6 ms·

Could she maybe change her name?

by seunosewa 10y ago

Markoff 10y ago
that seem pretty unusual instead of trying to make police fix their systems
- drivingmenuts 10y ago
  That would require a lawsuit the author most likely couldn't afford and most lawyers wouldn't touch unless there was a significant payday (or at least a recovery of expenses) involved. Even if she prevailed, there's no guarantee that the problem would be fixed in a reasonable time frame, or at all.
- TwiztidK 10y ago
  If she changes her name it's easier, cheaper, faster, and more likely to actually happen. I agree that she shouldn't have to, but it is most likely the best solution.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  ...unusual? I could change my name for ~$100, new passport and license costs, and an aggravating amount of paperwork. I could convince the New York DMV to fix their record-keeping by... well, maybe if I convinced an influential politician to shame them for it. Maybe. I suppose I could devote years of my life to a public campaign about the issue. There's a chance that would work, though probably they'd just fix my file to shut me up and not fix the system. If your point is that this is insane, then yes, yes it is. But changing your name is almost certainly easier than convincing a large, high-bureaucracy state DMV to solve the problems they cause.
wccrawford 10y ago
She could try, but then there would be issues with that, I'm betting. Some way for it all to still affect her because it used to be her name, as well as dealing with issues from the name change.
asveikau 10y ago
Thought of that as well. I wonder how the DMV handles legal name changes. Wouldn't it be funny if the name change wound up renaming both Lisa Davises?
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  Oh dear god, they might. I think either they'd start a new file, which would let you clear out even valid tickets assigned to you, or they'd rename their folder and then start a new one next time not-changed-Lisa-Davis got ticketed.
theandrewbailey 10y ago
She could, but it's a workaround to a problem that isn't hers, and the possibility of the same problem happening to someone else still exists (and there is likely many more instances). Lisa Davis is a perfectly fine name; she shouldn't have to change it for any reason.
mjevans 10y ago
In addition to the other reasons listed, it also probably wouldn't be unique enough. It seems that their records are keyed off of ONLY: * Birthdate * Last Name * First name If I were going to take the bother of changing my name I'd make the middle name, a part I can drop from most non-legal/contractual areas, the actual unique identifier. By which I mean I'd have the "middle name" be a short normal name post-fixed by a base26 encoded hash; I should probably also add 'son' at the end of that... say it's European...
- dwighttk 10y ago
  It seems like middle initial was also used... she knew the other person was Lisa S Davis but had to figure out what her middle name was.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    Let's do some back of the envelope math: 04 bits = Middle initial (It's actually 5, but I imagine the common ones cluster) 10 bits = First Name 10 bits = Last Name 120 bits = 42 adult years (12*10): 3-years ~=1024 slots ~= 10 bits A naive approach might be to add all of these together, except that's unaware of the Birthday Paradox (aka Birthday Problem). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem The sets are larger, but even with the addition of those extra 4 bits there's still going to be overlap in a non-trivial population. When is there a "good" chance of a match in all of the fields that matter? What is a "good" chance? What is an acceptable collision? I think most sane people would agree that the final question is the important one. In matters that can derail someone's life and send them to jail an acceptable false positive rate is ZERO. Therefore answering the preceding questions is largely meaningless, we already have example proof of at least one failure, which is enough to declare the system inherently broken.
    - CodesInChaos 10y ago
      120 bits for the birth date is much too big. It's closer to 14 bits (taking your 42 year figure it's log2(42*365)=13.9).

Could she maybe change her name?

Markoff 10y ago

that seem pretty unusual instead of trying to make police fix their systems

drivingmenuts 10y ago
That would require a lawsuit the author most likely couldn't afford and most lawyers wouldn't touch unless there was a significant payday (or at least a recovery of expenses) involved. Even if she prevailed, there's no guarantee that the problem would be fixed in a reasonable time frame, or at all.
TwiztidK 10y ago
If she changes her name it's easier, cheaper, faster, and more likely to actually happen. I agree that she shouldn't have to, but it is most likely the best solution.
Bartweiss 10y ago
...unusual? I could change my name for ~$100, new passport and license costs, and an aggravating amount of paperwork. I could convince the New York DMV to fix their record-keeping by... well, maybe if I convinced an influential politician to shame them for it. Maybe. I suppose I could devote years of my life to a public campaign about the issue. There's a chance that would work, though probably they'd just fix my file to shut me up and not fix the system. If your point is that this is insane, then yes, yes it is. But changing your name is almost certainly easier than convincing a large, high-bureaucracy state DMV to solve the problems they cause.

wccrawford 10y ago

She could try, but then there would be issues with that, I'm betting. Some way for it all to still affect her because it used to be her name, as well as dealing with issues from the name change.

asveikau 10y ago

Thought of that as well. I wonder how the DMV handles legal name changes. Wouldn't it be funny if the name change wound up renaming both Lisa Davises?

Bartweiss 10y ago
Oh dear god, they might. I think either they'd start a new file, which would let you clear out even valid tickets assigned to you, or they'd rename their folder and then start a new one next time not-changed-Lisa-Davis got ticketed.

theandrewbailey 10y ago

She could, but it's a workaround to a problem that isn't hers, and the possibility of the same problem happening to someone else still exists (and there is likely many more instances). Lisa Davis is a perfectly fine name; she shouldn't have to change it for any reason.

mjevans 10y ago

In addition to the other reasons listed, it also probably wouldn't be unique enough. It seems that their records are keyed off of ONLY: * Birthdate * Last Name * First name If I were going to take the bother of changing my name I'd make the middle name, a part I can drop from most non-legal/contractual areas, the actual unique identifier. By which I mean I'd have the "middle name" be a short normal name post-fixed by a base26 encoded hash; I should probably also add 'son' at the end of that... say it's European...

dwighttk 10y ago
It seems like middle initial was also used... she knew the other person was Lisa S Davis but had to figure out what her middle name was.
- mjevans 10y ago
  Let's do some back of the envelope math: 04 bits = Middle initial (It's actually 5, but I imagine the common ones cluster) 10 bits = First Name 10 bits = Last Name 120 bits = 42 adult years (12*10): 3-years ~=1024 slots ~= 10 bits A naive approach might be to add all of these together, except that's unaware of the Birthday Paradox (aka Birthday Problem). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem The sets are larger, but even with the addition of those extra 4 bits there's still going to be overlap in a non-trivial population. When is there a "good" chance of a match in all of the fields that matter? What is a "good" chance? What is an acceptable collision? I think most sane people would agree that the final question is the important one. In matters that can derail someone's life and send them to jail an acceptable false positive rate is ZERO. Therefore answering the preceding questions is largely meaningless, we already have example proof of at least one failure, which is enough to declare the system inherently broken.
  - CodesInChaos 10y ago
    120 bits for the birth date is much too big. It's closer to 14 bits (taking your 42 year figure it's log2(42*365)=13.9).