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I wonder about the security of the networks holding all of the images of license plates and the databases of violators. What codecs are used and what streaming data type.

It's interesting how such an expensive system is thwarted with petroleum distillates and other natural minerals:

http://www.phantomplate.com/

A quick five second spray on each plate. Some people don't bother to take the plates of the vehicle and just spray. I've seen this and it did not alter the appearance of the vehicle. Some undoubtedly have thought of spraying the plates of random vehicles. Some have mailed photos of the cash to pay the fines as a reply to the photo of their vehicle being mailed with a ticket.

A product exists that might be suitable to your interests. "Once sprayed on your license plate, PhotoBlockerâ(TM)s special formula produces a high-powered gloss that reflects the flash back towards the camera. This overexposes the image of your license plate, rendering the picture unreadable. With PhotoBlocker, your license plate is invisible to traffic cameras yet completely legible to the naked eye."

Can I get this for my license plates?

Yes.

http://www.phantomplate.com/

http://loover.com/

http://www.regblocker.com/

http://www.photoblockercanada.com/

Probably many others too. I have no idea the legality of these, but I've seen a few of them in the wild. I don't personally use or endorse any of them.

Having been hauled into court because my car's license plate "was obscured" (equipment failure) by road grime and exhaust residue, I urge you to reconsider.

I have also heard reports that some of those license plate covers - that incidentally make it difficult for red light cameras to capture your license plate - have been outlawed.

http://www.phantomplate.com/print_delaware.html
http://www.banoggle.com/products/ontrack/photo-blur.aspx

Both pages offer such products, both pages acknowledge that some jurisdictions outlaw them. And you KNOW that they love to make examples of people seeming to evade attempts to enforce the law.

Such as these products to "beat" the traffic cameras.

Photo Blocker

Photo Shield

This will be a poorly implemented system and once they realize how many people are driving for free on the road we will be back to having attendants at the booths.

Such as these products to "beat" the traffic cameras.

Photo Blocker

Photo Shield

This will be a poorly implemented system and once they realize how many people are driving for free on the road we will be back to having attendants at the booths.

Or just buy one of these, and eliminate the whole license-plate from the camera. Some people will take the less safe way to do things, I personally will take the effective way. You have my face...so what? Don't have a plate to match it to?

http://www.phantomplate.com/reflector.html

http://www.phantomplate.com/print.html

You can use products at this site to screw up these systems pretty good. They aren't IR blockers, but they cause various effects that make the systems unable to read them or causes them to be overexposed. You can always just pick up a piece of IR film, cut it yourself, and put it over your plate too. Just have to make sure a cop thats behind you can read the plate. I know I'll be looking into these as well as some IR film.

http://www.phantomplate.com/photoshield.html

...there are always stuff like this.
I am not affiliated with this company in any way.

The only reason you claim you're going to switch to Verizon is [...] because you feel you have a lower chance of being held accountable for your illegal activites.

sounds perfectly rational to me. Do you know anyone with a radar detector? These guys make a pretty good one. It helps people like you and me lower their chances of being held accountable for illegal activities (i.e. speeding). Do you ever speed? Have you ever been caught? Did the ticket encourage you not to speed, or did it just inconvenience you without causing you to change your behavior? People who buy radar detectors are making a rational choice: they PLAN to keep speeding (i.e. breaking the law), and want to mitigate the risk of being inconvenienced by a stupid law... which is essentially the position the poster is in. If you live in a state where radar detectors are legal, and you don't have a radar detector, yet you continue to speed, you're demonstrating your own inability to behave in a rational manner.

Or consider these guys, who make a product you can use to do the same thing- lower the chances that you can be held accountable for an illegal act. I will grant you that running a red light is somehow "more wrong" than speeding. Does this fact make the flashblocker spray "more good" or "more bad" than a radar detector?

Or these guys. They're about one step short of the folks in Berkeley where I live... for a couple of years there was an underground movement to chop the heads off any new parking meters that the city erected, and to jam or disable the meters that couldn't be physically removed. Notice a trend here?

no? Let me spell it out for you then: People don't like to obey laws, especially laws that put arbitrary limits on what they can do with their own property. In other words, if my car can go 120 MPH, I should be able to drive 120 MPH, and fuck the law for telling me that I can't. (Instead of chasing speeders, cops could bust people for driving 67 MPH in the left lane, or talking on the cell phone while driving, or passing on the right, or failing to move over when a faster vehicle comes up from behind...)

Companies that defend their customers' abilities to do what they want are rewarded by those customers in the marketplace. I guess techology is less mature than automobiles, but as the internet develops over the next 10 years, I think we're going to see a lot more radar detectors than speeding tickets.

Only users who engage in illegal activities really have anything to worry about. Comcast is cooperating in keeping things legal, that's all. If they don't cooperate, they essentially put themselves at risk. Not exactly a good practice to take the risk while protecting their customer who is doing illegal activities. Comcast is a business and needs to operate under the law while trying to make a profit. If your going to do illegal activities, figure that your chances of getting caught are going to keep going up as technology improves (of course counter technology improves too).

I have Comcast at home and the service they provide works very well. I haven't tried Verizon, but my brother has that and it works well too (not quite as fast as my Comcast connection though).


In an unrelated question, has anyone tried the spray on products for defeating "speed cameras"? Found one listed at Phantom Plate but don't know if the stuff really works. Probably should drive the speed limit more closely, but those darn cameras are going up everywhere in Maryland.

1. Remove plate. Place flat.
   
2. Spray PhotoBlocker evenly until surface is totally saturated. Let dry and repeat 2-3 times until plate is very glossy.
   
3. Let dry for about 2 hours. Should be good for life!
   
4. ???
   
5. Profit!
   

If anyone on this thread had half a clue, they'd realize that those things block by using the FLASH by reflection of light. Clearly, every car can't be recongnized by flash photography, image processing and character recognition is a much more logical choice for this.

And here's an experiment you can do at home!

Go to a mirror with a digital camera in a dark room. Be sure the flash is on. Stand way too close to the mirror. Take a picture with the flash on. Came out really bright and crappy, didn't it? Thats exactly what happens with the license plates. They reflect the light if a certain amount of it is transmitted and hits the plate covered with the spray. One of them uses refractive optics to blur the image, but it doesn't work the same way as the spray. See above for how that spray works.

If anyone on this thread had half a clue, they'd realize that those things block by using the FLASH by reflection of light. Clearly, every car can't be recongnized by flash photography, image processing and character recognition is a much more logical choice for this.

And here's an experiment you can do at home!

Go to a mirror with a digital camera in a dark room. Be sure the flash is on. Stand way too close to the mirror. Take a picture with the flash on. Came out really bright and crappy, didn't it? Thats exactly what happens with the license plates. They reflect the light if a certain amount of it is transmitted and hits the plate covered with the spray. One of them uses refractive optics to blur the image, but it doesn't work the same way as the spray. See above for how that spray works.

Here's a link.

linkey

Some moron moderated the parent offtopic. Check it out: phantom plates for your car. The spray on is the coolest; you spray the license plate and it doesn't show up on the cameras.

Ahh but as technology arises to do this, someone will always come up with a way around it.

License plate covers that change the angle by about 5 degrees. You would then need cameras that would be almost direct line of sight to see the plates. I don't know how well these really work as they are some as seen on TV crap, but it seems at least the idea is valid :P

No, no, don't use tin foil, use this stuff.

I'll assume these are illegal in London, yes? If not, I plan on buying stock in any UK based company that makes these.