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NULL license plate not such a bright idea

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Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#41

Post by heavenlyblue »

joering2 wrote: post #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 JSO…

No, it’s not the JSON format that is broken - it’s the parser you use for JSON that is broken.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#42

Post by exfed »

xxs wrote: post #21
cortesoft wrote: post #11

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.

On top of that, if anything, forcing the government to fix it's bad code (insert snarky ambiguity between software code and legal code) can't be a bad thing. I'd buy the guy a beer.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#43

Post by kens »

I read years ago in comp.risks about a similar story. A guy in 1979(!) requested a personalized plate "SAILING", with second choice "BOATING". He didn't want a customized plate if he couldn't get those, so for his third choice he put down "NO PLATE". Of course, he ended up with "NO PLATE". He ended up getting 2500 parking tickets, since cars with no plate had "NO PLATE" written on the ticket.

References: http://www.mekabay.com/overviews/risks/risks03_1986_06-04-19...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/licensed-to-bill/

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#44

Post by sokoloff »

Aloha wrote: post #7
Causality1 wrote: post #2

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 usually can, and various states have before.

My favorite such revocation: https://jalopnik.com/virginia-dmv-revokes-worlds-greatest-li... (Virginia's "EATTHE" Children First plate)

I think they should have been allowed to keep it, frankly.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#45

Post by listenallyall »

ceejayoz wrote: post #28
listenallyall wrote: post #18

This is clearly an entirely fake anecdote. Show me a pic and change my mind.

It's been blogspammed. There's photo evidence in the much better article at https://mashable.com/article/dmv-vanity-license-plate-def-co... from the DEFCON talk.

OK, a screenshot of a list of tickets. An 8-year old could create that in Excel. A photo of the license plate?

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#46

Post by the-dude »

I once had a product owner for a student/university web app who complained that for a particular user, their lastname was displayed as 'None'.

This was a Python project and the product owner apparently already had learned 'None' equals NULL.

I dug into the file which we used to import the users from and discovered the user's lastname actually was 'None'.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#47

Post by kens »

Causality1 wrote: post #2

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?

Yes, of course they can revoke vanity plates. For example, the story (2002-2004) of the Washington software engineer who spent a couple of years fighting to keep his "GOTMILF" license plate and ended up having it canceled.

Ref: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/end-road-gotmil...

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#48

Post by desas »

baybal2 wrote: post #30
dhosek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

#50

Post by giancarlostoro »

xeromal wrote: post #32
xxs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Court isn't cheap. You're paying for it with a lawyer or with your own time

> Droogie contacted the DMV who told him to change his plate. He refused because he didn't do anything wrong. While they wiped the fines off his record, unfortunately for him, they didn't fix the problem in the system so once again, Droogie has accrued another $6,000 in tickets that he had nothing to do with. He says he won't be paying those either.

Except he just contacted the DMV. No lawyers necessary.

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