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California Legislature Approves Trial Program For Electronic Plates
Do you worry that the widespread use of plate-scanning cameras might be used in ways that violate your privacy ? Now you can ratchet your worry level up a bit: Ars Technica reports that "This week, the California State Senate approved a bill that would create the nation’s first electronic license plate. Having already passed the state’s assembly, the bill now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown (D) for his signature." From the article: "The idea is that rather than have a static piece of printed metal adorned with stickers to display proper registration, the plate would be a screen that could wirelessly (likely over a mobile data network) receive updates from a central server to display that same information. In an example shown by a South Carolina vendor, messages such as 'STOLEN,' 'EXPIRED,' or something similar could also be displayed on a license plate. ... The state senator who introduced the bill, Sen. Ben Hueso, a Democrat who represents San Diego, did not respond to Ars' multiple requests for an interview or comment. It still remains unclear as to exactly why this bill was proposed and what its objectives are. The precise technical details of the program are similarly unclear, as is how long plate information would be retained and who would have access to it."
On the OTHER hand... we could have assholes running around changing legitimate plates to alert that the car is STOLEN and watching while the cops use unnecessary force on innocent people.
no stable system has been proposed, only a concept, and yet we're willing to confide in private industry to fill in the gaps? what happens if a rock hits my expensive plate? how much more will this cost than a traditional plate? whats to prevent me from reverse-engineering the plate and reducing an entire parking garage to STOLEN?
hundreds of questions remain unanswered. legalizing the plates is one thing but unless there is more transparency in the trial program or its restricted to a small minority of state vehicles i cant see this as any sort of appropriate service to californians from their duly elected government. and given the nature of devops and software engineering in general, isnt it a bit hasty for a "trial program?" Shouldnt this proceed more like googles autonomous driver system as opposed to make;make install; plate.exe; "we're good!" or at very least throw it around the security community and see if we can break it first (im assuming it would be trivial.)
Good people go to bed earlier.
Don't forget the part where everyones plates show gay pornography gifs after some 14 year old hacks their system.
So, when there is a hit-and-run accident the witnesses will be telling the police to hunt for the car with license plate number "EXPIRED"?
You don't think thieves would get around that by stealing other cars' license plates and swapping the plate/screen of the stolen car with other non-stolen vehicles?
Isn't that like stealing the PC display on which some information you want is being displayed, instead of just downloading the information into your own machine?
Ezekiel 23:20
I can't wait to hack one, that way I can change my plate on the fly. Metal plates are a hassle to fake, but an electronic plate that is designed to change at the push of a button is going to make counterfeiting super easy.
Hell, you could have your plate change to a new (fake) number every time the odometer clicks over another mile. That will pollute all those fancy ANPR databases. You could really screw with those ANPR systems by using your own ANPR via a dash-cam that scans on-coming cars and once they have passed, switches your plate to that other car's license number.
Either way you'll have a very small chance of getting caught since it will change so fast and you don't even need to stop the car to do it. Besides, normally no one even looks at your plate unless something bad has already happened,
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
... California has a referendum procedure. Can't the Californians vote this sort of shit so far down that they'll be looking for it in the Marianas Trench?
Have you ever tried to read an LCD screen in sunlight? This is the best privacy idea evar! Thanks moron legislators from California.
If plates become electronic and networked, then the question needs to be asked, why do we even need a license plate to display a number at all.
CNSFSNP: Complex Non-Solution For Simple Non-Problem
Admittedly, idiot is often, but not always, an appropriate alternative term.
-WolvesOfTheNight
Someone in the legislature has ties and is getting kickbacks from the company that makes the technology, so they have a huge financial incentive to push thru this blatantly-invasive technology that will ultimately cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and provide virtually zero benefit.
See: red light cameras.
The objective is to make money for the company which paid into Ben Hueso's campaign fund and which, shocker!!, just happens to make exactly this sort of item or has "key patents" on it. Whenever something smells fishy, follow the money. Just ask yourself, "Who stands to benefit financially from this?" and you'll have your answer.
Yeah, can not outsource roads or bridges. Google for 'illegal aliens united states'. Then google for 'bay bridge china'. Idiots like you have no clue.
OTOH, if a STATE requires that the item be made in their state using local material (and one as big as California), then it can not be outsourced.
Too bad we have so many trolls like you. Last I talk to you.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Palm? How about Anroid and IOS?
Good point. I didn't think about the bright side of all this.
California already has a cheaper system for identifying cars, which is the physical license plate. The California Highway Patrol (and police departments as far as I can tell) already don't car if you are driving around with expired plates (which is already very easy to distinguish) or even if you have plates at all. I see so many cars on a daily basis with nothing but a license plate frame and the dealer logo in it.
I have no doubt that this is really just the entry point for authorities to place a GPS unit in every car.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
This is beyond idiocy. A physical license plate has many advantages over an electronic one.
1. You can't hack a physical non-electronic plate.
2. Physical plates serve as excellent reminders of who was where, especially in the cases of drunk idiots slamming into your car so hard THAT THEY LEAVE A PERFECT IMPRINT OF THEIR PLATE IN REVERSE on your car for easier tracking later on.
3. Creation of physical plates does not result in as much pollution compared to electronic ones.
4. Most physical plates are still quite usable after an accident. Electronic plate isn't going to be so useful after one fender bender, most likely.
5. Electrical system problems might mean your car works but your license plate does not.
I see one advantage the electronic plate might have - you won't need those license plate lights any longer, and those stupid neon license plate frames won't interfere with the visibility of an electronic plate emitting its own light versus a physical plate that relies upon the reflection of light.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
oh well, I was worried that our ex governors have nothing to brag about anymore. See that one right there? I did those plates, the way I made the R's look just right
Post modified for those of us here in Illinois...
"What do you have in the Blagojevich signature series? How about Ryan? Walker? Kerner?"
When you're dead, you don't know you're dead. It only affects the people around you. Same thing when you're stupid.
They complain that mailing license plate sticker is a pain and cost a lot of money...well why they are still using them? They are so easy to counterfeit! Here in Quebec, we discontinued the use of them since 1992.
"I've been pulled over a few times when they get no laser return off it and told to get a new plate. "
And you just ignore them.
Because I'm betting that the statute requiring a plate doesn't mention the condition must be in except that the plate must not be obscured by crud, mud, covers, (even clear covers can be illegal sometimes), or license plate holders. That it must be legible.
http://i.imgur.com/pdzF80Q.jpg
--
BMO
The article mentioned one possible practical use: fleet vehicles. As it stands, either tags have to be manually applied or plates changed out, and even done every so many years, this can become a management hassle for larger fleets. Electronic plates would, depending on their durability, remove this requirement. Many fleet vehicles are already tracked via data networks, so the privacy issues aren't as strong as for a personal vehicle and the ability to display a message indicating theft could be useful. Then, of course, there could also be ads for the fleet owner on it, but I think that's pushing into tacky territory.
I don't see this catching on, though, at least not for a while yet. The technical hurdles are just too high, and California has a history of not being able to implement their computer projects on time or budget. It will be a novelty for the trial period and then quietly go away when not enough people sign up for it.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The summary pushes this as a way to make plate readers even worse, but really smart plates are kind of the opposite of plate readers, and each makes the other less useful. You can either make the plates smart so critical data can be read by "dumb" human readers, or you can make the readers smart enough to read critical info from dumb plates. The "STOLEN" message can be e-printed on the plate, or it can pop up on the police cruiser's screen as the car drives by. Doing both is redundant.
The main difference is that an e-ink plate can be read by people who aren't cops, while the plate reader can give a lot more information to the cops, whether you're breaking the law or not. If "neither" is not an option, smart plates come out ahead on civil liberties grounds. But see my post below on technical problems.
It is worse. In order to communicate with these plates, you need to know where the plate is, so your car is tracked in near-realtime.
I guess some California legislator didn't read the NSA memo's, but he claimed that only the business would have this location data, and not the gov't.
I wonder when the NSA will show up with a "give us all your business records for the next 3 months" repeating warrant. The day before the program does live, or the same day?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
> That work cannot be "off shored"
You'd be surprised how cost-effective it can be to manufacture pre-stressed concrete bridge modules at a factory in China, load them onto a barge, and ship them to California. By definition, pre-stressed concrete bridge modules have to be manufactured off-site somewhere, and 99% of the transportation costs involve loading and unloading. Whether the actual long-haul transportation occurs via superfreighter from China, freight railroad across the US, or post-Panamex freighter from the east/gulf coast of the US, doesn't really make all that much of a difference.
The main obstacle to actually DOING it isn't even "buy American" laws, so much as China's notorious "quality fade". God forbid, if you built a bridge with Chinese bridge modules, then ONE of them were discovered to be substandard, I can *guarantee* that the government entity paying for the bridge would end up replacing and demolishing the entire new bridge (or at best, leaving it in place for pedestrians and cyclists, if they thought it could safely handle the lesser dynamic load, alongside the new bridge) because they'd never be allowed to risk having a large-scale failure due to another substandard module somewhere in the bridge.
That's part of the reason why stuff from American, Japanese, and European companies costs several orders of magnitude more. We actually *do* have the ability to track every bolt, screw, piece of rebar, and pound of aggregate every inch of the way from mine to megastructure, and somebody with enough funding and determination can spend years digging through the documentation to verify it. China isn't quite "there" yet, and doesn't appear to even *want* to go there.
It's a fairly big paradigm shift, because it's the difference between "build two bridge spans that, when used within their explicit design parameters over their guaranteed design lives, must never, ever, EVER fail" and "build three spans for half the cost of building one American span, and roll the dice that when/if one fails before it's functionally obsolete and has to be replaced anyway, it won't kill or injure too many people", and just take for granted that you'll probably end up demolishing and rebuilding the whole thing to increase its capacity *anyway* long before it becomes a problem.
What China appears to have failed to appreciate, based on what's happened in cities like London and New York, is that when the future arrives, building the replacement won't necessarily be easy or cheap, because adjacent land use will have grown up around it, and taking the old infrastructure out of service to make room for its replacement just isn't a viable option. The Big Dig comes to mind as an obvious example of a project that would have been expensive in any case, but was made exponentially MORE expensive by the need to keep the old road in service throughout the construction.
The Washington Metro has a similar problem... everyone agrees that it has a serious capacity problem in stations between Rosslyn and L'Enfant Plaza that are only going to get worse once the Silver Line begins service, but there's no cheap or easy way to enlarge the existing stations. They were built 25-40 years ago in holes that were excavated, but now have expensive buildings sitting on top of them... and mining out new platforms from below would cost *almost* as much money as demolishing the buildings above and digging new holes. The London Underground has been dealing with the same problem for decades, and now spends almost as much money (adjusting for inflation) to mine out and rebuild a single station as it spent to build the entire original tube network ~150 years ago.
It could be something like "license plates cost $500 and require a renewal every year, but if you allow for our *cough* *cough* state approved supporters to put *cough* *cough* community messages on your license plate, then it's only $10 a year. You do support the community don't you?"