613
Flock Says Its Cameras Worked 'Correctly' When Police Tracked and Ambushed Me for No Reason
(www.thedrive.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
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A- USA doesn't have standardised plates? Not even 1 per state, but 8000?!
2- Fuck mass survalance, fuck armed cops, fuck Flock.
A, but then 2? You monster! :)
A - The USA is 50 countries in a trench coat
2 - Correct
Tribal nations also have their own plates in some cases. Mine does.
Each state has different levels of customization with different background images. I like plate customization, its a form of self expression.
You have bigger problems if you're relying on a custom license plate to express a personality...
Risk isn't worth "reward', especially when you hear things like certain backwards states trying to mandate a default " in god we trust" of other biblical theme so that people then need to opt out intentionally, in turn their vehicles becoming potential targets for zealots and cops to harass.
Just mandate national design with black text on white background
Customized images, yes. Overlapping alphanumeric codes (two vehicles with the same sequence?) NO. Maybe it was necessary in the 1960s, but it is long since past time for issuance of alpha-numeric unique identifiers to become... unique throughout the states.
How many digits to we need for 297,500,000 plates (as of 2026).
Plus we should probably include Canada and Mexico, since they have the same sized plates and cross the borders regularly.
Canada also has custom plates and different designs in each province too.
Also unless I’m mistaken, when Britain was in the EU, it didn’t use standardized plates like the rest of the member states, right?
There are no standard plates in the EU. The only matching thing is the country code on the left side.
That’s a lot closer to standardized than the Canada or the US.
6 characters (A-Z 0-9) gives you 2,176,782,336 combinations.
Even if you take out some confusing combos like O0, 1I, 5S, 8B ... 6 characters of 31 different kinds gives you 887,503,681
The number drops even more when offensive words or phrases are removed. Nobody's getting a license plate that reads P00 A55 or a bad word for black people.
What about 7 characters?
You wouldn't believe it. Even more!
the formula is number of possible symbols (letters, numbers) S to the power of the number of characters on the plate N, or S^N, so if you add one more character out of 31 possible symbols, then you multiply by (another) 31 available combinations.
Plates should be standardized. Bumper stickers and other things can be used for personalization.
Says who, you?
I wrote the words, so yes.
Oh, well you’re nobody. They don’t need to be standardized and will remain as they are lol.
The American freedom!
To choose the license plate...
The day is saved
Not the guy you replied to, but plates have a purpose that are not necessarily compatible with Art and personalization. Not defending a broken society, just pointing it out.
They work perfectly fine. I'd argue these custom ones are easier to read and remember.
Honestly there's no issues if you're not a flock camera
Their purpose is perfectly compatible with art and personalization.
That's like embellishing a prison camp number with a fun design. That's not self-expression that's morbid.
What the actual fuck is this comparison? I'm extremely anti-car, and even I'm wondering what has to be wrong with you.
Incidentally got a chuckle out of me that you're saying this about what's often effectively a social green-beard (e.g. plates for sports teams, hobbies, causes, etc.).
Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't be registering cars I'm just saying a licence plate is intended as a vehicle tracking ID. That's the whole point. I always considered licence plate customization at best tacky. If I want to add some decals and bumper stickers and such, I'm not going to put it on a state issued ID tag.
For the record, I think customized graphics on your credit/debit cards, check designs, etc. is just as morbid. You don't "own" these things, they're not part of your identity, and letting them trick your brain into pretending that they belong to you and are an extension of your "self" by adding fancy designs is kind of gross. They are symbols that reference you, they are not a part of you.
You're about the whole "fake choice" people get in society thing?
I understand that, but I think you went overboard a little 😅
Everyone here and everyone who gets them knows and understands that.
I didn't say or even imply you were, and the fact you clarified that anyway is bizarre – because it'd be completely batshit.
Brother, my god, it is a fucking identifier plate on your car; no one's getting "tricked", and I don't know if you can believe this, but people can enjoy making objects into extensions of themselves without becoming slaves to The Man – if you can apprehend that someone in Kentucky who pays $25/year or some shit to signal that they're into amateur radio isn't offering up their soul in a plate-shaped vessel on the altar of Rebecca Goodman.
Even if you want to bring ALPRs into this, custom plates existed long, long before we had the technology to turn plates into mass-surveillance tools.
This is so goddamn snobby that it's painful.
I'm not really concerned what your opinion of me is. You think it's snobby to not waste money on a stylized government ID? Because that makes sense. If you want to plaster your car in your favourite things, go for it. Live your best life. If you want to paint your car like Lisa Frank exploded in a mist of glitter on it, I'm totally down. But the plate, that's not ever an extension of you. It isn't yours and it never was, and the illusion that it is, is kind of sad. But clearly, my opinion isn't a popular one, so I'll leave off. We're clearly not going to agree on this.
If you could read, you'd know I think that it's fine one way or another and that what's snobby is your obnoxious attitude toward people who do get one. The difference between you and I is that I see it as a waste of money for me and leave it at that because I don't pretend to be superior and enlightened when my level of insight that the unwashed masses surely lack is "um, didn't you know that license plates are tracking IDs?? by the government??? Fucking idiot, Sandra, with your stupid fucking 'museums are for everyone' plate with Snoopy on it."
Got it. You resent other people having values you don't share.
As you sit here saying those who have values you don't share are participating in something "gross", under a "sad illusion", and "letting themselves be tricked" into doing something that's "morbid", "tacky at best", and akin to "embellishing their prison camp number". lmao okay
So are you a Mercator or a Robinson kind of guy?
So would you rather I assume they just don't know any better, that they lack agency and enough insight to recognize that calling it "self-expression" is internalizing an imposed identity? Or are you going to care-troll that I'm calling them stupid and helpless then?
Yes, I think most people get that's all it is, and they do it anyway. I think the impulse to ignore external imposition is pretty deeply conditioned in people and I think that's unfortunate. Do I think it's their fault, not entirely, but do I also think they have a choice in it, I certainly do. Even when it's a matter of practical necessity, we should always be aware of identity imposed externally, because it can and often is used against you. I do think that offering customized plates is kind of gross because it's a way of dulling that awareness, and I think it's morbid that people have been conditioned to accept it, even fully cognizant of what it represents.
And you can keep your red herring, I'm not interested.
I'm kind of in agreement with him, in that I don't see the point in paying extra to have an ID on my car that tells The Man more about me than I think they need to know, but I don't think it makes me a shill or (much of) a sucker if I get them. Everyone, including me, makes less than ideal choices. This poor choice is less egregious than most.
Literally what on Earth are you doing to your license plate that tells The Man more about you in a way that realistically matters? You don't need your Ashley Madison credentials to create a custom plate.
If you're worried about dragnet surveillance, I guess it'll help them when they divide the prison camps by baseball team. If you're worried about automated surveillance like by ALPRs then, uh, pretty sure the model whose literal entire purpose is to create its own features for classification will find abundant other ways to uniquely fingerprint and extract actual, pertinent information about you. And if you're worried about targeted surveillance by humans scrutinizing you down to what your custom plate says about you, then god help you, and viva México.
So, you walk into a government agency, and they say, "Thanks for providing this required information about yourself. You can provide more information about yourself to us and everyone you pass while driving your vehicle, for a fee. Remember, the more mainstream your opinion, the more it will cost." Why would anyone say yes to that proposal? And why would you get up in arms about someone saying they think that's ridiculous but generally pretty harmless?
If you think the magnitude of information gained is even worth considering for either (or frankly any) party, you're grossly misunderstanding the scale of the surveillance state or just have really terrible ideas for custom plates. Your plate is inherently already a 100% unique identifier; if you're worried enough that like six characters of custom text or a chosen design will in any way further government or corporate surveillance, then – and I say this as someone who frequents privacy communities, hates defeatism, and thinks people (myself included) need better privacy hygiene – have fun pissing on a forest fire.
You say you're into privacy communities, but you sound like someone who pays to get more ads. As for reading comprehension, what exactly does pretty harmless mean to you?
My first thought when reading your previous reply is that you're someone who likes to argue for the sake of arguing. This reply has reinforced that opinion.
Bbbbbbbbbbb wrote: "I like plate customization, its a form of self expression."
GreenBeard responded to this totally innocuous, non-argumentative statement with: "That’s like embellishing a prison camp number with a fun design. That’s not self-expression that’s morbid." Then went on to call the practice "gross" and "tacky" and the people who get custom plates under a "sad illusion" and "letting themselves be tricked".
Again, in response to just an extremely benign and normal statement: "I like plate customization, its a form of self expression."
Truly I'm the one who likes arguing for the sake of an argument here – not the person who started and perpetuated this abject, comically combative nonsense.
I agree with you, bc that was also the Impression I got. A very emotional/aggressive and unnecessary response/thread from tt27..
Nike's new IrisNet profit-sharing plan nicely puts a stylish glow on my shoe logos when the fashionably discreet LaceCam notices the right eyes noticing my shoes, and at this rate I will pay the shoes off in 54 months!
No. Just no.
As bbbbbbbbbbb said, every state not only has their own plates, but multiple plate designs. Some states, the variations will be completely different colors and number length. Absolutely no consistency.
Many states also don't (usually) require old plates to be turned in when designs change. My state's gone through two design changes since I started driving in 2010 and I still have my original plates. I've seen people driving with plates from the 80s.