Live data from Hacker News

NULL license plate not such a bright idea

knrs.iheart.com

21–30 of 484 posts

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#21

I love when people double down out of principle, when the only person getting hurt is themselves. He refuses to change it because he did nothing wrong...sure, but you are also the only one being hurt by it. Is this really the hill to die on?

Die on?

But how - he can challenge the fines in a court of law. Since it's a vanity plate, adding an extra notoriety won't hurt.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#24
post #4

This is funny. I wonder what would happen if you could put a 'NOT ' in front of your plate number... would everyone but you get a ticket?

Nah, because it's not unsanitized SQL at fault, but people writing a literal NULL in the license plate field when there isn't one.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#25
There are ways to properly sanitize inputs these days so NULL becomes "NULL" (string), BUT also tons of systems moved into JSON format assuming its safe. It is not. JSON is not binary safe and there are tons of unicode chars that will break JSON. I was once overseeing system that people would bring down all the time by registering usernames that the app could not properly sanitize and they in return were breaking JSON format to the halt of the whole system. I should not admit but using same chars I myself broke few youtube channels when comments and votes were working in JSON format themselves without properly removing unsafe char codes. Good times.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#26

The interesting question this article poses is whether there's a system in place for the government to revoke vanity plates it's already approved. Can they force him to change the plate?

They just wouldn't let him renew his vehicle registration unless he changes his vanity plate or goes back to the a random number.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#27
post #13

Shout out to all the Python programmers from the other frontpage thread who are responsible for bugs like this with their crappy scripting languages.

If you want to throw darts at someone, I think database systems with three-valued logic would be a better target. This criticism (not for these reasons) has been leveled...

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#29
post #13

Shout out to all the Python programmers from the other frontpage thread who are responsible for bugs like this with their crappy scripting languages.

Crappy code can be written in any language, see all of the CVEs in C code, even when written by experts.

As surprising as it may be, bad code is often written by bad programmers. It doesn't matter what language you use if you write bad code.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#30
post #24
post #4

This is funny. I wonder what would happen if you could put a 'NOT ' in front of your plate number... would everyone but you get a ticket?

Nah, because it's not unsanitized SQL at fault, but people writing a literal NULL in the license plate field when there isn't one.

I wonder, what will "DROP *;" license plate do?
Post reply on HN