A man got a vanity license plate "null", which caused a meltdown in the California ticketing software system

submitted by magnora7 from futurism.com

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[–]TiwakingMy Pronouns are Nigger and Boss Nigger 7 insightful - 5 fun7 insightful - 4 fun8 insightful - 5 fun -  (1 child)

Ahh yes. Little Bobby Tables is what we call him

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

...always a relevant xkcd. ;)

[–]beermeem 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I’ve actually seen that guy’s plates on the street. I did chuckle.

When you try to game the system but the system is a little too prepared for you...

[–]Spud 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

This one is hilarious! Little Bobby Tables! Brilliant.

Always fun when smart people do not think it all through... oops!

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I agree, but it's also interesting that doing things is becoming more and more complicated to do correctly...

[–]Spud 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So true. Tech has exploded! And there is a ton of churn. Pretty much impossible for one person to do it all, unless they are in some limited domain or other.

I like embedded systems, do lots with close to the metal code, or some higher level thing.

When I look at web facing development? It is just big now. Bigger than when I left systems engineering in the late 00's.

Security is, always has been risk / reward management at best.

But damn, "good as it gets" is damn tough to understand and actualize.

Thanks for the work you and others (I don't know) have done here. It's a non trivial thing.

[–]Vigte 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

OOOOOOH and it's almost time to renew my license plate...

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It turns out that when a ticket is entered into the system for a car with unknown license plates, the field on the form reads “NULL.” Since there was suddenly a car registered with those exact plates, $12,000 worth of unpaid tickets all got mailed to Droogie’s door, per KNRS.

The DMV eventually dismissed the fines, but since he’s still using those plates, Droogie has already amassed another $6,000 worth of other people’s tickets.

LoL. He'll spend the rest of his life goiing to court over tickets.