The DotCode bar code symbology is relatively new, having been developed by Dr. Andrew Longacre in 2007. As a result of standards organization work being done on the symbology, it was determined that valid encoding patterns could result in symbols that could not be decoded by the current reference decode algorithm. A solution for resolving the issue involved the introduction of intentional errors that rely on the correct functioning of the Reed-Solomon Error Correction (RSEC) to resolve the original message. However, the actual impacts of such a decision were publicly unknown. This paper has undertaken the task of validating the impacts of intentionally adding additional data bits to the bar code, resulting in the generation of errors in what should otherwise be perfect symbols.

DotCode, bar code, 2D bar code, reed-solomon error correction