin to scratching your right elbow with your right thumb (only slightly easier).

UPDATE: so I have my answer … not a single one of my friends were curious as to where the QR code may lead. One person worked out the QR code but didn’t post a comment on Facebook (they messaged me on Instagram). I feel the hot burning shame of my epic fail writ large across the internet. Well, ok, on a page that clearly no one has ever visited (so it’s not that bad). I could of course just erase this page from existence and pretend this whole episode never happened but where is the fun in that? Instead I’ll leave it up to remind myself to think before wasting a rainy afternoon attempting to satisfy my idle curiosity.