4 ms·

this problem is simple to solve, remove license plates. They're pointless anyway.

dahart 4y ago
What do you mean? To the DOT, license plates ensure drivers have had basic training and that the vehicle has been inspected for basic safety and emissions standards. To police, the license plates offer a way to find out who the driver is. You might not see direct benefits today, but there certainly is a point to plates. If you find yourself in an accident that is the other party’s fault, you might understand the benefits to you of their license plate being visible. I hope that doesn’t happen to you, but many people in the past have been glad the offender could be identified.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  The side effects cannot be worse than the medicine. License plates and modern data collection practices are far worse than any of the purported benefits.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    I guarantee you 95% of America doesn't agree with you on this.
  - dahart 4y ago
    I’m still not following, could you elaborate on the problems with license plates? What are the negative side effects, and how/why is that “far worse” than meeting safety & emission standards and catching at-fault drivers after accidents? One thing to consider is what would happen if license plates actually did go away. This idea is completely unrealistic- license IDs & license plates (or some way for police to identify you) are never going away. But assuming they did, what would happen? This would mean an astronomical increase in hit and run accidents, in uninsured driving, and in criminal activity from unsafe driving to theft. Do you think that wouldn’t happen, and if so why? Why would having no plates be a better thing than having them?
    - livueta 4y ago
      How about this: e-ink plates plus public-key cryptography. Your actual license number or other identifier, plus a time-based nonce, is encrypted with the DOL's public key. The displayed value changes as the nonce changes according to its schedule, so third-party observers can't correlate the displayed value across time. If you get in a hit-and-run and note the displayed plate, the DOL has the other half of the keypair, the time, and the derivation function for the nonce, so can translate the displayed value to the actual owner. Not being able to publish a single stable value in amber alert cases would be a bit of a regression, but you could still publish what a value would be at a particular time interval. Doesn't do anything about governmental abuses of ALPR data but could be effective at cutting out corporate abuses. I'm probably missing something but it doesn't seem to increase info leakage w.r.t the status quo either - you'd theoretically be able to figure out when a particular image of a plate was taken, but that source would almost definitely be timestamped anyway. e: I don't think "just ban private ALPR" is a solution; it's simply way too easy to do with COTS+FOSS and way too hard to enforce against.
      - calvinmorrison 4y ago
        > I don't think "just ban private ALPR" is a solution; it's simply way too easy to do with COTS+FOSS and way too hard to enforce against. Which leads to another issue, that local governments have contracted these corporations to do just this. From red light cameras to suvellience cams, police don't actually store this data themselves, private companies do the bulk of the work here.
        livueta 4y ago
        And even if we could do something about ALPRs, the same outsourcing of the 4th is going on in areas like mobile telemetry.
      - dahart 4y ago
        It makes sense as a technical solution to the problem of not being tracked / identified by NGOs. Could work but seems a little complicated, and unlikely to end there; car, location & face recognition could achieve the same ends, by and large. (China already does this). However the bigger issue to resolve is the goals and legality. We haven’t yet established that being able to identify someone in public is bad, or conversely that being able to travel anonymously is a goal we want, right?
  - afiori 4y ago
    License plates make speed cams possible. Now I will agree that they can be an instrument for evil, but sometimes they are the only way to avoid a lot of deaths.
- kube-system 4y ago
  License plates signify an owners initial registration. That’s it. > license plates ensure drivers have had basic training No, that’s what a drivers license does. > and that the vehicle has been inspected for basic safety and emissions standards. Most states (even ones that do require those inspections) issue license plates without these. > To police, the license plates offer a way to find out who the driver is. They really don’t, because vehicles are frequently driven by people who did not register them.
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    Both you and the parent are making broad assumptions based on narrow experience. I've lived in enough states that various parts of my experience from various jurisdictions both confirm and refute each of the points made. It's important for everyone to remember that their experience is not the only experience.
    - dahart 4y ago
      Since you implicate me, I’m open to feedback and willing to change my mind. Would you point out my incorrect assumptions to me?
    - spinny 4y ago
      Portuguese license plates for a long time had the month/year of the car manufacture. This been discontinued because apparently no other country in EU does this and it was confused with expiry date. There is no other indication on the license plate. just the numbers and letters. I assume that expiry dates on US plates is related to either road tax or vehicle inspection
      - kelnos 4y ago
        > I assume that expiry dates on US plates is related to either road tax or vehicle inspection Usually yearly registration, though some US states do gate the registration completion on some forms of inspection. California, for example, requires emissions testing every other year for cars older than a certain age, and won't send the new registration until that's been completed. But most states don't require any kind of regular safety or general road-worthiness inspections. I think that's kinda bonkers, but I haven't really looked at stats around how many car crashes are caused by a failure to maintain a car or its safety features. It's possible that the cost of doing such testing is often deemed too high, when considering the benefit.
- afiori 4y ago
  > ensure [...] that the vehicle has been inspected for basic safety and emissions standards There is a Youtube channel where someone got a Hummer, ripped off the engine, and transformed it into an electric vehicle. When he went for registration (as a custom car) nobody even asked to see it.

What do you mean? To the DOT, license plates ensure drivers have had basic training and that the vehicle has been inspected for basic safety and emissions standards. To police, the license plates offer a way to find out who the driver is. You might not see direct benefits today, but there certainly is a point to plates. If you find yourself in an accident that is the other party’s fault, you might understand the benefits to you of their license plate being visible. I hope that doesn’t happen to you, but many people in the past have been glad the offender could be identified.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
The side effects cannot be worse than the medicine. License plates and modern data collection practices are far worse than any of the purported benefits.
- googlryas 4y ago
  I guarantee you 95% of America doesn't agree with you on this.
- dahart 4y ago
  I’m still not following, could you elaborate on the problems with license plates? What are the negative side effects, and how/why is that “far worse” than meeting safety & emission standards and catching at-fault drivers after accidents? One thing to consider is what would happen if license plates actually did go away. This idea is completely unrealistic- license IDs & license plates (or some way for police to identify you) are never going away. But assuming they did, what would happen? This would mean an astronomical increase in hit and run accidents, in uninsured driving, and in criminal activity from unsafe driving to theft. Do you think that wouldn’t happen, and if so why? Why would having no plates be a better thing than having them?
  - livueta 4y ago
    How about this: e-ink plates plus public-key cryptography. Your actual license number or other identifier, plus a time-based nonce, is encrypted with the DOL's public key. The displayed value changes as the nonce changes according to its schedule, so third-party observers can't correlate the displayed value across time. If you get in a hit-and-run and note the displayed plate, the DOL has the other half of the keypair, the time, and the derivation function for the nonce, so can translate the displayed value to the actual owner. Not being able to publish a single stable value in amber alert cases would be a bit of a regression, but you could still publish what a value would be at a particular time interval. Doesn't do anything about governmental abuses of ALPR data but could be effective at cutting out corporate abuses. I'm probably missing something but it doesn't seem to increase info leakage w.r.t the status quo either - you'd theoretically be able to figure out when a particular image of a plate was taken, but that source would almost definitely be timestamped anyway. e: I don't think "just ban private ALPR" is a solution; it's simply way too easy to do with COTS+FOSS and way too hard to enforce against.
    - calvinmorrison 4y ago
      > I don't think "just ban private ALPR" is a solution; it's simply way too easy to do with COTS+FOSS and way too hard to enforce against. Which leads to another issue, that local governments have contracted these corporations to do just this. From red light cameras to suvellience cams, police don't actually store this data themselves, private companies do the bulk of the work here.
      - livueta 4y ago
        And even if we could do something about ALPRs, the same outsourcing of the 4th is going on in areas like mobile telemetry.
    - dahart 4y ago
      It makes sense as a technical solution to the problem of not being tracked / identified by NGOs. Could work but seems a little complicated, and unlikely to end there; car, location & face recognition could achieve the same ends, by and large. (China already does this). However the bigger issue to resolve is the goals and legality. We haven’t yet established that being able to identify someone in public is bad, or conversely that being able to travel anonymously is a goal we want, right?
- afiori 4y ago
  License plates make speed cams possible. Now I will agree that they can be an instrument for evil, but sometimes they are the only way to avoid a lot of deaths.
kube-system 4y ago
License plates signify an owners initial registration. That’s it. > license plates ensure drivers have had basic training No, that’s what a drivers license does. > and that the vehicle has been inspected for basic safety and emissions standards. Most states (even ones that do require those inspections) issue license plates without these. > To police, the license plates offer a way to find out who the driver is. They really don’t, because vehicles are frequently driven by people who did not register them.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  Both you and the parent are making broad assumptions based on narrow experience. I've lived in enough states that various parts of my experience from various jurisdictions both confirm and refute each of the points made. It's important for everyone to remember that their experience is not the only experience.
  - dahart 4y ago
    Since you implicate me, I’m open to feedback and willing to change my mind. Would you point out my incorrect assumptions to me?
  - spinny 4y ago
    Portuguese license plates for a long time had the month/year of the car manufacture. This been discontinued because apparently no other country in EU does this and it was confused with expiry date. There is no other indication on the license plate. just the numbers and letters. I assume that expiry dates on US plates is related to either road tax or vehicle inspection
    - kelnos 4y ago
      > I assume that expiry dates on US plates is related to either road tax or vehicle inspection Usually yearly registration, though some US states do gate the registration completion on some forms of inspection. California, for example, requires emissions testing every other year for cars older than a certain age, and won't send the new registration until that's been completed. But most states don't require any kind of regular safety or general road-worthiness inspections. I think that's kinda bonkers, but I haven't really looked at stats around how many car crashes are caused by a failure to maintain a car or its safety features. It's possible that the cost of doing such testing is often deemed too high, when considering the benefit.
afiori 4y ago
> ensure [...] that the vehicle has been inspected for basic safety and emissions standards There is a Youtube channel where someone got a Hummer, ripped off the engine, and transformed it into an electric vehicle. When he went for registration (as a custom car) nobody even asked to see it.