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RFID License Plates in the UK
An anonymous reader writes "The UK Government is studying license plates with embedded RFID tags. The plates can be read from 300 feet away and in rapid succession by readers embedded in the road or by 'surveillance vehicles.'"
Before you get your panties in a knot, please note that modern license plates were originally designed so that they could be OCR'ed. They currently use this at the borders here in the US.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Here's a related video showing the RFID capability now installed into tires. Note that the manufacturer is programming the VIN number into the tires. It is only a matter of time before you will not be able to get tires installed without them programming the VIN number.
More infor here.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
What would one do with your tag number anyway? Would you expect someone to get a car that is your make and color, fake a plate with your number on it to commit a crime with it? Man that's way too much TV talking...
This isn't about about privacy. This is just another way to charge you for speeding tickets.
Tickets are a major source of income for many cities. Especially in areas where people commute across state lines, and police target people with out-of-state tags, whose owners don't pay local taxes.
In my area, there are cameras and speed detectors right along the borders. When out of state drivers go into the state and fail to follow the excessively low speed limits in and around the border area, they get fined. When the locals don't follow it, police look the other way.
You can be in the middle of a large group of speeders, and if you're the only one among them with out-of-state tags, you're the one that's going to get ticketed.
I didn't have a clue what the poster was talking about (Congestion Charge)... so I asked google:
http://www.cclondon.com/whatis.shtml
Suddenly, this RFID buisness doesn't seem so bad in comparison to what Londoners are already going through.
Some people seem to confuse GOING to public places with DRIVING to public places.
Here's a hint: one of these things is a natural right which should not be regulated, the other is a privlige with which comes a variety of restrictions and responsibilities.
CV
Every car that goes through an EZ Pass/Fast Lane/whatever has its plate photographed. Then if someone goes through without paying, they can bill you by tracking your plate. All that they do it check the plate to see if it matches any in their data base. Probally just use OCR or some such to compare. I know it happens cause my dad has to add and then remove rental cars whenever he gets them for a business trip. A few times he has forgotten to do it and they have billed him. Dunno if it is a random sampling of plates they compare or what. It's an easy way to track if one gets stolen.
What would one do with your tag number anyway? Would you expect someone to get a car that is your make and color, fake a plate with your number on it to commit a crime with it? Man that's way too much TV talking...
To get around the congestion charging fee in London, people having been using fake number plates. Saving five pounds a day is a good incentive to do so.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Easy way to solve this problem, cover the back of your licence plate in refridgerator magnets. That'll throw off the scanners in a big way, and be completely impossible to notice with the naked eye.
Wear your tinfoil hat while driving as well, just to be sure.
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don't even get me started on the shit holes that pass as buses!
i have every right to drive a car - it is a perfectly valid form of transport - it gets me from a to b, its comfortable, reliable, there aren't any drunk morons talking way too loudly for the whole journey (well not in my car anyway) and it used to be reasonably cheap.
but labour has taxed the motorsit to death scince they got into power under the pretense of protecting the envrionment. it is an outrage. i wouldn't mind if ANY of that tax actually made public transport usable but it doesn't. they seem to tax and tax and tax and etc... but never do the trains get any better, never do the buses run on time, and the roads are probably the worst in the western world
pah! this is just another way for the govenment to get money out of us - it has nothing to do with the envrionment at all, as proved by the fact that despite the taxes the level of traffic on the roads has increased a lot scince labour got into power, taxes will not clean up the envrionment and neither will getting people to use public transport - cus buses and trains still (at some point) burn fossil fuels
That brings up an interesting point. Say the police have a RFID sensor at point A, and a sensor at point B on the same road, 10 miles away. If the speed limit is 60mph, and you get from A to B in under 10 minutes, that's conclusive evidence that you were speeding at some point in time on that road.
Why not mail you a ticket at that point?
Because the UK police collect them.
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/lie.html
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Have you ever actually been to England (incidentally, if you're going to refer to the UK, then don't refer to it as 'England') lately? Name one thing that you are free to do in America that I am not free to do in Scotland.
I find it very amusing that the 'right to self defense' as you put it is the only thing that ensures the American public actually need a Right to bear arms. (I assume that's what you mean when you say the right to self defense. You have every right to defend yourself in the UK, you just don't have the automatic right to have guns).
We might not have a bill of rights, but we have a legal system which ensures (usually) our rights are upheld, and upheld in a way which doesn't rely unduely on texts written in a completely different political and social climate.
This proposed scheme seems fine to me. RFID is fairly short range, and just ensures that your registration can be read when it can't be seen. You'll be argueing next that car registrations should be banned, because they allow the authorities to track you. (UK registrations are (relatively) unique strings, so you can be tracked by your registration anyway)
Jesus. If you're breaking the law, then you should expect to be caught. If you're not, then you have nothing to fear from RFID tags that you shouldn't fear from your car registration plates in the first place.
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