3 ms·

This reminds me of a story I read where someone named "Null" had lot of issues with computerized systems. Can't find thr exact story but this was a few years ag

This reminds me of a story I read where someone named "Null" had lot of issues with computerized systems. Can't find thr exact story but this was a few years ago.

teh_infallible 2y ago
I heard a story like that where someone had a vanity license plate “NONE” and kept getting cited for not having a plate.
- thih9 2y ago
  It was “null”: https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/ https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-ha... > facing $12,049 of traffic fines wrongly sent his way. He’s still not sure if he’ll be able to renew his auto registration this year without paying someone else's tickets. And thanks to the Kafkaesque loop he’s caught in, it’s not clear if the citations will ever stop coming.
  - vsnf 2y ago
    An object lesson in getting funny with automated systems that have the power to inflict consequences.
    - thih9 2y ago
      To be fair, the consequences are very much inadequate. This should have been a letter saying “we allowed you to register that plate by mistake, change it asap”. If anything, this is a lesson to not build systems that can issue tickets to the wrong person - and allow the system’s decisions to be easily overridden at the very least.
      - vsnf 2y ago
        That's the takeaway for people in charge of the software development, sure. But really, is it even actually a lesson? To my knowledge, there was no accountability, no backlash, no one got fired or reprimanded, no manager was denied a promotion. What lesson was learned by the stewards of the system, really? Meanwhile, a lesson was very much learned by Mr. Tartaro who, as a DEFCON speaker, should have absolutely known better. He was playing with fire, and now he's suffering the consequences. I don't want to come across as defending the system in use, although it seems to be as much of a social issue as a technical one with people interpreting the text field as being invalid, but this was clearly a dumbass thing to do.
        thih9 2y ago
        Then again, if a DEFCON speaker didn't expect this level of a clusterfuck of an outcome, then who would have?
tinix 2y ago
There are people named Null that cause issues, for sure. There's an xkcd for that: https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/
- ben_w 2y ago
  And a 'number plate' for that XKCD: https://hackaday.com/2014/04/04/sql-injection-fools-speed-traps-and-clears-your-record/ https://hackaday.com/2014/04/04/sql-injection-fools-speed-tr...
  - yonatan8070 2y ago
    I've seen that image plenty of times, though I've never seen anyone who's able to comment on whether it actually tricks the system I feel like it wouldn't work because when reading a numric license plate going 100km/h there are bound to be some errors. I find it hard to believe the programmers who built the system didn't account for that by dropping non-number characters or regexing the OCR result to verify it's in an acceptable format
m463 2y ago
> Can't find thr exact story Probably because a web search for null has too many false positives, or maybe the stories aren't indexed. :)

This reminds me of a story I read where someone named "Null" had lot of issues with computerized systems. Can't find thr exact story but this was a few years ago.

teh_infallible 2y ago

I heard a story like that where someone had a vanity license plate “NONE” and kept getting cited for not having a plate.

thih9 2y ago
It was “null”: https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/ https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-ha... > facing $12,049 of traffic fines wrongly sent his way. He’s still not sure if he’ll be able to renew his auto registration this year without paying someone else's tickets. And thanks to the Kafkaesque loop he’s caught in, it’s not clear if the citations will ever stop coming.
- vsnf 2y ago
  An object lesson in getting funny with automated systems that have the power to inflict consequences.
  - thih9 2y ago
    To be fair, the consequences are very much inadequate. This should have been a letter saying “we allowed you to register that plate by mistake, change it asap”. If anything, this is a lesson to not build systems that can issue tickets to the wrong person - and allow the system’s decisions to be easily overridden at the very least.
    - vsnf 2y ago
      That's the takeaway for people in charge of the software development, sure. But really, is it even actually a lesson? To my knowledge, there was no accountability, no backlash, no one got fired or reprimanded, no manager was denied a promotion. What lesson was learned by the stewards of the system, really? Meanwhile, a lesson was very much learned by Mr. Tartaro who, as a DEFCON speaker, should have absolutely known better. He was playing with fire, and now he's suffering the consequences. I don't want to come across as defending the system in use, although it seems to be as much of a social issue as a technical one with people interpreting the text field as being invalid, but this was clearly a dumbass thing to do.
      - thih9 2y ago
        Then again, if a DEFCON speaker didn't expect this level of a clusterfuck of an outcome, then who would have?

tinix 2y ago

There are people named Null that cause issues, for sure. There's an xkcd for that: https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/

ben_w 2y ago
And a 'number plate' for that XKCD: https://hackaday.com/2014/04/04/sql-injection-fools-speed-traps-and-clears-your-record/ https://hackaday.com/2014/04/04/sql-injection-fools-speed-tr...
- yonatan8070 2y ago
  I've seen that image plenty of times, though I've never seen anyone who's able to comment on whether it actually tricks the system I feel like it wouldn't work because when reading a numric license plate going 100km/h there are bound to be some errors. I find it hard to believe the programmers who built the system didn't account for that by dropping non-number characters or regexing the OCR result to verify it's in an acceptable format

m463 2y ago

> Can't find thr exact story Probably because a web search for null has too many false positives, or maybe the stories aren't indexed. :)