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"Mobile Plate Hunter" Cameras Raise Questions
The Washington Post has a story on "Minority Report"-style license-plate scanners that mount on police cars. They are the size of softballs, cost $25K, and can scan and run thousands of plates a day through the local Motor Vehicle Administration database. The easy mission creep these devices encourage is summarized in the article: "Initially purchased to find stolen cars, a handful of so-called tag readers are in use across the Washington region to catch not just car thieves, but also drivers who neglected or failed their emissions inspections or let their insurance policies lapse. The District and Prince George's County use them to enforce parking rules... 'I just think it makes us a lot more effective and a lot more efficient in how our time is being used,' [a senior detective] said." The article doesn't mention what happens to the data on legal plates. Suppose the DHS decides it wants a permanent archive of who was where, when?
For one, you need to get some help, and for two, www.publicdata.com.
I have a problem related to this.
I lived in PA until recently. Once I, oh the horrors, changed insurance companies... You know what the knuckleheads at PennDOT did? They sent me a letter telling me that my insurance had lapsed, and demanding that I send them proof of insurance or face castration (or maybe it was just a fine).
I looked into it, and found out that EVERY SINGLE PERSON in PA who changes their insurance gets this letter. Why? The jackasses in Harrisburg passed a law that demanded the insurance companies notify the government when someone drops insurance, but did not write into the law that they need to notify the government when someone BUYS coverage. I mean, holy shit... only politicians can be so dense. I wrote a letter much more politely phrased than this post and got the expected blow-off from my state representatives.
So if PA ever adopts this policy of scanning for dropped insurance, they will end up pulling over anyone who has recently SWITCHED insurance and is unlucky enough to be in view of a trooper. Groovy, what a country.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well, there are products out there that profess to do that, but, on Mythbusters...they showed that they didn't work...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's a legal "grey area" known as "tag applied for".
Want to be anonymous going someplace for the day? just get a random piece of cardboard, write a date about 3 weeks from now, and replace your plate with it.
My friend tried this a few years back when his temporary tag got destroyed by a really bad rainstorm. He posted all the same information as on his temp tag on the cardboard. I rode with him as a passenger to see what would happen. We got pulled over by a group of 5 cop cars after 10 minutes, like we were some sort of terrorists. They let us go because everything was legit, but have no illusions that you will certainly attract MORE scrutiny, and LESS anonymity.
Cameras see IR, eyes don't.
Cameras also usually have filters over the lens to block out infra-red. IR sources are common enough that unless you _want_ to see it, you almost certainly _want_ to block it.
I skimmed TFA and didn't see any mention, but unless these cameras depend on IR to function, putting IR LEDs around your plate won't do much.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Do NOT pass go... It's also easy to put a better IR filter on a camera...
I drove on expired plates for over a year and without car insurance for over three years. I certainly did not have any type of substance abuse problems; I simply could not afford it. At first I was unemployed and then I was struggling as a self-employed computer geek. While driving, I was paranoid most of the time, but that $150/mo. was *huge*. I spent less than that on food (ramen, eggs, and peanut butter) each month. Yes, it was foolish, but those are the choices I was faced with.
Now that I've had a fulltime job for a couple of years, I carry auto insurance, renter's insurance, dental/vision/health, plus I even pay for supplemental AD&D coverage. If an ininsured motorist would hit me, I'd certainly be pissed, but I'd also empathize. Not everyone without insurance is a drunk/crackhead as you imply.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
VERY good point. /me scratches head.
Stronger LEDs?
Nope... you can make dielectric thin film filters with some pretty bitchin extinctions...
Can anyone think of a what to (ab)use the interlacing on a CCD? I'm thinking along the lines the way corduroy pants end up looking odd in digital pcs.
Nope... good thought, but there's no way.
Any transparent LCDs out there that could alter the image such as making a '0' into an '8'? Such a system could be disabled from inside the vehicle?
Yes... of course... But nothing that would even be remotely legal... and, if you are going to blatantly ignore the law, then why not just use a marker, or completely attempt to forge/steal your plate?
How about old-school? My jeep is stained w/ mud already, why not add some to the license plate? )Besides the laws prohibiting this naturally.
Yeah... that will obviously work, but AFAIK obscuring your plate is a violation that can get you pulled over.
My wife was arrested using one of these devices. The police in Montreal is testing this technology, they plan to install it on a hundred cars by the end of the year. After speaking with the police, it's clear that this technology won't affect real criminals, it will only catch honest people like my wife. I posted the story and technical details on my blog: http://www.enlighten3d.com/2008/08/03/a-computer-vision-system-arrested-my-wife/