Posted on 08/20/2019 1:58:48 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
(Newser) – A California man's 2016 decision to get a vanity license plate set him on a path into a "Kafkaesque loop," reports Wired in a look at Joseph Tartaro's predicament. The computer security researcher began brainstorming possibilities that related to his industry, including "null pointer." He liked the NULL, and thought it would be humorous to additionally replace his wife's plate with VOID. Better still, he thought he might be "invisible" and be able to skirt a couple tickets. "I was like, 'I'm the s---,'" he told the crowd while recounting his story at DEF CON, per Mashable. The joke was on him. Nothing much happened in 2017, other than some trouble renewing the plate. But things got weird in 2018: Tickets for traffic violations made all over the state started pouring into his mailbox, with the fines totaling $12,049. Except he wasn't the offender.
As best Tartaro can tell, the trouble started in early 2018 when he paid a $35 ticket for not having a current registration sticker on his plate. He suspects someone scraped it off to use on their own car, and he decided not to bother fighting the fee. But upon paying it, his NULL plate got linked in the system to all incidents of "null"—cases where the cop forgot to take down the plate number, leaving the system with "null" in that field. Tartaro got the DMV to work with ticket issuer Citation Processing Center, getting the balance down to $6,262 and then $140. Which would be encouraging—except he can't reregister his car without paying the fines, and Tartaro indicates he doesn't want to unfairly pay for any tickets and worries more are on their way. (Read about another problematic vanity plate.)
Ping to the miscreant.
Hasn’t this happened before?
lol...Great example of unintended consequences.
He started a joke. That got only him laughing.
But he didn’t see, that the joke was on he.
He started to cry, which got all of FR laughing,
If he would only see, that the joke was on thee.
He must be a millennial. Just reading the headline, I had a pretty good idea of the likely outcome.
Course I’m just a sys admin and not a computer security researcher...
Ah yes, the Brothers Gibb.
I try to avoid street parking downtown now.
I see little reason to get a vanity plate that broadcasts a private joke to the rest of the world.
I slice through my renewal stickers in the pattern of an X (approximately) with a razor blade or a very sharp knife. You can cut through the registration number at an optimal point of your choosing.
This makes it very difficult to remove the sticker in whole and place on another plate. Plus it forces the thief to take more time and risk being noticed.
I worked for an, “urban” company and there was some guy on a bicycle going from car-to-car in the parking lot. Seemed to be focused on license plates. Security ran him off.
LOL. That is a classic!
He should have predicted that outcome.
The term Null is very common in the working world.
Uh..huh...You autta make a song out of that...
>>Course I’m just a sys admin and not a computer security researcher
It’s a pity “fu’); DROP TABLE ticket;” doesn’t fit on a licence plate..
The judge even had a plate where the perp cut off the part of the plate with the sticker.
————
That became so common in “urban” parts of MO that the state moved the pace for the sticker to the middle of the plate.
I remember reading about a person in San Francisco that had "NONE" as a license number - police that ticketed cars for improper parking without tags entered "NONE" on the ticket. The car owner got a big bill when he went to renew his registration. Also remember a personalized plate on an Accord that read "FENRY HONDA".
I don’t know why we even have these stickers. Inspection, registration or insurance. When the police run your plate they already know if you’re up to date. Steeling or transferring stickers is pointless.
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