Geeky license plate earns hacker $12,000 in parking tickets

guest · Aug 13, 2019

Geeky license plate earns hacker $12,000 in parking tickets
A California man's vanity license plate backfires spectacularly
August 13, 2019
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/0...se-plate-to-null-gets-12k-in-parking-tickets/

[...] today we have a cautionary tale from California, which reveals the risks of being too creative. It's the story of a security researcher known as Droogie, who presented his experience at the recent DEF CON conference in Las Vegas. Droogie decided his new vanity plate should read "NULL." While he did this mainly for the giggles, he told the audience that there was an ulterior motive, as reported by Mashable:

[...] "'I’m gonna be invisible.' Instead, I got all the tickets."

Droogie's hope was that the new plate would exploit California's DMV ticketing system in a similar manner to the classic xkcd "Bobby Tables" cartoon. With any luck, the DMV's ticket database would see "NULL" and consign any of his tickets to the void. Unfortunately, the exact oppositehappened.
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mirimir · Aug 14, 2019

Well, he has gotten them all dropped, so far. So maybe it will work out as planned. If they continue dropping them, anyway.

Risky, though

zapjb · Aug 14, 2019

Sounds like a pain.

guest · Aug 18, 2019

A Brief History of Vanity License Plates Gone Wrong
The stories might sound unbelievable, but they’re all real—and a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to get clever at the DMV
August 18, 2019
https://www.wired.com/story/vanity-license-plates-gone-wrong-fines/?verso=true

This week, WIRED looked into the plight of Joseph Tartaro, a security researcher whose NULL vanity license plate at one point had him on the hook for $12,049 in fines.
But while his ordeal was agonizing, it was also far from unique. In fact, Tartaro joins a long lineage of people whose vanity plates backfired in spectacular fashion.

Each state handles things a little differently, but Wisconsin’s lawmakers captured the prevailing ethos pretty well: “The department may refuse to issue any combination of letters or numbers, or both, which may carry connotations offensive to good taste or decency, or which would be misleading, or in conflict with the issuance of any other registration plates.”

The following examples, like Tartaro’s, might sound unbelievable. But they’re all real—and hopefully a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to get a little clever at the DMV. [...]
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NO PLATE
It took a month before the first citation came through. Seven months later, he was up to 2,500 notices.
NOTAG
[...] racked up over 200 citations as Delaware’s computer system linked his personal info to any ticket without a plate
NV
What he soon figured out, though, is that NV also stands for “not visible,” at least to California traffic cops. [...] Vautier said, that led to dozens of tickets across seven different counties landing in his mailbox, totaling over $3,000.
XXXXXXX
Seems innocuous enough, but what Roberson didn’t realize, at least at first, was that Birmingham, Alabama, officers used Xs to indicate a vehicle with missing or expired plates. [...] hitting $19,000 in total fines before the city adjusted the system to accommodate him. [...]
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