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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?

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?