alt Hacker Newswhat is stopping me from putting a bright infrared light on my car angled in a way causing the camera to not be able to detect my plate? overexposed? this should be totally legal afaik since nothing is hiding my plate from any view to a normal human?
Replies
mikestew • yesterday at 9:43 PM
There are usually laws against making your plate unreadable to plate readers if the readers are used for tolling. Florida is one example.
phildini • yesterday at 9:39 PM
The question would ultimately get settled in court, I think, but a DA who was feeling cop-aligned and vicious could try to ding you for interfering with police operations by _not_ allowing your plate to get scanned.
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stronglikedan • yesterday at 10:17 PM
good luck with that in some states, like Florida
Ignoring all of the legal gotchas that aren't very realistically enforceable or relevant:
I do not believe you will be able to force overexposure of lettered areas using IR diodes alone. License plates are designed with intentionally high reflective contrast in the offset areas.
Even if you could put enough energy into that area, these cameras have switchable IR cutoff filters that are used during the daytime (making this approach only viable at night.)
Another idea: a visible-spectrum laser + camera on a tracking gimbal? Absolutely could block (or even destroy!) these types of imaging efforts on a small scale.