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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

#71

Post by vinay427 »

lordnacho wrote: post #53

That's a bit curious though. If the code relies on a magic value, you'd think it's in order to skip trying to get data it doesn't have, like the address of the unidentifiable cars. Even if NULL then does have this address attached, why does it take the branch where it looks for the data? I suppose it would be in a relational DB, perhaps there's a join that drops missing entries, but if they aren't missing they show u…

They're likely different organizations. The one that entered 'NULL' license plates was a "privately operated citation processing center" so they presumably weren't in charge of looking up the addresses for each license plate. If they were it would be rather pointless to save the 'NULL' value in the first place.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#72

Post by jle17 »

Reminds me of a recent groceries delivery to my home. I had ordered online the day before and had some trouble filling in the form but managed to validate it anyway.

The delivery man called to tell me my address was incorrect. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me it said 'Null Null Null Null'.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#73

Post by Scoundreller »

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?

Ontario Canada has an anesthesiologist with a “FENTANYL” license plate.

Was funny in 1995, not so much now.

So he went to the DMV and asked them to change it, and they wanted to charge him to do that.

He’s like, no, i’m not paying.

Eventually he writes a letter to his politician saying “please revoke my license plate” and eventually he gets a letter saying they got a complaint (ie: his) and the DMV wants to revoke his plate.

But he had to wait 30 days For the appeal clock to run out, just in case he wanted to appeal his own complaint.

Kinda funny, but kinda sad that someone paid $400k+ per year by the government wasted thousands more because he didn’t want to pay the $100 plate change fee.

* some details/numbers estimated from memory.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#74

Post by DJBunnies »

Stan, are you in here?

My buddy Stan registered for null@verizon.com back in the early 2000s so you could link sms to email delivery. Wound up with so. many. text messages. Reminders to take medicine, personal convos, sports results, everything.

Was great fun to read while waiting for class.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#75

Post by amyjess »

Iv wrote: post #60
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant xkcd comic https://xkcd.com/1105/

In the Starcraft 2 community it is called barcoding. Basically, I 1 | l are all accepted characters for a name and I think some do look actually identical on most fonts used in the game. So yeah, one person doing that you call "barcode", 2 persons doing that, you already have deniability. Be more than 10, and that's a crowd.

Back when I used to play Ingress, that was really common. The Enlightened in Dallas had a ton of barcode names.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#76

Post by rory096 »

delinka wrote: post #67
lordnacho wrote: post #53

That's a bit curious though. If the code relies on a magic value, you'd think it's in order to skip trying to get data it doesn't have, like the address of the unidentifiable cars. Even if NULL then does have this address attached, why does it take the branch where it looks for the data? I suppose it would be in a relational DB, perhaps there's a join that drops missing entries, but if they aren't missing they show u…

The code doesn't rely on a magic value, the humans have decided that an empty value will be typed, by hand, into their terminals as the characters "NULL". The problem is that the employees with access to the system are required to enter a 'valid' value. But in some cases there is no value. So the 'valid' value they've come up with is the string "NULL" - they can't use "~~NULL~~" because ~ isn't allowed on a license p…

>the humans have decided that an empty value will be typed, by hand, into their terminals as the characters "NULL"

Almost certainly because of software constraints, like the form not allowing the plate number field to be blank.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#77

Post by shawnz »

cortesoft wrote: post #58
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.

Figure of speech... I just mean he is making a stand for something not that important but causes him (and only him, really) inconvenience

Maybe this particular bug inconveniences only him, but it exposed an improper practice that in general could have affected others too.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#78

Post by vinay427 »

ldoughty wrote: post #36

I have a family member who's license plate started with "&". The DMV accepts it, plates were ordered online fine, but police systems can't handle it apparently, to my family members ultimate discomfort. I commonly joke it probably gets the individual out of automated tickers for speeding and red lights, but when an officer pulls them over we sometimes need to explain that the "&" is dropped in the system (or so we've…

Any word on whether the plate without the preceding '&' is in circulation? I'd be curious if your records in the police systems would be merged with the records of the owner of that plate.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#79

Post by delinka »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #52

This isn't even a coding error, NULL is apparently valid license plate, and for some reason there is a private processing center typing it in to the government system. First of all they are accidentally committing fraud (libel?) against this guy. But more importantly, why is there a private processing center? Don't the officers type this in as they fill out the ticket? or even just scan the plates? If there aren't pl…

Brand new cars don't yet have plates. Granted, most states now have dealer-printed labels with an identifier on them, but still, new cars don't immediately have plates when they roll off the lot.

Re: NULL license plate not such a bright idea

#80

Post by delinka »

rory096 wrote: post #76
delinka wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code doesn't rely on a magic value, the humans have decided that an empty value will be typed, by hand, into their terminals as the characters "NULL". The problem is that the employees with access to the system are required to enter a 'valid' value. But in some cases there is no value. So the 'valid' value they've come up with is the string "NULL" - they can't use "~~NULL~~" because ~ isn't allowed on a license p…

>the humans have decided that an empty value will be typed, by hand, into their terminals as the characters "NULL" Almost certainly because of software constraints, like the form not allowing the plate number field to be blank.

Yeah, I addressed that:

>employees with access to the system are required to enter a 'valid' value.

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