6 ms·
A Mathematical Theory of License Plates
- tamaharbor 4y agoI always thought a vanity plate such as “0OQ1I” could easily evade the authorities.
- MonkeyClub 4y agoAnd it would surely stress-test any operating ANPR system.
- ThePadawan 4y agoMakes me wonder if there is a calculable "annoyance" score for license plates. I imagine single plates like that would already be defeated by calling in "Black Dodge, really annoying license plate that's all ones, Ls and Is"
- bombcar 4y agoSome vanity plate systems will let you get one of them (either CODF1SH or C0DFISH say) but once you get one nobody can get the other.
- thechao 4y agohttps://xkcd.com/1105/ https://xkcd.com/1105/
- samatman 4y agoThis comic is what inspired me to start answering "security" questions with one word and five numbers, so my favorite musician is whimsy32910. Filling a security question in with a hard password can be bypassed by "gosh, I didn't know you'd ever use those (because I'm smol and need help!), I just mashed the keyboard". A random word with a few numbers they'll check.
- cyphar 4y agoI use a randomly generated passphrase and store it in my password manager (like "correct horse battery staple" but usually 8 words).
- bombcar 4y agoYou’d be much better off finding similar cars and copying their plates and using them when needed.
- ThePadawan 4y agoI've always felt that besides all the jokes about German efficiency and precision, German license plates actually have lots of cool and helpful features: They use a font intentionally designed to make simple alterations such as F->E harder and/or more obvious [0]. They aren't a random sequence of characters - they have semantics built-in: A German license plate follows the pattern [A-Z]{1,3} [A-Z]{1,2} [0-9]{1-4} (my knowledge here might be a bit outdated) where the first tuple is the issuing authority, the second tuple a qualifier thereof, and the third tuple just a random digit sequence. The issuing authority is a variable-length optimality-based code: Large issuers like the state of Berlin get "B", whereas the city of Bitburg gets "BIT". The qualifier follows the same idea: Plates issued in a rural area (AFAIK - I'm a bit rusty on the topic) generally have 1-letter combinations, while ones issued in cities have 2 letters (for a larger address space compared to adding a digit in the third tuple) So what's the point? Well, motorists can immediately tell if another vehicle is * from out of state (similar to the US - because all license plates have the state's signet on them) * from out of town (so if you're in an urban area, they probably don't know their way around and you should keep some distance) * from the deepest of rural areas (so not only will they not know their way around, they might also not know what a bicycle lane or a roundabout are, given the state of rural German infrastructure). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FE-Schrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FE-Schrift
- rippercushions 4y agoFinland used to do the same. They gave up when they realized that requiring people to reregister their cars after moving was a huge, pointless hassle, plus the original scheme was starting to run out of number space, meaning that big issuers like Helsinki were already using multiple non-obvious letters.
- 6stringmerc 4y agoHere in Texas vanity plates can even get some limited symbols such as a heart shape. Makes for some interesting reading. It’s expensive to maintain comparatively speaking, but I love my Office Space joke reference and once every 6 months somebody makes me roll down my window at a stoplight to ask if it really stands for “PC Load Letter” and when I confirm they laugh really hard. I’ve got a habit of snapping pics of some clever or personal ones here in the DFW area. Maybe I should set up a sub stack or something.
- jsjohnst 4y agoI had one for a long time that wasn’t immediately obvious, but if you got it you got it: IMAYHOO I later added a ‘Did you Yahoo!?’ license plate frame and more people seemed to get it (and not think phrases like ‘I may hoo?’).
- senectus1 4y agoI've had AFK for about 20 years as my vanity plates. My next car which i get in a few months will get NIMHROD :-)
- 6stringmerc 4y agoNice! Years ago when I worked in downtown Dallas there was a really slick and loved Dodge Challenger with the plate “HAX0R” and I was impressed!