High Programmer

Microsoft Visual Source Safe Maybe Perforce or something, but recommending VSS in 2016? Hope it works out for you! http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/windev/sourcesafe.html

Hey, that's pretty cool. I suppose I now know Ron DeSantis's drivers license number up to the last digit. And the soundex algorithm is cool (using fuzzy lookup in a list that way to get close/vague matches is novel to me and might be useful). I had heard of soundex but didn't know how it worked until now. Thanks for the TILs! https://stevemorse.org/dl/dl.html http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/index.html

Another poster shared this link: http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html It has the encoding formula for Wisconsin, Illinois, and Florida (which match the parent's comment) but there may be others.

Soundex is still out there. If you live in Illinois, Florida, or Wisconsin your drivers license number is a soundex hash of your name combined with your birthday. http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html

Some states driver's license numbers are deterministically computed with your name, date of birth and gender. If you live in one of those states and your data is already out there (through a previous breach) then your driver's license number is already public knowledge to hackers. According to an online calculator this applies to these states: Florida Illinois Maryland Michigan Minnesota (Prior to December 13, 2004 only) Nevada (Prior to January 1998 only) New Hampshire New Jersey New York (Prior to September 1992 only) Washington Wisconsin http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html

I wonder why Wisconsin went through the trouble vs some incrementing id. It seems like it was understood 2 people could end up with the same number so the last two digits were added. That would rule out the benefit of unique ids without requiring a single central system to ensure uniqueness. It does make it harder to fake an id, perhaps that was the motivation. Edit: Some more interesting info for the states that implement this. Also, TIL Illinois drivers can appear to have the exact same DL number. http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html

Article describes a scheme for encoding lat/long into pronounceable words, down to 2 figures past the decimal point, which is enough to get you about a kilometer square (at the equator, finer towards the poles), so appropriate for names of cities and towns but not individual houses. Extending the scheme to longer words for more precision seems straightforward but is not discussed. What's unique about this as compared to W3W or OLC or any other schemes is that the encoding is so simple it can be done in your head once you learn the table. I suspect that folks who dealt a lot with locations would learn to do so very quickly, somewhat like De Smet speculates that Soundex coding on driver's license numbers might enable bouncers to quickly suss out sloppy fakes where the DLN doesn't match the printed name: http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html

Even worse: In a number of states, the DL number is deterministic based upon name and DOB. http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html

Illinois is one of the states where driver's license numbers are computed from all the other information: http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html

Most people would be surprised to learn how drivers license numbers work... http://www.highprogrammer.com/cgi-bin/uniqueid/dl_md

And depending on the state, you can find out the driver's birthday, or even if their real name is different from what is listed on their profile. The site at [0] shows how many states use soundex coding and modulus arithmetic to encode driver's license numbers with PII. I'd be keen to see if every driver's info aligns with the license number (for those states that use encoding systems that embed PII into the number). [0] http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/index.html

I beg to differ. Take a little look at this: http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/windev/sourcesafe.html At least with NO version control, you know you're not protected. Bad version control, such as VSS, gives a false sense of security that you're protected when you're really not, which is worse.

It's even worse than just a Soundex of your last name, the entire number is derived off your name and DOB. http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html

Not even sure it's actually encrypted as much as it's a memory dump, old skool .doc style. > diabolical You have no idea. I've worked with devs using it (and had to debug their code more often than not): the thing is hell, through and through, from the stdlib itself (buggy as fsck[0], terribly leaky abstractions[1], ridiculously contrived[2]) to the IDE to the concepts (worse than VB, you store procedures in windows so changing the UI ever so slightly has dramatic effect on your whole codebase and since it's half static half dynamic you catch that only at runtime) to the source control (worse than VSS, and that's telling[3]) to the database (worse than your random toy-weekend-project database[4]) to the devious marketing ploys[5]. (some links in FR but you can toggle to English) [0]: JSON parsing and generation is non-conformant, e.g translates null to empty strings. There is basically no memory management and the thing leaks like a sieve. This one can only do GET and POST "automatically", adds a topmost "Accept: * ", and actually only sends credentials on non-HTTPS: on HTTPS they're outright dropped because of a bug, so you have to implement HTTP basic yourself with the hack below! https://doc.pcsoft.fr/fr-FR/?3043007&name=HTTPRequete [1]: Same proc as above, the overall thing and additional header field is actually a string concat, so if you want multiple ones you pass a string with those separated by \r\n, but god forbid you omit the last CRLF as the headers and…

Well, this discussion is quickly moving toward the shortcomings of Wikipedia. There's plenty of opinion of the deletion-happy (if that's the operative term) policy of the admins, especially as it pertains to notability, and I think this is a common complaint : http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/rants/wikipedia-delete.html I do something that may seem like trying to fix a leaky dam with chewing gum, but every time I see an article nominated for deletion, I copy the source to a private wiki I'm running. Sometimes, the deletion nomination goes away, other times it does get deleted, but at least then, I have a copy. But we also have to keep in mind that there are plenty of other resources on the web specifically aimed at niche resources. E.G. Wikia. I've lost count of how many comic book related articles were deleted only to show up on the DC or Marvel wikis. ( http://dc.wikia.com/ http://marvel.wikia.com/ ) Likewise, it's not unreasonable that a lot of content gets missed by the editors, since it's a big place and most editors have one or two areas that they focus on. As the editing guidelines state, when in doubt engage in dispute resolution, not edit wars. If you can make a good case for why an article should be there in the first place, be persuasive in the talk pages. So a few pointers for people getting angry at Wikipedia: First, ask whether the article is a good fit for the wiki. Can it go on a blog or a niche wiki (like a dedicated Wikia) instead? The Pokémon…