Digital license plates sold by Reviver, already legal to buy in some states and drive with nationwide, can be hacked by their owners to evade traffic regulations or even law enforcement surveillance.
Who the fuck is buying a digital license plate for $499 and a $8/mo subscription? Why does it need a subscription? Wtf?
Maybe to game the system by hacking it
Or they can just… Obey traffic laws? They exist for a reason.
Would be nice if fewer people drove like sociopaths.
Someone who regularly skips tolls and runs red lights and knows this vulnerability exists?
Reading the article the subscription can be bypassed with the jailbreak. A red light camera ticket is $100 here, so 5 of those and the plate has paid for itself.
Of course, you could also not drive like a shithead, but where there’s a will there’s a way and all
$100 holy shit that’s so cheap! red light cameras here (melbourne, aus) are $495 (~$315USD)
our speeding fines go up to $2272 (45km/h+ over - ~28mph)
don’t run red lights and speed is generally the accepted strategy
I mean, it is also pretty trivial to just steal a license plate. Or even to put a decal on the back of your license plate to make that 9 into an 8 and so forth.
The reality is the same as with a digital one. If your number is for a stolen car or an amber alert, you are gonna have a bad time. Otherwise? You are fine for a red light camera. You are fucked once the cop pulls you over and wants to see your license and registration and realizes the plate doesn’t match. You can MAYBE try to argue the cop misread your license plate while you switch it back but they also have a camera pointed at your car while that is happening (don’t worry, they’ll lose the footage if they decide to shoot or assault you).
APR systems also exist and are installed in a good portion of police cars. Likely to get flagged if the plate and make/model do not match.
There are a lot of misconceptions regarding how effective the automated scanners are.
In theory? Yes, you can compare the license plate against the make and model and even color of the car. And there are plenty of demos of exactly that.
In reality? It is almost never used outside of something completely egregious like “This says this is a sedan but that is actually a giant semi truck”. Because cars just aren’t distinct enough for this to be reliable enough to justify the cop brushing the donut off their stomaches, trying to remember where they left their gun, and tapping on a window.
What it IS good for is checking for plates that have an APB out on them (so the amber alert scenario) and making up a bullshit excuse for why a black person’s car needs to be checked.
Anything that makes evading law enforcement surveillance is good in my book. Personally, if you’re going to hack them in order to avoid traffic issues, please use the license plates of police officers instead so that they have to investigate themselves. Please don’t use like little old ladies or something. That would be mean.
Edit: paywall free https://archive.is/Nl6Ye
That’s not surveillance… having a license plate on a motor vehicle has NOTHING to do with surveillance.
No, but the proliferation of automated license plate readers and location tracking through them is definitely surveillance. And therefore, if changing your license plate number trivially can make that damn near impossible, I’m all for it.
They do the same for my guns too. Completely agree. It should be easier to buy guns without any tracking and we should file off the serial numbers. /s
You’re driving a car. It’s a giant rolling machine that people need to identify. It’s not a right. My car makes 600hp and launches like crazy, and hits 180. Should I also cover my license plate numbers so I can drive everywhere going 180? I mean, I don’t care, but I’m sure others do. Also, I LOVE going fast…
Be angry about that on your phone, in your adverts, and in other areas. Things that have capacity to kill people should be heavily monitored and cared for.
You’re right, we should actually file our serial numbers off of our guns, and we should also 3D print them so that they have no serial numbers to begin with.
While I don’t disagree, whether or not something should be tracked has jack all to do with whether or not tracking it is surveillance.
Also, maybe don’t just jump to the conclusion that someone is championing the idea that they should be allowed to be a raging shithead. You really went off on a tirade about a whole bunch of shit they weren’t even implying.
They’re either intelligent enough to recognize that somethings are tracked for a reason, or they’re dumb enough to believe that people should be trusted to make intelligent decisions while driving on roads we all pay for. The same as with guns and cars. Both are deadly and so are somewhat comparable in this situation.
Also, they were absolutely championing the idea of being a shithead since they advocated for running red lights but having a license that is a police officers. You’re still guilty of the act.
Guns are used to shoot. Cars are used to drive around.
I couldn’t possibly care less if the government knew exactly where and when people shoot what guns. I care that the government tracks where anyone is going at all times (because cars are required to exist in a lot of the world). The reason the government might track guns is to tell where they’re going and to ideally curb sales to criminals, whereas the reason the government might (does) track cars is straight up surveillance.
That would make you incredibly conspicuous. Instead, using it on the family of police officers. All the fun of robbing an old woman but with in a clean, anti-authoritarian aftertaste.
Perfect!
