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Digital License Plates Are Now Allowed in Michigan (theverge.com)
Digital license plates are now allowed in Michigan thanks to a new state law. It will join California and Arizona as one of the few states in the US that allow digital license plates, allowing drivers to register their cars electronically and eschew old-school metal plates. From a report: To be clear, digital license plates consist of displays covered in glass that are mounted onto a frame. They come with their own computer chips and wireless communication systems. Some of the benefits of using digital licenses versus old metal ones are the ability to display Amber alerts or stolen vehicle messages when needed, but they could also make it easier to digitally renew license plates over the years. That comes at a price, though. Currently, they cost $499 for a basic version, and $799 for a premium version that features a GPS navigation add-on.
I'm keeping my license plate analog. If my license plate were to have discrete letters and digits, that would just make it easier for cops to identify me.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Seems like the ability to always know your location and/or shut off your ability to legally drive if you have unpaid tickets, warrants, or some other infraction is the only real advantage. I am sure banks will use this for people behind in payments too. I see no consumer advantage to this at all, but we get to pay extra for it.
Totally worth 500 bucks.
I have yet to see a single coherent argument for digital license plates. They cost a ton, have wireless (means they can be hacked), batteries will die....just so many many reasons. They are totally WORTHLESS for displaying amber alerts. Whichever idiot came up with that should be shitcanned now. You can't read license plates half the time right now because of dirt or covers or - reasons. Now you're what - going to obscur my license plate number and flash different colors? And you think the guy behind me is going to give a shit? Or read it?
I could go on and on. But pretty much everyone agrees this is a horrible idea that has it's roots in yet another way to track people.
Some of the benefits of using digital licenses versus old metal ones are the ability to display Amber alerts or stolen vehicle messages when needed
Not to seem callous but why would I pay (a lot) extra for the ability to display Amber alerts? And there already are pretty good and more affordable solutions for stolen cars.
Currently, they cost $499 for a basic version, and $799 for a premium version that features a GPS navigation add-on.
WTF could these things do that would possibly justify such a price point? I already have GPS in my car and my phone so that's a non-starter, especially given that it wouldn't probably be integrated into the car's infotainment system. If my car gets stolen that's what insurance is for and shockingly my insurance appears cheaper than these things. I'm all for doing things a better way but I don't see any meaningful benefit here.
.... the ability of being tracked by government or possibly anyone else via your license plate where ever you go. "...They come with their own computer chips and wireless communication systems...."
At driver expense, of course.
Would a "George Orwell" please pick up the closest courtesy phone and dial 0 to talk to customer support.
Since the plate is remotely programmed, there may be the ability to have it flash in bright colors to draw attention to your vehicle for whatever reason.
And one of these plates, hacked to display vulgar messages or images, and send spoofed location data appears on a DefCon stage in 3...2...1...
Keep it simple, old plates last forever, are more durable, can be recycled, and are cheaper. There is no point in changing your license number. This is just stupidly wasteful.
In Belgium you get your license plate once. You take them with you when you get a new car. When you do not need them, you bring em back i.e. drop them off at the post office.
It is just there, so they can check the database. Plenty are 20+ years old. No need to recharge the batteries.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
to the private prison slave labor currently making license plates? /s
They are totally WORTHLESS for displaying amber alerts.
Typically, the police are looking for a particular vehicle during an Amber alert.
They idea is not to show that Amber alert on other people's cars. It's to make the target vehicle's license plate blink/flash/otherwise draw attention to the vehicle.
Except I'm not going to be trying to read any additional information from a license plate, or care what it is.
I've seen people who have flashing things around their license plate, and just mostly thought of kids putting neon running lights on their cars.
At a certain point we need to start recognizing that this Amber alert system is complete shit ... after a while you tune them out because there's an endless churn of "some kid from a place you never go to has gone missing for 10 minutes, please panic". Since I actively ignore children, I'm not going to be of any help in finding yours.
A license plate displaying an Amber alert is just going to be another thing that people ignore, because there's almost always one, and eventually you stop giving a shit as it just becomes background noise.
This feels somehow like a solution in search of a problem. It also sounds like a way to get people used to government issued tracking device on your car.
Except for techno-fetishists, who the hell is going to spend $800 on a @#$%^&* license plate?
Primary use is for tracking.
Presumably but I don't seem much reason to buy one for that since it doesn't benefit me in the slightest. My phone doing it is bad enough already.
Some countries are considering it to assess road taxes.
Which would be idiotic. Tax fuel (gasoline, diesel, and/or electricity) at appropriate levels and you accomplish the sensible goal of taxing in close accordance with utilization. The bigger the vehicle and the more someone drives the more fuel they will use. Trying to track mileage via a plate is idiotic.
The other reason is to enrich government and its cronies.
Probably closer to the truth.
Now you don't ever have to register your vehicle, just set up a camera to snatch other license plate numbers and make your own plate that rolls through those. For bonus points you can snag just ones that match your make and model of car. Extra bonus for you, park anywhere you want, ticket isn't coming to you, though I'd avoid agressive towing zones, don't want to get your car towed away.
The base model looks like it's just e-ink display under glass and until it gets some kind of bluetooth/wifi challenge response that the cops can query they'll just be looking at it, same with anyone else that takes down your plate number.
So all we have to do is get all the kiddie fiddlers to buy $500 plates. Well on second thought, brilliant!
If you can get them to shell out $799 for the premium version, they can report their GPS coordinates to the authorities as well.
In American money? I'll stick to the $20 renewal and put a sticker on it.
If someone wants an Amber alert they can let their phone blow up for it.
Regular license plates are issued by (essentially) government & they are like official documents!
(& Government checks/verifies people (in many ways) before issuing license plates!)
It would be a huge mistake to give this power to any/all private companies/people!!!
(Which digital license plates would enable sooner or later!!!)
Do we really want anyone change their license plate to anything, whenever they want (using hacking hardware/software)?
Do we really want computer hackers change any vehicle plates (whenever they want) by sending a remote wifi command?
Do we really want computer malware/ransomware having power to change people's license plates anywhere & anytime?
These are what digital license plates would really enable sooner or later!!!
Digital License Plates must NEVER be allowed!!!
Based on the size of the unit, it looks like there is plenty of room to add the capability to record not only your current location, but a record of where and when you traveled, along with the speeds. What a treasure trove of information to be exploited, stolen, and misused. All paid for by you! My plate will be NFW-999 (No F****** Way Ever!)
The Amber alert angle is designed to sell the plates to the state government, who would then mandate them on cars. Or as a reason for someone like GM to integrate them into the car for OnStar's "we stop the bad guys" angle.
If they were mandated, presumably the cost would be lower due to the large volume produced. For now, it's a very niche product so it's expensive.
So all we have to do is get all the kiddie fiddlers to buy $500 plates.
So the next obvious step is to mandate all sex offenders registering in the state, must in fact buy these plates... who would vote against that?
Then from there you do felons, then from there anyone who gets arrested for any reason, then from there everyone.
You can see it coming...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
i want my metal licence plate stamped in a prison by some condemned prisoner that is doing a life sentence for murder or some other heinous crime
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Say I "acquire" one of these. Can I load a different OS onto it and turn it into a pad or e-reader? Of course I'd go for the "premium" model, so I'd have to disable the pesky tracking features.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I have yet to see a single coherent argument for digital license plates.
Here's one: The implementation will probably be so shitty they will be hackable by the owner to display whatever you want. I'm sure a certain segment of society could find that useful.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I think they're trying to be pro-active, and tax on mileage, for when electric cars become predominant, and don't generate gasoline tax revenues.
Taxing mileage is idiotic and needlessly complicated. You can accomplish raising the necessary revenue by taxing electricity in pretty much the same manner you tax gasoline today. Cross reference the registration with the electric bill if you need to know exactly whose car it is to bill properly. The increase in electric use will correspond nicely with the increased use of electric vehicles and you can adjust the rate to the amount needed to maintain the roads properly.
Hell, they're trying to do this already due to the better economy that cars/trucks are getting, that it has caused a decrease in tax revenues already.
Only because we have idiots in elected office who refuse to raise tax rates even when its a good idea. (and yes sometimes raising taxes is the correct policy) You are aware you can change the tax rates right? They aren't set in stone and we can adjust them based on fuel economy if needed. As EVs become more common you can adjust the electric rates as well.
They are totally WORTHLESS for displaying amber alerts.
Typically, the police are looking for a particular vehicle during an Amber alert.
They idea is not to show that Amber alert on other people's cars. It's to make the target vehicle's license plate blink/flash/otherwise draw attention to the vehicle.
That makes no sense -- if that have this remotely accessible device that they can set to flashing mode, why don't they just ask the device to report its location and then the police know exactly where it is, no need to wait on other drivers to report it, or turn them into vigilantes that will try to apprehend the driver themselves.
The registration number on a car here in Europe rarely changes, certainly never is the vast majority of cases. The registration number belongs to the car, and stays with the car for its life.
One of the reasons the number might change is when a car is exported and thus re-registered in another country (e.g. in Ireland it's much cheaper to buy a used car in the UK and import and re-register it than to buy a lower spec used car here).
Another is vanity plates, which aren't available in all countries. I think they still are in the UK, but not in Ireland -- Irish registration numbers have the year of first sale, the county, and a sequential number, so, say 191-D-1234 is the 1234th car registered in Co. Dublin in the first half of 2019 (192 for the second half). It's possible to reserve a number in advance, though, so you could reserve 191-D-80085. That's as close to vanity plates we have. Numbers above 120000 are reserved for imports, so a car originally purchased in the UK in 2010 and re-registered several years later in Ireland would get a 10-D-120000+ registration number. (The 3rd digit attached to the year didn't start until 2013, partly to boost latter-half sales by having 2 "years", and partly to avoid having 13...)
Anyway, a registration plate is about â20 or less. Why would anyone pay â500 or more?
Why would anyone want this? I can see the police wanting it, but why would a driver volunteer for this?
If I am being cynical this makes perfect sense. first you appeal to the "must have new stuff" crowd, then once it is kinda accepted you make it mandatory. we have to replace our plates every 10 years anyway (state law) so sometime in the future the "steel plate" option will no longer be available and only the "digital plate" option will be here (especially if you want to show your support for a sports team.)
Now we are rolling and can add cameras to the plat to look for potholes, GPS to the plate to track where you have driven so we can tax you based on what roads you drive, RFID or NFC so we can track all the plates passing a certain point to determine traffic flow, and oh, yeah lets not forget the "we will mail you a ticket because you were going faster than the speed limit, and you cannot contest it because the plate is never wrong" for income increasing.
They idea is not to show that Amber alert on other people's cars. It's to make the target vehicle's license plate blink/flash/otherwise draw attention to the vehicle.
If it's not a old DOS style flashing amber "***ALERT***" message then they really missed an opportunity.
How do you tax electricity without increasing the cost of electricity used for normal household purposes: lighting, computers, A/C, appliances, etc.?
Several answer to that. First off it doesn't matter if we increase the cost of electricity for other purposes - the cost of gasoline is priced into everything we do currently so it doesn't really change anything in that regard.
1) Most people are going to charge their cars at their homes. If they don't have an EV then they won't get billed for charging one.
2) You cross reference the EV car registration with the electric bill and charge accordingly. Require every EV to have a home meter responsible for the taxes.
3) You tax all third party rapid charge stations including those at places of employment.
4) You charge an excise tax on electrical generation based on electrical vehicle registrations if you need to make up any revenue shortfalls.
I own an EV and my electric bill rose as a result. It would make sense for some portion of my electric bill to go towards road maintenance just like my gasoline purchases do.
How do you tax electricity for those whose net usage is zero due to solar panels?
You can require a meter on the panels regardless of whether they pull from the grid and tax accordingly. If the person doesn't own an EV then they can get a waiver to avoid the taxes. Require the person who registers an EV to tie it to a home meter of some kind (grid tied or not) and bill that meter. Right now this is kind of a non-issue since so few people have solar but now would be the time to but the policies in place to be ready for an EV laden future.
Imagine a future, any eyewitness taking any criminal's license plate number is completely useless, because all criminals have digital license plates that they can change, anytime they want!!!
Imagine a future, all license plate scanners used by police are completely useless, because all criminals have digital license plates that they can change, anytime they want!!!
IMHO, these are the real goals of making digital license plates; not displaying Amber Alerts etc!!!
Building them into the car would make some sense, and getting an add-on model approved as legal in all 50 states would be a necessary pre-requisite for any manufacturer to build them into their cars.
... the smart speakers (home mini, echo) are selling like hotcakes!
Now Jiffy Lube will offer to change your license plate battery for just another $49.99.
Why would you replace existing plates every 10 years? That seems incredibly wasteful! My plate is currently 20 years old, and my parents have plates that are 35 years old dating back to the last time the government changed the look of the plates. (Government tried again to change the look of the plates a couple years back, but there was a huge outcry about the waste of money so they gave up. It appears that they were only trying to change the plates because the government of the day didn't like that the new opposition party that just formed had used part of the slogan on the plate as part of their name, so they wanted to spend millions of taxpayer dollars just to try to change that)
honestly i dont care that your gramma never came back from bingo night. Please stop harassing me about it.
It's called TPMS. All new passenger cars in the US and EU as of 2012 have it. And it's not opt-in.
So all we have to do is get all the kiddie fiddlers to buy $500 plates. Well on second thought, brilliant!
Over half of Amber alerts are not "kiddie fiddlers" but a parent on the wrong side of a custody dispute.
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES AND PROPAGANDA NAZI FAGGOT KEN DOLL UNTIL YOU ARE BRUTALLY MURDERED
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
The argument FOR:
It is easy to replace the control logic. Then you aren't tracked anymore, but the plate looks normal. Also, the plate displays a different number when you're speeding!
That makes no sense -- if that have this remotely accessible device that they can set to flashing mode, why don't they just ask the device to report its location
Did you miss the part where the base model doesn't have GPS?
You know good and well, someone is going to hack these stupid things. It's a government plate, it won't be THAT secure. Has it's own built in wireless/wifi/transmitter thingy. That means, once people start using them, "for the convenience/safety" BS, instead of a gas tax, they will simply use how many miles you drive to tax you. Oh, gee...they know EXACTLY where you are, when you were somewhere, how long it took you to get from point A to point B. You think they won't GIVE YOU A TICKET, if you arrive faster than they think you should? On and on and on and on people give up their privacy because they are told, it's more "convenient".
I can see that statistic changing quickly: over 90% of people pulled over (at gunpoint, goes without saying) for having a flashing 'Amber Alert' digital plate were on the wrong side of a dispute ... with a hacker.
Why the heck would I pay $499 or $799 for a license plate?
I can think of a bunch of good use cases for a digital license plate. They all involve greater efficiency by tracking an individual. But one use case, if I had a fleet of trucks I could assign a license plate to a driver and easily swap them when they change vehicles. This would make it easy to see who accumulated speeding and parking tickets over the month.
That makes no sense -- if that have this remotely accessible device that they can set to flashing mode, why don't they just ask the device to report its location
Did you miss the part where the base model doesn't have GPS?
I re-read it and I still don't see that part, I only see "$799 for a premium version that features a GPS navigation add-on.", you don't need GPS navigation for simple position reports, just need a $30 GPS chipset, and I'd be very surprised if all of the frames don't already have that chipset and the "GPS Navigation" is just not activated unless you pay extra.
I don't even know what they mean by "GPS navigation add-on" -- how does a license plate frame help with GPS navigation? Going around to the back of the car to look at a map projected on the license plate frame seems awfully inconvenient. Maybe it works with a mobile app, but my phone has GPS built-in so I don't need it in the license plate frame. And if that $300 option includes an extra GPS display inside the car, why wouldn't I just buy a $100 Garmin instead? I don't see how the license plate frame GPS adds value.
I agree with you 100%, this kind of crap is totally insane. Just like "smart assistants", people will pay to get themselves tracked by the government, hackers and other nefarious groups.
What we need is transparent displays inside the rear windows of cars and trucks, to display scrolling messages, short animations and videos to annoy the people following us and to prevent us to clearly see what's happening in our rear-view mirrors.
#DeleteFacebook
Brussels is slow. They haven't taken that away from their vassal states yet.
So all we have to do is get all the kiddie fiddlers to buy $500 plates. Well on second thought, brilliant!
While you're making a snide comment, the reality is that the vast majority of child abductions (and resulting amber alerts) are due to parental abductions (ie estranged mother/father running with the kids during custody battles etc....
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
There was an excellent review by the Evening Standard's Debbie Barham of the cuecat scanner years ago, and the line that stuck out is "it fails to solve a problem which never existed."
That applies here.
Do you have ESP?
worse yet , he/she might try to read it and rear end you while focusing on the pretty colors.
Connecticut added $10 to registration renewals for "clean air act"
This year they added $10 for free entry into state parks without paying for parking. Which is a $10 tax for anyone who doesn't go to the state parks (like me).
My registration was $196 for two years.
And this year they added $10 or $15 to our homeowners insurance to help pay for other people's foundation problems.
I want backlit plates like Japan allows.
Have gnu, will travel.
Eventually their use will be mandatory, adding yet another brick in the wall of expensive parts that keeps poor people from affordable cars. It's a climate change win as long as we keep them from wearing safety vests.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
So, criminal buys fancy license plate so state knows they've got one.
Uses maker skills (theirs or someone else's) to make plate visually identical (for considerably less money, as the price of this thing is crazy, but anyway...) then programs it to display license number YRT387 as per usual.
But on Tuesday, alters plate number to HFG221. Does crime. Drives off. Alters plate number back to YRT387. Cops are looking for HFG221.
Yes, these are definitely a great idea. /s
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Two reasons. First, the plate could deteriorate over time, so the state wants you to have new plates periodically so that they're always in good enough shape to be legible. Second, and perhaps more important, is that the state charges me a higher fee in years when they've decided I need a new plate, and I sincerely doubt that the added fee exactly offsets the cost of the plate--they get a little additional revenue. In the past, I have suggested that I would be willing to pay the additional fee while continuing to use my existing plates, which were perfectly serviceable, but it's not an option.
The fact that these troublesome, privacy-eviscerting, upside-free license plates are priced out of reach of the lower and middle classes, and yet there are people buying them.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If they were mandated, presumably the cost would be lower due to the large volume produced.
You might presume that, and possibly there will even be places where it'd happen. In California, they'd make you get a separate license for it, and slap a tax on top of that.
Yes. You forget: THIS. IS. SLASHDOT.
They hate naggers & spics more than chanks so yeah, they'd rather give the work to a chank.
Number of vehicles registered per year?
Number of amber alerts per year?
Cost of "digital" plate versus stamped plate?
"Unintended" costs to non-abductor users?
I think we can find better solutions that don't disproportionately affect everybody because of the 0.0001% of vehicles used in the commission of an amber-alert disappearance.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
It would still be worse, becuase LCD / LED displays are far more fragile than a sheet of stamped fucking steel.
I don't see lines of people looking to get replacement plates due to damaged plates today, and even if they did the cost is 10% of the replacement cost of one of these. Incredibly more fragile and far more expensive than the incumbent solution is an awesome market advantage.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Don't get "NO PLATE" "NO PL8" "NO TAG" or "MISSING". You're likely to get a flood of citations for parked cars with missing plates.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Aren't people's lives tracked enough, already? When they want you, they are going to get you.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Protest near a US mil base and that's tracked. :)
Request documents from a city gov and who was in the car park at that time is now on record.
No more having a city worker follow the person out into the car park to photograph the license plate
No more city police and private security having to ask for photo ID and where the car is.
Do a first amendment audit and every type of transport in the area is fully investigated.
Drive too near a cult compound and their private detectives will know who is doing a TV report on them.
The fun part is what the private sector can then sell back to any business/cult/gov/mil/embassy too.
Every city worker, after work police car can be tracked. Even if their details are not kept, the real time movements of transport use can be tracked.
Every normal looking unmarked "undercover" police car in a city can be tracked as they drive out to meet their informants.
No more police ghosts in the digital world.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Just put a plate with a unique QR or barcode on every car, once. No need for expensive scanners, police could scan plates with a even a cell phone app. A plate is either paid up or not.
Fucking 19th century mentality....
The high cost can be offset by adding infra red detection to turn off the plate for a second when driving under a toll camera. All toll cameras have IR emitters to aid in the dark.
You can do what you want with a simple SQL join, no need for anything else.
Oh boy, I can make that dude's car appear like stolen, or even put a picture of my penis on it?
It makes more sense with allowing everybody around you to freely read your digital license plate number via a freely available app.
The same app could be used to alert authorities about bad driving habits :-) I am kidding if you do not like this and serious if you like it.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
>Over half of Amber alerts are not "kiddie fiddlers" but a parent on the wrong side of a custody dispute.
Do you have the statistics for that? My impression is that almost all of of them (90%) are of the mentioned kind.
Nicely put, by the way:
> parent
Like it is fifty/fifty. These filthy men for some reason always abduct the kids and poor nice and fuzzy women almost never abduct their kids.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Yeah, a solution looking for a problem,
Hack it to display a fake license number. Then commit a crime and drive away.
But with electric cars...what do the politicians do about people with solar panels ( they are pushing that too you know)? I mean, if they generate their own electricity for the most part...there is lost tax revenue too.
They can require a meter on the panels even if they don't actually draw from the grid or get a bill from the power company. Electric code would be relatively easy to change and now would be the time to implement it. Doing that is MUCH easier than trying to track down every car and track its mileage. Just make sure every car is assigned to the meter for the owner's primary address.
The LA TImes today had an article about some plans to charge for car usage in the future. Things like Miles Driven, Toll Road Fees, and Driving into High Density Areas.
The electronic registration plate is a dry run before it becomes required on all new vehicles. Built into the car, just below the backup camera, just another must know where our people are and what are they doing and can I charge them for it?