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Re:Bump (YC S09) has been acquired by Google by tjohns on Monday September 16, 2013 @04:45PM (#6395785)
I can think of one big case: Many NFC tags are used as QR codes. Encrypting this doesn't really get you anything, since it's public information that's being broadcast freely to anyone anyway.

On the flip side, adding the extra hardware to a tag to support encryption has a non-trivial cost. (NFC tags are limited by both storage space and power.) If you're doing mass production of tags, that cost adds up very quickly.

Re:Bump (YC S09) has been acquired by Google by AsymetricCom on Monday September 16, 2013 @08:31PM (#6396849)
I'd reason that QR codes are a form of broadcasting. encryption can be done on modern chips with specialized hardware at negligible latency costs. chips that have ops for encryption have been around for over a decade now.