Why does everyone black out their plates?

On a more serious level.

I run the largest cycling site on the internet and am a moderator on another site. I've been witness to the results of someone finding info on a member that they have been stalking for quite some time.

It's different from driving on the street and the public sees your plate. On a forum, they get to know more personal things about the member, they get to "know" them through their personality on a forum. They see their pictures, the areas they live in, they see them on facebook. They fall in love with what they think is the perfect person.

Dangerous things HAVE happened, and without getting into it any further, all I can say is that we've seen things that you would never thought would become the result of someone getting too much information. Such as death.

It doesn't hurt to black out a plate. It does hurt if the right person sees one that is NOT blacked out. Trust me, it's not something that you would not have to deal with in reality, let alone from the position that Im in.

 

so knowing the plate # off an internet forum would change this situation how?

Its also not so easy to simply "run a plate" and get info. You need to go though the police/DMV and have a legit reason why its needed. Most of the time they wont release the info to you and will just proceed with the arrest or whatever. They legally arent allowed to give out any info.

 

No posting of real stuff on internet.....isn't that the rule?

 

if someone REAAAAALY wanted to know where you were from...they'd take your IP address..and find you much easier cant get much easier then this!

 

Yeah, and as I said on another thread, thieves are opportunists, we post here pictures of mods, including audio equipment etc, things that are not visible through the windows or by just looking at the truck. Someone by chance ends up in your thread and notices that he lives close or may has seen your truck before, plates are a good way to confirm it. He doesn't have to be a member of TW or fan of Tacomas to end up in your build thread, I've end up in build threads by just looking for reviews of head units, subs, amps etc. If if takes only a few seconds to blur it out then why not. My question would be why is everyone so obsessed on others blurring their plate, specially when they say plates are not important?

and Jerez, there are about 50K members on TW plus those who don't register, so having met a few of the members really doesn't make a difference IMO

 

Garage means your vehicle is not out in plain site to be broken into while you sleep, whether your plate is posted anywhere or not.

 

I think people just think too much.

 

No, it's reality. I've seen it unravel one onion skin at a time over the course of a year. And although the warnings were there, and they were ignored, the price for stupidity was paid.

In this case, being overly protective of yourself and your family DOES NOT DO HARM.

 

So the garage idea is irrelevant to the show/not show plate # debate.

Good points. But again, where does one get info simply by seeing a plate? The idea that any Joe-Schmo can get your name/address/etc from a plate # is false. That is pretty closely kept info because in years past stalker/murderers used that info to choose targets. It is no longer as simple as walking into a DMV and asking, its actually really hard. I dont know what its like in the US states, but here even the police can only access info from within their provence unless they go through a slew red taped paperwork.

 

http://www.licenseplateslookup.com/







I typed mine in....no records found.

 

yes my point is not toward getting personal info, is more as a plate being use to separate your Tacoma from others, for example I've seen locally 4 tacos like mine, same wheels, white reg cab with tint. For an untrained eye (who could not see the small difference between them), plates would be a way to know which one is the one

 

Do you guys remember that guy a few years ago...I think it was on one of those bodybuilding forums. He had fake everything in his profile. He admitted how he robbed a gas station or something. He had pictures of his house and wife and stuff on the forum. They looked through his pics and found a plate or address or something and went and arrested him.

I might have the details wrong but the basic story is there. He had information in pics that lead to authorities finding out where he was.

 

Well, usually authorities are good at finding a lot of things out with little information. This doesn't surprise me.



If you're committing crime, well then you probably shouldn't be putting anything about yourself on the internet.

 

same here

 

I dont know the story, but to me that would be a situation where the police could and would certainly look up someone's information via a licence plate.
That plate info wouldnt be available to just anyone.

Dont think that would work.

 

People think they are anonymous on the Internet, which is far from the case. I used to play an online strategy game and a kid on its forums was making a real ass of himself once. I told him to be careful as some year when he was going to be looking for a job or, god forbid a security clearance, his flaming and trolling might come back to haunt him. He thought that very funny and said that nobody could ever find him on the Internet. It took me all of five minutes using info from a few casual remarks in his posts to find his name, home address and the school he attended.

It's somewhat harder to find me, not because I hide anything per se but because I move a lot. I've moved thirty-one times in the past thirty-five years, and that doesn't include several years when I was just tooling around the country on my motorcycle.

If you have a permanent address and are on a "social" site like Myspace, LinkedIn, etc. you are going to be pretty easy to find -- just Google your name and home city and you will probably find yourself. Google your phone number and you will be provided with a handy map to your house in case you've forgotten where you live.

 

That's a public site. They will not just pass out info there. There are laws that protect people for the very reason of this discussion. There are private sites that will cough up your info really quick.

If you wanted to get info from DMV it's easy. There's a form that you fill out that asks your reason. If the reason is legit, they will state on the form that YOUR info will be sent to the person of inquiry and they will be notified that their info was given out.

A legit reason would be a hit and run concerning damage to property, an injury or death.

 

It's irrelevant whether or not your plate has been posted here or there if you park in a garage is what I'm gettin at. Some people park in garages and don't care about their plate being shown & some don't park in garages and do care whether their plate is posted online or not. Not really much different than surfin without an IP spoofer if you don't want people to know where you are posting from. Some care, some don't. How many post a fake plate over theirs or spoof their IP just to throw people off? I may be where it looks like I am, I may not be. The plate on the pic I posted might be mine or it might not be. Who knows?Easy to be led down the wrong path by assuming shit based on what other people may or may not do.

 

Yes if your truck is modified enough and they are going after that then it does not matter much IMO, but not everyone has very modified truck. Around where I live there are a bunch of Tacomas, its kind of a Tacoma heaven, most of them stock on the exterior or with similar add ons - tints - tonneau covers etc. If one of them post their audio equipment photos, I probably could not point out which truck is it if I had 5 of them lined up in front of me, but if I had the plates then I could know for sure. I live on a 100x35 island there is not much where you could go. As I said before, I've already seen 4 trucks like mine same wheels etc. Because I know my truck I can pin-point difference between them, but others may not, my father and friends have confused them before. If they remembered at least the last 3 numbers they would not make the mistake.

The garage thing to me it does not matter. My truck is in a garage, but is not 24-7 in a garage as I do use it. Your shit doesn't necessarily have to be stolen at home, it could be at work, mall or college etc. Once a thief wants to steal something from you they will most likely do it a place where you commonly go or where they have spotted you a couple of times.