Hacker News Reader

Comment by kens | Hacker News Reader

I read years ago in comp.risks about a similar story. A guy in 1979(!) requested a personalized plate "SAILING", with second choice "BOATING". He didn't want a customized plate if he couldn't get those, so for his third choice he put down "NO PLATE". Of course, he ended up with "NO PLATE". He ended up getting 2500 parking tickets, since cars with no plate had "NO PLATE" written on the ticket.

References: http://www.mekabay.com/overviews/risks/risks03_1986_06-04-19...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/licensed-to-bill/

View on HN

This reminds me about my own name. Everyone always gets it wrong (including people from where I am from). Except the Dutch. They always get it right, every single time!

There was also a meme about a person that wrote on her ID application "note the hat on the 'e'" and of course her name was Sarah Note The Hat On The E on the issued ID.

EDIT: Yes her name was not Sarah and there is no 'e' in Sarah.

I saw a car with that specific plate a year or two ago.

It seemed like it might work like humor in the TSA line.

Fine as long as you have extra time on your hands.

I wonder if it has even been towed/impounded?

> Fine as long as you have extra time on your hands.

And of course, in programmer humour, this translates to "while you're not busy with anything else, issue a fine." :)

Which, ironically, is what actually happens.

Similar thing happened to someone in DC with "NO TAGS"

https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/The-20000-Ticke...

I remember a different story where the guy had to fight every ticket in court

On the plus side, he could also contest legitimate tickets unless they recorded other information.

I managed to do this at my university. I had vanity plates with a design made by my local Australia shire, which had the shire emblem between two parts of the plate. The plate was something like "123ABC" but I'm guessing emblem read as an O, so their scanners saw "123OABC", which was not a plate registered with the uni.

Each day there was a 10-20% chance I would get a ticket on my windshield. I would collect them and take them to the uni security office once a fortnite to have them cancelled in bulk. I actually got pretty friendly with some of the staff there.

At least 4 of them were legitimate tickets because I parked overtime, over a line, etc, but the staff cancelled them anyway (:

It is nowhere near that easy.

http://100parkingtickets.com/

Like Make, Model, Color, and VIN? The last time I got a parking ticket it certainly included those details in the citation. I can imagine being able to contest and win any citations issued to the same plate but with otherwise non-matching supporting information. But in the case where someone else has the same make, model, and color car, you might be out of luck if the VIN gets recorded as "CANNOT READ" or is left blank.

It has happened multiple times.

NULL, NV, XXX, MISSING, NO PLATE

I wonder if the system is also vulnerable to SQL injection via vanity plates.

I think this is unlikely since plates are alphanumeric. Although I suppose if you faked an image of a plate it's possible you could cause problems for a plate scanner.

[1');DROP TABLE tickets; --]

(Damn. Way too many letters...)

Relevant XKCD:

https://xkcd.com/327/

https://www.wykop.pl/cdn/c3201142/comment_ybs5JJhpdoduaAiCGo...

There was someone who not too long ago fixed an SQL injecction to his front bumper and it managed to break the automated toll collection system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com