electronic tags for bike number plates?

anyone else notice this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6707367.stm

about 1/2 way down:

"The DVLA is considering forcing all the UK's 1.3 million motorcycles to be fitted with plates featuring electronic tags, which are currently being trialled."

Don't get me started! I'm known to get on the old soapbox now and again!

[Blue Flame]

I just read that story as well. What do these tags do?

Do they just have details of the bike or is there something more sinister afoot?

"If you've nothing to hide...."

Why stop with the motorcycles? Why not tag the motorcyclist too? Because, if you've got nothing to hide...

Lawson - you got your own soapbox or you want to borrow mine? Mine's rather well worn at the moment

More Orwellian bullsh1t!

well i think they will use gps so they can track you with these and i reckon they will be used to track speed and prosicute people, its getting very big brother now a days

It's been in More Cr*p Than News over the last few months (Along with "Motorcycling to be banned!" And "Triumph make a new bike! Exclusive!")

To be honest, if this comes into force I'll be sending a PM to electronics whizz kid Baph to whip up some sort of gadget that "Funnily enough seems to interfer with it Occifer"

or you could just remove the electronic plate and fit a normal one

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

"If you've nothing to hide...."

Lawson - you got your own soapbox or you want to borrow mine? Mine's rather well worn at the moment

Ha Ha! Maybe we should go halves on a new one, mines pretty tatty aswell now!

Originally Posted by rigor

It's been in More Cr*p Than News over the last few months (Along with "Motorcycling to be banned!" And "Triumph make a new bike! Exclusive!")

To be honest, if this comes into force I'll be sending a PM to electronics whizz kid Baph to whip up some sort of gadget that "Funnily enough seems to interfer with it Occifer"

Hey now!! What are you inferring? That I'll help you break the law?? (Slip us a beer at the AR & consider it done)

OK, so on the face of it, this is to stop plate cloning. Great. Plate cloning is a big bug bear of mine. How will they do it? RFID, the same way they do chips for dogs. Advantage is that it's small, and holds lots of information. Disadvantage is that with the right gear, you can still clone plates with the RFID tags, and all you need to do is walk past a bike bay close enough to copy the plate. Not only has someone just stolen your plate details by walking past your bike, they'll also have VIN and probably registered keepers name & address. D'OH! So not only can they clone plates, they can start stealing identities too. D'OH!

The implications of it? Depends on the range, take my line of work as an example.

In our situation, we have RFID pallets in warehouses. We also have RFID in the tails of the trucks, and a scanner at the dock door. We can tell our clients what pallets were loaded onto which truck at exactly what time, when the truck arrived at the door, and when it left. As the truck is reversing to the dock door, the scanner picks it up & sends a Wifi message to the truck asking what's on board. The truck replies to the dock door, and a shipping manifest is printed with unload/putaway locations for each pallet on that truck. Nifty shifty stuff. (So for folks like rigor, I have all the required hardware at the office)

All of the above works from a good 40ft away. How long before toll roads (like the M6 Toll or the Mersey Tunnel) get RFID scanners installed? How long before speed cameras get them installed? Because obviously if you can read the RFID, you don't need to rely on picture quality. ACPO guys as well, they might as well, whilst they're checking your tax. I mean, you have nothing to hide, right?

Where were those plans for GPS tracking for road pricing again? Didn't they have the possibility of having speed cameras linked in to it all too? Whilst we're at it, why not throw parking meters and barrier gates into the deal too.

Of course, I could just be a suspicious ****, and the government might never do any of this stuff. But then, I'm well known for being a BOFH (if you don't know, doesn't matter), and if I were in charge of the RFID or GPS tracking, this is where I'd be going.