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A 'Null' License Plate Landed One Hacker in Ticket Hell (2019)

25 points by danielyaa5 4y ago

cestith 4y ago
Great story from 2019. https://dev.to/michaelpaulkunz/what-we-can-learn-from-sir-charles-antony-richard-hoare-7fg https://dev.to/michaelpaulkunz/what-we-can-learn-from-sir-ch... relates the same story back to Sir Tony Hoare.
grenran 4y ago
On the other hand, this could allow him to easily contest any future parking ticket.
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  But they have to respond to each one of them. Is it worth their time?
openasocket 4y ago
There's definite grounds to sue the Citation Processing Center, at least to get them to stop assigning these tickets to him.
- theandrewbailey 4y ago
  It should be easy to prove harassment, if he can prove that a majority of these vehicles aren't registered in his name.
tpoindex 4y ago
For those who like podcasts, Radiolab also had this story recently, along with a few other cases of bad programming (“Are you suggesting I change my name to “quote N-U-L-L quote”, to match the databases you’re working with?”) https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/null https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/null
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bell-cot 4y ago
Generic wishful suggestion for courts, regarding any sort of computer-processed data which is a basis for legal action: Coin some fancy-sounding Latin phrase meaning "obvious computer failure", and make liberal use of that phrase in curtly dismissing legal actions (with prejudice) where some key piece of the assertion is clearly a product of "garbage in, garbage out". That might at least give some incentive to those running GIGO-excreting computer systems to clean up their sh*t.
- karmakaze 4y ago
  Exactly. > “null” is also a text string that in many programming languages signifies a value that is empty or undefined. I can't think of a single language that does this. A null interpolated into a string or concatenated with an empty one could produce such a string. If that string value is then used to signify an empty/undefined value is misuse of the language.
  - cestith 4y ago
    SQL is more of a data language, but things like T-SQL or P-SQL I guess count. Lots of programming languages interacting with SQL databases mistreat NULL values. This guy's plate should never be "IS NULL" but should be a string that "plate = 'NULL'".
    - karmakaze 4y ago
      I think it would be more the case that specific programs (or stored procedures) mistreat NULL values, rather than a language or library not providing a way to properly handle them.
gunshai 4y ago
I'm surprised that NULLs weren't filtered out with what ever stored procedure is running on the database that sent the workload for mail ticket dispersal. Although I suppose it is an edge case because NULL is supposed to not ever get joined with an address or UID.

25 points by danielyaa5 4y ago

Great story from 2019. https://dev.to/michaelpaulkunz/what-we-can-learn-from-sir-charles-antony-richard-hoare-7fg https://dev.to/michaelpaulkunz/what-we-can-learn-from-sir-ch... relates the same story back to Sir Tony Hoare.

grenran 4y ago

On the other hand, this could allow him to easily contest any future parking ticket.

rad_gruchalski 4y ago
But they have to respond to each one of them. Is it worth their time?

openasocket 4y ago

There's definite grounds to sue the Citation Processing Center, at least to get them to stop assigning these tickets to him.

theandrewbailey 4y ago
It should be easy to prove harassment, if he can prove that a majority of these vehicles aren't registered in his name.

tpoindex 4y ago

For those who like podcasts, Radiolab also had this story recently, along with a few other cases of bad programming (“Are you suggesting I change my name to “quote N-U-L-L quote”, to match the databases you’re working with?”) https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/null https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/null

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bell-cot 4y ago

Generic wishful suggestion for courts, regarding any sort of computer-processed data which is a basis for legal action: Coin some fancy-sounding Latin phrase meaning "obvious computer failure", and make liberal use of that phrase in curtly dismissing legal actions (with prejudice) where some key piece of the assertion is clearly a product of "garbage in, garbage out". That might at least give some incentive to those running GIGO-excreting computer systems to clean up their sh*t.

karmakaze 4y ago
Exactly. > “null” is also a text string that in many programming languages signifies a value that is empty or undefined. I can't think of a single language that does this. A null interpolated into a string or concatenated with an empty one could produce such a string. If that string value is then used to signify an empty/undefined value is misuse of the language.
- cestith 4y ago
  SQL is more of a data language, but things like T-SQL or P-SQL I guess count. Lots of programming languages interacting with SQL databases mistreat NULL values. This guy's plate should never be "IS NULL" but should be a string that "plate = 'NULL'".
  - karmakaze 4y ago
    I think it would be more the case that specific programs (or stored procedures) mistreat NULL values, rather than a language or library not providing a way to properly handle them.

gunshai 4y ago

I'm surprised that NULLs weren't filtered out with what ever stored procedure is running on the database that sent the workload for mail ticket dispersal. Although I suppose it is an edge case because NULL is supposed to not ever get joined with an address or UID.