From Trump campaign signs to Planned Parenthood bumper stickers, license plate readers around the US are creating searchable databases that reveal Americans’ political leanings and more.
I’ve never wanted to post signs in my yard or put stickers on my bumpers because I didn’t want PEOPLE judging me. And people are judgmental. Now I’m glad I had that opinion because we have to worry about computers logging us so we can be judged in the future for whatever weird reason someone comes up with?
What happened to freedoms in America? It’s easy for a government to strip them after the people stop believing in them being important. Corporations are making free thought and self expression unimportant and dangerous and the gov’t will have no choice but to curb our freedoms in response. And we will cheer it on. I hate this shit.
We got attacked and then in fear gave away our freedoms for the promise of more protections. There were people blowing the whistle each time but we ignored them. Patriot Act. Lobbying to not consider social platforms news aggregates. Lobbying to not pay news outlets, Lobbying to weaken anti-trust laws. Lobbying to kill legislation protecting children online. Lobbying against legislation to protect user privacy. Lobbying for the use of tech like facial recognition.
This kind of thing has been happening for ages.
Alright! Dystopian nightmare timeline is a go!
I especially like the part where cops are reported to heavily abuse these databases for personal agendas or to share with criminals. Truly ACAB
This is a very good reason to maintain the appearance of neutrality while facing your local community
This might even be an argument for putting those smoked opaque covers on your license plates even if it’s questionably legal. There’s more than a few people out there with definitely not legal smoked covers to the point you literally can’t read their plates unless you’re tailgating them, and cops don’t give a shit because nobody is ever pulled over for illegal mods. I’d wager that the cameras can’t read them either if you can’t at 10 yards
The real dystopian nightmare is the one where everyone conforms and acts neutral out of fear. That’s how we really lose who we are and any sense of improving the situation.
Hmm. I have a bumper sticker that says “I ❤️ Nuclear War”. I wonder what bucket that puts me in.
The non credible defense bucket.
I’m looking for some adversarial material - numbers and letters at various angles that I can stick to the left and right of my license plate. To a human it will be obvious which part is my license plate but it might be sufficient to confuse an ALPR algorithm.
Literally illegal
to modify the license plate itself. but it’s surroundings? why?
What do you think obscuring means?
Obsucuring means making it partially or entirely not visible.
Obfuscating, however…
the other user defined it well
Drive around with a permanent bike rack in the way of your tail plate. No front plates.
Some states require front plates.
Blocking a plate with a bike rack isn’t a bad idea, except - a) the rack will wear your paint, b) any automated toll collection based on license plate reading will also be blocked. Probably NBD once in while, but if someone regularly skips tolls and is caught it’s gonna hurt. They just had a toll-skipper sting near me where they caught a crapton of people who regularly skipped tolls with license plate blockers and temp tags. They lost their cars instantly, a few got slapped with 6-figure fines and fees, and I imagine jail time might be on the menu for some.
Ours apparently does, but nobody follows that law, and I’ve never seen it enforced.
- a - easy fix, drive a beater
- b - the only tolls in my area use a sensor
If you didn’t want to use a tracking sensor for tolls, can’t you just pay cash? Whenever I visit Florida, that’s what I do. It sucks when the machine is busted, but then I just chuck my change at it and go.
They’ve been dismantling cash toll stops to erect automated readers in their place.
Dang. I haven’t been to Florida (or anywhere with tolls) for a few years, but I knew plate readers were an option, but I thought cash tolls were still quite prevalent.
That’s a privacy nightmare.
I’ve resigned myself to just pre planning longer routes to avoid tolls. I am not putting a transponder in my car and I am certainly not going pay for that privilege or to help normalize it.
there’s a town nearby with dispensaries that have some amazing deals. there also happen to be three red light cams and two license plate readers the have been reported to give their information to out of state agencies and ICE on the two other stoplights in town. You can’t convince me that’s not some kind of honeypot.
They literally scan your ID when you buy green in my state. They already know who you are and where you live. The cameras are to keep people honest (intimidated).
I mean in addition to all that even if they didn’t scan your id of you pay with anything but cash then the credit card company or bank knows and can be made to give up that info pretty easily.
Not a single cannabis store that I know of in the US accepts credit card. They’re all cash only because the banks don’t want any part of it. (Technically it’s still federally illegal, and they don’t want to get in trouble as national business)
I have seen many run it as an ATM transaction rounded to the nearest dollar and refund the change in cash. I saw this in two states.
Having said that. I love cash only businesses. Visa and the other CC companies have way too much power. We should all go back to cash tomorrow, but we won’t.
I ran a business, not weed related, that was cash only for the better part of 5 years. When I started taking cards I made sure cash and bitcoin were also options. The only downside was going to the bank every week to grab stacks of small bills for change. The upside was never having to deal with credit cards and every payment settling instantly when the cash changed hands. Under $100, cash is king.
Why under $100?
Simply because most people won’t walk around with $100+ in their wallet. If you are specifically going to pay for something I guess cash is king until it hits 30-40lbs and gets harder to carry.
