License plate recognition tools led to abduction arrest

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/13/MNJFSO1NM.DTL

by gibsonf1 • 19 years ago

9 8 19 years ago

gibsonf1• 19 years ago

Call me sentimental, but this technology sounds like something right out of Bladerunner. In the wrong hands, this could get scary (ie. if a govt. was looking for a fleeing political prisoner, etc.)

zandorg3• 19 years ago

I have produced license plate recognition software, at least enough to extract the plate text for subsequent OCR'ing.

Paul Graham/Ycombinator weren't interested, so I gave up on trying to sell it.

In theory, you could setup a webcam in a back garden and scan all the traffic going past in realtime.

I am now working on other software, which is a shame, as Pretext is pretty nifty.

http://www.sanfransys.co.uk/ (not a US company)

rms• 19 years ago

Did you try talking to governmental and non-governmental agencies about your software?

zandorg3• 19 years ago

No, I only talked to other OCR companies, who didn't reply.

Maybe I should give it a try, thanks for the hint and the positive response.

abstractbill• 19 years ago

Surely this technology is fairly well-known and widely deployed these days (for example, to enforce the London congestion-charging zone). What did your software do over and above what's currently being used?

zandorg3• 19 years ago

It runs easily on personal computers, and because the development costs were low, it's cheap. So I was trying to compete on price and accessibility.

gscott• 19 years ago

> Paul Graham/Ycombinator weren't interested, so I gave up on trying to sell it.

They can't take every idea, even when they are good ones.

I like your idea, if you could make it more of a turn key system.

I believe the customer would want a photograph of the vehicle, the license plate (in plain text), and time/date, and statistics on how many autos an hour/day/month pass by to add extra value.

It could be sold to gas stations or even city governments for deployment in high crime areas.

It would compliment video tape / dvr systems. If you can get the price below $1,000 then it would be affordable to security conscious companies. It would have to be automated, and be a server so the company can login and view the data.

geek42• 19 years ago

Some things that are technical possible and even cool are still "evil". I realize someone is probably going to do them any way, but it's sure as hell not going to be me.

This thing would be a great bomb trigger too by the way.

License plate recognition tools led to abduction arrest

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