Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Daniel Williams <daniel@****.DOE.K12.MS.US>
Subject: Car Tags
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 15:11:53 CDT
Any ideas on car tags? Do they still exist? In what form?

My own idea is that vehicles at least still have a physcial tag,
but I also suspect, with the general move toward automation and computer
control, that any legally compliant vehicle would also have an electronic
signature--perhaps a type of IFF thing, where a police officer would
query the vehicle and get back it's specs (and could then compare
them to his database for outstanding warrants on the owner, stolen status,
etc). Of course, a vehicle not responding electronically, or responding
with an invalid ID, would be enough probable cause to be pulled over...

Anyway, I'd like to know what you, the greater SHADOWRN public, think
about car tags.

--Nefarious
Message no. 2
From: King of Pain <mcgowan@*****.BUCKNELL.EDU>
Subject: Re: Car Tags
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 19:25:12 -0400
On Tue, 13 Sep 1994, Daniel Williams wrote:

> Any ideas on car tags? Do they still exist? In what form?
>
I'm not sure what you mean by car tags, but i'll assume you mean lisence
plate. Yes in 2050, the lisence plate still exists, but in a much
changed form. Instead of having numbers on your plate, you have a
barcode. This barcode basically can tell anyone with a laser to scan it
and access to a Lonestar mainframe everything about you, your car, and
your driving history. It can be picked up by drones flying overhead,
those nasty speed enforcers that are hid behind billboards, street signs,
etc. Oh, and they talk about it in the Lonestar manual. Get it if you
can. Its VERY good, and it actually makes lonestar a threat. A REAL threat.

ex. Imagine Joe, street sam running away from a fight with the local
gang. He's carrying a LMG and a couple of grenades(he likes BIG
explosions and big guns), when he runs into a lonestar foot patrol
officer who treis to arrest him for carry military weaponry around. Joe
laughs it off, pulls up his LMG only to find out that the cop IS FASTER
THAN HE IS. Thats right Joe, meet the chromed cop. What do you think
lonestar does with all that cyberware it confiscates anyway??

RDM
Message no. 3
From: Luke Kendall <luke@********.CANON.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Car Tags
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 09:59:54 +1000
Daniel Williams wrote:

> Any ideas on car tags? Do they still exist? In what form?

> [...] I also suspect, with the general move toward automation and computer
> control, that any legally compliant vehicle would also have an electronic
> signature

I agree. It's another thing that good runners would Just Deal With.
For your regular vehicles, you'd _need_ to have (difficult, I'm sure)
modifications made to the broadcast unit to make it lie about the car's
ID.

And if you're using a stolen vehicle - well, you're pretty safe there
automatically, unless you were filmed stealing it.

luke

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Car Tags, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!