How honest are we? A Thnx Tags review
7.2.2024
Translation: Veronica Bielawski
Video: Davide Arizzoli
The world is full of honest people. At least that’s what Thnx claims. The company hopes to return lost items to their owners through QR codes and honest finders. I gave the tags a go.
Rats! Of course I left my SSD with our irreplaceable collection of family photos on a bench at the tram stop… Lucky for me, only a half hour goes by until I get a WhatsApp message from someone who’s found my SSD. How’d they get my number, you ask? It’s all down to the Thnx sticker I’d stuck onto my drive.
Let’s back up: it wasn’t a batch of irreplaceable family photos on my SSD. It actually just contained a few snaps of my articles. And I didn’t forget it at the tram stop. I left it there on purpose. I did so with two further stickered SSDs in other locations, too. My goal: find out how many of the drives find their way back to me.
Don’t feel like reading? Watch my review here. For English subtitles, click the gear icon, «Subtitles/CC» and «Auto-translate».
The world is full of honest finders…
So goes Thnx’s slogan. The company sells tags and stickers with QR codes, which you register in the app (for iOS and Android). If you then lose something you’ve stuck a sticker or tag onto, people who find the item can scan the QR code to contact you. You decide the channel and what information you disclose about yourself.
In my test, I provided my full name and phone number. In addition to the SSD I left at the tram stop, I also left one in a bakery and one in a public toilet. I had planned to wait two weeks to hear back from the finders. That turned out to be total overkill.
… We just need to make it a little easier for them
Not half an hour after leaving the SSD in the bakery, I got an e-mail that the QR code had been scanned – and the finder had left a phone number. I wasn’t far from the bakery, so I picked up the SSD straight away instead of calling.
Since the tram stop where I’d «lost» another SSD is near said bakery, I dropped by to see if the drive had been taken. It had. As I was waiting for the tram, I got a WhatsApp message from the finder. He said he’d be happy to mail me the SSD. Two days later it was in my mailbox.
As for the final SSD, not four hours had passed before I received a call from someone who had found it lying in the loo. It wasn’t long before it was back in my possession.
Before deploying my trio of SSDs, I used Crystal Disk Info to see how many times they’d been read. This would allow me to check whether my confidential data had been viewed while «lost». Again, the finders proved honest: they didn’t sneak a peek at any of my data.
Of course, my little test isn’t representative. But the fact that all three SSDs found their way back to me within a short period of time has put me in a good mood. Apparently, there really are honest finders in the world. At least when you make it a little easier for them.
Header image: Kevin Hofer
Kevin Hofer
Senior Editor
kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.chFrom big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.
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