photographed license plates

At 21:55 8/8/96, i am not a number! wrote:
>CBS radio news this morning: 80,000 commuters traveling the central
>f'way in SF will have information mailed to them regarding the quake
>retrofit blah blah.
>
>How?  Their license plates have been photographed.
>... and the cheery "news" anchorwoman sweetly moved on to the next
>story.....

>> You *are* making this up, right? Please say you did.

------------------------------------------

I AM NOT making this up, unfortunately.
The news story contents may be bolluxed, of course, maybe they got it 
wrong.
But this is what she said, no joking.

O, and I think they're talking more about putting up cameras at some 
troubling intersections to take pictures of cars running red-lights.

And cameras on transit vehicles (buses primarily).

Gee, I am starting to feel so warm and safe!

In the UK they now use cameras to deter speeding; the cameras are 
triggered by vehicles passing by which exceed the speed-limit, so in 
theory it's only naughty people who get photographed. Interestingly 
enough, there are far more places with camera warning signs than there 
are actual cameras; the actual cameras are moved around at random. Even 
though most of the time there isn't a camera there, almost everbody 
seemed to slow down in the marked areas; probably because there's almost 
100% chance of being caught if there is a camera there. 



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>>>>> In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.960810194513.13080C-100000@tipper.oit.unc.edu>, Simon Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu> writes:

    > In the UK they now use cameras to deter speeding; the cameras are 
    > triggered by vehicles passing by which exceed the speed-limit, so in 
    > theory it's only naughty people who get photographed. Interestingly 
    > enough, there are far more places with camera warning signs than there 
    > are actual cameras; the actual cameras are moved around at random. Even 
    > though most of the time there isn't a camera there, almost everbody 
    > seemed to slow down in the marked areas; probably because there's almost 
    > 100% chance of being caught if there is a camera there. 

In Ontario, they tried this on some of the major highways.  The most
interesting thing about it was that it was proved time and time again
that the technology was not up to snuff: there was an almost 0% chance
of being caught.  When the license plate wasn't obscured or unreadable
(which it usually was) the computerized mailing system made some
stupid mistake that allowed the person to get off if they challenged
it.

The interesting thing is that the project was scrapped for these
reasons when the next government came in, but studies showed that it
_succeeded_ in lowering peoples speed limits.  I personally drove
consistantly about 20-40km over the speed limit while this was in
effect, cuz I knew it sucked, but apparently I was in the minorty.

-Robin

For anybody with interest in this happening in the U.S., please note that
such a practice (cameras and speed tracking devices, resulting in tickets 
being sent to the offending party) has been talked about, in somewhat 
closed circles, for years.  A couple of years ago, 2600 Magazine ran an 
article listing most of the intersections with said devices.  You can 
probably find it in their web page's index of back issues to pick it up.
(http://www.2600.com).

ObCrypto: Has anyone had any experience working with the Sidewinder 
Firewall and encryption and/or S/key or SecurID?  What are drawbacks with 
using DESlogin with a firewall?  or any encrypted transmissions for that 
matter?  Is there anyway to bypass the obvious (sniffing).

Thanks :)
Millie, from her boyfriends account :)
sfuze@sunspot.tiac.net

"Remailers? Why bother? These days they'll find you no matter WHAT you use."