State MVA puts a URL it does not own or control in any way on a license plate that will last for decades, never even considers that the URL could change hands, is pretty hilarious.
I've hated this license plate for 11 years now -- I don't want to advertise flags and wars on my license plate. I wonder if via this snafu I can get them to replace it with a regular one; there seemed to be no normal way to ask for a standard one to replace this 2012 commemorative one up to now.
> “The MVA does not endorse the views or content on the current website using that URL, and is working with the agency’s IT department to identify options to resolve the current issue.”
The "option," we all know, would be paying now-hostage-level price for buying the domain. I don't know whether I'd rather my tax dollars went to that or replacing the plate of any 2012 plate holder who asks. What I'd really rather is they stop spending any resources on annoying mandated special commemorative license plates. Bring back two-color solid license plates.
Maryland resident as well. I believe you payed a few extra dollars for the commemorative license plate.
The war that is being advertised is the one where the British were a bit frustrated that we didn’t accept their ways, and they were coming back to take what was theirs. They rolled up to DC and burned everything except a few buildings. Legend has it that Madison and family left the White House so fast that when the British arrived, the food was still warm on the table.
The British then rolled up to Baltimore thinking it would be an easy capture just like D.C. was.
They were wrong, and we ended up causing them to pack up and leave in defeat.
The war is prestigious to Maryland because over 3,000 militia members from Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania successfully kept the worlds superpower at bay, saving Baltimore and probably the rest of the country.
Unrelated to the license plates, but the war is remembered differently in Canada, in Britain, and by historians. I think Wikipedia has it right calling the war "indecisive". In Canada, the war is remembered as the time we trounced the Yankees and burned the White House. The Brits don't think much of the war at all. Historians say its much more complicated of course, but the key facts to remember are (despite what the Canadians say) the troops that burned the White House were British regulars, not Canadian militia, and that the militia was highly unreliable and had significant levels of desertions (despite the national pride now). It's also good to keep in mind that Britain was in the midst of a total war with Napoleonic France and that the Americas were a sideshow. The US distinguished itself early with the frigate battles, like the Constitution vs Java, but then there was the Shannon vs Chesapeake.
> I believe you payed a few extra dollars for the commemorative license plate.
I am absolutely 100% positive that I neither paid extra dollars for the War of 1812 commemorative license plate, nor was offered an option -- this was the "standard" plate in 2012, no other "standard" plate was available, this was what you got unless you wanted to pay for a "specialty" plate.
Perhaps in 2013-2016 it was different. Or perhaps if you already had a standard pre-2012 plate, you could pay to replace it with the commemorative one? But if you were getting new plates in 2012, you got this one as the default option. I am sure.
Other interesting historical facts about the War of 1812 include all the native indian nations who allied with Great Britain in the desperate futile hope that somehow they could stop their inexorable disposession and ethnic cleansing by the USA.
That's a pretty one-sided description of the War of 1812. The whole thing was a bit of a fiasco and an attempted land-grab of territories controlled by Native American nations allied to the British by hawkish Senators from border states who wanted to make a name for themselves by advocating for it. The war ended with the British agreeing to status quo ante-bellum, even though America started the war. The general upshot is just that the British-allied Native Americans were, by treaty, supposed to have their territorial integrity respected but the British didn't think it was worth the hassle to enforce those provisions so those Native Americans all got pushed aside.
It doesn't really have clear "winners" or "losers." Really more like Britain getting stung by a bee while it was in the middle of something (War with France) and finding that rather inconvenient, but successfully fending off the bee's (America's) attempt to take its house.
The US declared war. They were pissed off about many things, but one of the more notable ones was that they were frustrated that the UK was supporting the sovereignty of Native American nations, which hindered the westward expansion that many people in the US viewed as their birthright.
The UK was actively making concessions to try and avoid war. The United States declared war anyway.
The UK then taking the fight to DC was absolutely fair game. People are allowed to fight back when you attack them.
I can think of at least a dozen other undeveloped peoples who successfully kept the Brits, then the worlds superpower, at bay. Superpower or not, infantry was never the British forte. In my opinion, logistics was. But logistics wins wars, not battles.
> The war is prestigious to Maryland because over 3,000 militia members from Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania successfully kept the worlds superpower at bay, saving Baltimore and probably the rest of the country.
They didn't learn from it, because at the other end of the war, the British regulars were decisively handled by another ragtag group that they didn't think much of.
Hear, hear! Two color plain stamped plates. Our vehicle's tags don't need to be a weird advert no one cares about. It's bad enough to get forced into paying for a reissue (remember when NY changed to yellow-and-blue and started charging for keeping the old plates?), doubly so when it's for some bureaucrat's amusement on having a "fun" plate.
> State MVA puts a URL it does not own or control in any way on a license plate that will last for decades, never even considers that the URL could change hands, is pretty hilarious.
I'm not a resident, but I found this hilarious as well. I think putting any URL on a license plate (or similar) is poor form, actually, but one that you don't actually control and take pains to ensure you keep registered? Hilarious level incompetency right there.
Depending on how sophisticated the operators are, it's possible hostage level pricing could still be low six figures. They may not actually realize just how valuable what they've scooped up actually is. At government scale, I'd actually say anything <$1m is probably less costly in total than any kind of action involving replacing a recall of rollback or existing plates.
To be fair the Maryland flag is easily one of the best state flags. It fails the "Could you easily draw it from memory" test but the design and color scheme more than makes up for that. I'd put it everywhere too.
As far as I could tell, my options for doing that were:
1. Reporting my plate as stolen or damaged (assume there's a replacement fee, don't know how much)
2. Paying $20 and then $10/year forever for a "specialty" plate.
Granted, even though I'm complaining about this like a grumpy old man, I have spent probably 20 minutes on three occasions looking into it by googling. If someone can find a free way (or even reasonable one-time fee) for me to get a standard plate without having to lie about it being stolen or damaged (or getting someone to steal or damage it haha), do point me to the procedure. In general, as expected, doing most anything with the MVA is a really confusing maze of bureaucracy, so I have some conditioned fear of trying it even if there is a procedure (but I haven't found one).
I am now wondering what, say, Jehovah's Witnesses did, I bet they and/or other religious groups would not be okay with a flag on their car for religious reasons.
"You can just" and "Can't you just" phrases should trigger you to think twice.
The phrases show poor empathy on your part: It's a hassle to go to the RMV and get another plate, it's a hassle to update any place where your plate needs to be registered, it costs money...
As if war and flags didn’t build the society you enjoy today. And they will build the society for future generations to enjoy. Whether they like it or not.
Of things that built the society I enjoy today, I am fully aware that, for instance, enslaved labor and stolen land built the society I enjoy today -- I am not in favor of the government forcing me to advertise that fact positively on my car.
Certainly human history is full of war and violence, and that is what has led to where we are, sure. That doesn't mean we need to glorify it. Or that the state has to impose the glorification of it on car identification plates.
What's with the proto-fascism on HN these days? Scary times.
>The website printed on the plates is not owned by the Motor Vehicle Administration.
Where there is the problem. Maryland sub-contracted out the site, probably stopped paying for it or the "contractor" closed done. Someone grabbed it.
Well I hope Maryland is enjoying what may be mo more than 10 cents per year per plate they are saved in taxing people. And as a bonus, they also are now giving out free advertising.
Next step, force people to replace the plates and maybe charge them a fee for doing that.
You left out the last half of the quote which is just as telling to me, "and is working with the agency’s IT department to identify options to resolve the current issue.”
Their options are Jack & Shit, and Jack already left town. You think this gambling site is going to voluntarily give back the domain for pittance that this state agency could afford to offer it? You think a DMV of a state is going to come up with the funds for a highly publicized domain squabble? The public blowback from that should be intense. The agency's IT department has already shown their incompetence and lack of funding by not being able to pay the registration fees for a domain long enough for something they used on an official state "document".
Even though the original company went out of business, maybe the trademark is still owned by someone. They could use ICANN's dispute channels to challenge ownership of the name.
The good news is, the number of people who actually haver ever followed the URL found on the bottom of the license plate is probably pretty darn minimal.
maybe slightly higher since you can get your phone to automatically picture-to-text recognize it instead of having to type it in yourself, but... probably still pretty minimal.
I mean, I'm most shocked that anyone noticed the url's contents have changed! I wonder how long it took anyone to.
If the government is going to put a domain name on license plates, you'd think it would make sure the domain name stays registered as long as the license plates remain in use. They're lucky it was snatched up by a casino and not something worse like hardcore pornography or a hate group.
To fix this, the state of Maryland should identify everybody who still has this license plate and send them a replacement plate in the current style. They have that information in a database somewhere, associated with names and addresses, so they should be able to run a simple query. If not, that means they probably need to fund a project to upgrade their databases to a modern implementation of SQL.
Government plates should use .gov or some similar tightly controlled domain (.edu might be acceptable).
Florida has "myflorida.com" which is an official government website, but .com is not a limited and controlled TLD; so in theory registration could fail and someone scoop it up.
If it were "myflorida.gov" that would be much less likely.
They should have done that, but it probably took a contractor minutes to create a TEMPORARY, EXAMPLE domain like "starspangled200.org."
The plan would have been to change this later to read md.gov/starspangled200, which will 301 redirect to maryland.gov/starspangled200, which needs to be made to point to a new starspangled200.maryland.gov subdomain because the Windows server running www.maryland.gov requires everything to be under the www.maryland.gov/Pages/<page name>.aspx URL scheme... But project management ran over budget, and the people who needed to be contacted about those changes couldn't be reached, and when the subcontractor's project manager talked to the vendor's project manager who emailed the wrong government IT department, some information was lost. The necessary forms needed to be filed, but to do so the contractor needed a particular vendor ID number and approval for that takes months, how many more projects do you plan to do for the state? And anyways starspangled200.com looks pretty clean, do we really want to do this optional redirect? So they spent some pocket change and registered it for 10 years, and handed off the task of renewing it to some administrator who could spell DNS but knew nothing else about it with a stern warning that things would break if it was not renewed.
Disclaimer: I have no specific knowledge of this project.
> Government plates should use .gov or some similar tightly controlled domain (.edu might be acceptable).
Most government entities are not qualified for .edu.
For a while (pretty long ago, I think early 00s, maybe even late 90s) GSA (who managed .gov. at the time) made some noises about narrowing it further (may have even closed noncompliant registration for a while, while keeping grandfathered ones) to federal government sites only, which led to a lots states using .com or .<state>.us domains for nongrandfathered domains, and even adopting them as preferred sites where they had grandfathered domains.
The policy direction died fairly quickly, but the impacts were more lasting.
The email addresses for Lafayette, California’s police ”tip line” are random Gmail addresses: 94549Tip@gmail.com and 94549Traffic@gmail.com. How is that not a problem for government record keeping? At least the Gmail addresses won’t expire like Maryland’s domain name registration.
Had to look it up but that is the zip code for Lafayette. it was probably the best out of several bad choices.
A direct gmail domain is understandable for a small city government but it does look unprofessional. I liked how governments were one of the few organizations that took advantage of the hierarchical nature of dns, you would get things like dmv.ca.gov and courts.sf.ca.gov Unfortunately that is going away as well. everybody has to have a second level domain and now you have stupid things like lovelafayette.org instead of lafayette.ca.gov
I understand why people are upset about this but this is probably among the least intrusive gambling ads that we have to deal with. What if the only legal form of gambling advertising was urls on the back of license plates that states auctioned off? In principle, it would be terrible, but in practice, it'd be a great improvement.
I just registered a domain for 10 years (the maximum allowed) and was wondering how likely I was to remember to renew. Auto-pay probably wouldn't work with credit card numbers changing. I might still be using the same email or at least have it forwarded. A phone calendar reminder? I did that once long ago and when changing phones the reminders didn't sync correctly. Maybe buy a physical 10 year calendar.
Anyway, I figure that's what happened here from 2012 to 2022.
While Maryland has been happy to use eminent domain to seize things for far more dubious reasons, like during the Baltimore Colts saga, those things typically have at least been in Maryland
Readit News
I got my car in 2012 -- this was the "standard" plate for 2012-2016, that you got whether you wanted it or not (unless you paid for a "specialty plate", an existing program. https://mva.maryland.gov/about-mva/Pages/info/27300/27300-29...)
State MVA puts a URL it does not own or control in any way on a license plate that will last for decades, never even considers that the URL could change hands, is pretty hilarious.
I've hated this license plate for 11 years now -- I don't want to advertise flags and wars on my license plate. I wonder if via this snafu I can get them to replace it with a regular one; there seemed to be no normal way to ask for a standard one to replace this 2012 commemorative one up to now.
> “The MVA does not endorse the views or content on the current website using that URL, and is working with the agency’s IT department to identify options to resolve the current issue.”
The "option," we all know, would be paying now-hostage-level price for buying the domain. I don't know whether I'd rather my tax dollars went to that or replacing the plate of any 2012 plate holder who asks. What I'd really rather is they stop spending any resources on annoying mandated special commemorative license plates. Bring back two-color solid license plates.
The war that is being advertised is the one where the British were a bit frustrated that we didn’t accept their ways, and they were coming back to take what was theirs. They rolled up to DC and burned everything except a few buildings. Legend has it that Madison and family left the White House so fast that when the British arrived, the food was still warm on the table.
The British then rolled up to Baltimore thinking it would be an easy capture just like D.C. was.
They were wrong, and we ended up causing them to pack up and leave in defeat.
The war is prestigious to Maryland because over 3,000 militia members from Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania successfully kept the worlds superpower at bay, saving Baltimore and probably the rest of the country.
I am absolutely 100% positive that I neither paid extra dollars for the War of 1812 commemorative license plate, nor was offered an option -- this was the "standard" plate in 2012, no other "standard" plate was available, this was what you got unless you wanted to pay for a "specialty" plate.
Perhaps in 2013-2016 it was different. Or perhaps if you already had a standard pre-2012 plate, you could pay to replace it with the commemorative one? But if you were getting new plates in 2012, you got this one as the default option. I am sure.
Other interesting historical facts about the War of 1812 include all the native indian nations who allied with Great Britain in the desperate futile hope that somehow they could stop their inexorable disposession and ethnic cleansing by the USA.
It doesn't really have clear "winners" or "losers." Really more like Britain getting stung by a bee while it was in the middle of something (War with France) and finding that rather inconvenient, but successfully fending off the bee's (America's) attempt to take its house.
The UK was actively making concessions to try and avoid war. The United States declared war anyway.
The UK then taking the fight to DC was absolutely fair game. People are allowed to fight back when you attack them.
They didn't learn from it, because at the other end of the war, the British regulars were decisively handled by another ragtag group that they didn't think much of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans
The country puts their code ("DK", "S" etc) on the left.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_vehicle_registration_...
Our previous, Save The Honeybee: https://scontent-iad3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/138097239_1...
Current, NC Aquariums: https://www.obxtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/NCA-plat...
Next, Venus Flytrap: https://i.redd.it/v1d1vce3uks31.jpg
Funds from these support the cause on the plate typically.
I'm not a resident, but I found this hilarious as well. I think putting any URL on a license plate (or similar) is poor form, actually, but one that you don't actually control and take pains to ensure you keep registered? Hilarious level incompetency right there.
I chuckled a little at this because the Maryland flag is on EVERYTHING in Maryland, including the current standard license plate.
Mine is a Plain white piece of metal, with black letters, no logo, no seals, no anything. White and black
1. Reporting my plate as stolen or damaged (assume there's a replacement fee, don't know how much)
2. Paying $20 and then $10/year forever for a "specialty" plate.
Granted, even though I'm complaining about this like a grumpy old man, I have spent probably 20 minutes on three occasions looking into it by googling. If someone can find a free way (or even reasonable one-time fee) for me to get a standard plate without having to lie about it being stolen or damaged (or getting someone to steal or damage it haha), do point me to the procedure. In general, as expected, doing most anything with the MVA is a really confusing maze of bureaucracy, so I have some conditioned fear of trying it even if there is a procedure (but I haven't found one).
I am now wondering what, say, Jehovah's Witnesses did, I bet they and/or other religious groups would not be okay with a flag on their car for religious reasons.
The phrases show poor empathy on your part: It's a hassle to go to the RMV and get another plate, it's a hassle to update any place where your plate needs to be registered, it costs money...
Certainly human history is full of war and violence, and that is what has led to where we are, sure. That doesn't mean we need to glorify it. Or that the state has to impose the glorification of it on car identification plates.
What's with the proto-fascism on HN these days? Scary times.
Where there is the problem. Maryland sub-contracted out the site, probably stopped paying for it or the "contractor" closed done. Someone grabbed it.
Well I hope Maryland is enjoying what may be mo more than 10 cents per year per plate they are saved in taxing people. And as a bonus, they also are now giving out free advertising.
Next step, force people to replace the plates and maybe charge them a fee for doing that.
Their options are Jack & Shit, and Jack already left town. You think this gambling site is going to voluntarily give back the domain for pittance that this state agency could afford to offer it? You think a DMV of a state is going to come up with the funds for a highly publicized domain squabble? The public blowback from that should be intense. The agency's IT department has already shown their incompetence and lack of funding by not being able to pay the registration fees for a domain long enough for something they used on an official state "document".
maybe slightly higher since you can get your phone to automatically picture-to-text recognize it instead of having to type it in yourself, but... probably still pretty minimal.
I mean, I'm most shocked that anyone noticed the url's contents have changed! I wonder how long it took anyone to.
So it's taken over half a year before the media to notice.
To fix this, the state of Maryland should identify everybody who still has this license plate and send them a replacement plate in the current style. They have that information in a database somewhere, associated with names and addresses, so they should be able to run a simple query. If not, that means they probably need to fund a project to upgrade their databases to a modern implementation of SQL.
Florida has "myflorida.com" which is an official government website, but .com is not a limited and controlled TLD; so in theory registration could fail and someone scoop it up.
If it were "myflorida.gov" that would be much less likely.
ahahahah http://myflorida.gov redirects to dot com (it's dot muffin)!
The plan would have been to change this later to read md.gov/starspangled200, which will 301 redirect to maryland.gov/starspangled200, which needs to be made to point to a new starspangled200.maryland.gov subdomain because the Windows server running www.maryland.gov requires everything to be under the www.maryland.gov/Pages/<page name>.aspx URL scheme... But project management ran over budget, and the people who needed to be contacted about those changes couldn't be reached, and when the subcontractor's project manager talked to the vendor's project manager who emailed the wrong government IT department, some information was lost. The necessary forms needed to be filed, but to do so the contractor needed a particular vendor ID number and approval for that takes months, how many more projects do you plan to do for the state? And anyways starspangled200.com looks pretty clean, do we really want to do this optional redirect? So they spent some pocket change and registered it for 10 years, and handed off the task of renewing it to some administrator who could spell DNS but knew nothing else about it with a stern warning that things would break if it was not renewed.
Disclaimer: I have no specific knowledge of this project.
Most government entities are not qualified for .edu.
For a while (pretty long ago, I think early 00s, maybe even late 90s) GSA (who managed .gov. at the time) made some noises about narrowing it further (may have even closed noncompliant registration for a while, while keeping grandfathered ones) to federal government sites only, which led to a lots states using .com or .<state>.us domains for nongrandfathered domains, and even adopting them as preferred sites where they had grandfathered domains.
The policy direction died fairly quickly, but the impacts were more lasting.
https://www.lovelafayette.org/city-hall/city-departments/pol...
A direct gmail domain is understandable for a small city government but it does look unprofessional. I liked how governments were one of the few organizations that took advantage of the hierarchical nature of dns, you would get things like dmv.ca.gov and courts.sf.ca.gov Unfortunately that is going away as well. everybody has to have a second level domain and now you have stupid things like lovelafayette.org instead of lafayette.ca.gov
Anyway, I figure that's what happened here from 2012 to 2022.