Tech wonders on homeland security horizon

[Roy M. Silvernail]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 04:00:58PM +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> (Don't you feel much safer, already?)

Not really...

> Such license plate recognition systems, fixed and mobile, already are
> stopping criminals in cars in New York City, Washington D.C. and 23 states,
> according to Mark Windover, president of Remington ELSAG Law Enforcement
> Systems, which is marketing its product to 250 U.S. police agencies.

I'm really surprised that license plates aren't already 
explicitly machine-readable.  How hard would it be to overprint a 
barcode that only shows up when scanned with IR?  No OCR problems, and 
you still get the "advantages" of a passive tracking system, except more 
accurate.
-- 
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