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One day, I’m going to make a joke that is so bad, so unconscionably corny, that one
of you is going to snap.
You’re going to march right down to your nearest DMV, slam some bills down on the counter,
and demand a shiny new vanity plate with “SAMSUCKS” emblazoned on it.
Unfortunately for you, the DMV guy will probably shrug and tell you that while you make a compelling
argument, “SAMSUCKS” is just one of those things you can’t put on a license plate.
And, before you get any other ideas, you also can’t put death threats, names of reproductive
organs, suggestions that you’re a cop, religious references, swear words, calls for mass genocide,
claims that you’re wildly intoxicated while driving your car, or, after a small debacle
back in 2016, ‘NULL.’
Not “null” as in nothing, but “null” as in, y’know, the word “null.”
Now, it’s not that “null” is secretly offensive or some kind of really vague innuendo.
Rather, it has something to do with how police databases work, but, in order to explain how,
we first have to look at what happened to the one guy who made the terrible mistake
of changing his license plate to “NULL.”
In 2016, security researcher Joseph Tartaro decided to get a dorky pair of matching license
plates for him and his wife—“NULL” for him, and “VOID” for the missus.
Y’know, like… that legal doublet meaning “having no binding power or validity!”
Cute, right?
Now, as romantic as that sounds, Romeo here had a secondary motive in mind: he thought
that these cute matching license plates could, theoretically, confuse citation systems and
enable him and his wife to live out a life of petty crime completely undetected—I mean,
what’s the last time your pathetic box of chocolates did that?
You see, “null” is a common marker used in all sorts of different computer databases
to indicate missing or inapplicable information; Tartaro figured that this also applied to
whatever database dealt with California license plate numbers, and, unfortunately for him,
he was 100% right.
Or, like, 95% right, since the only part he got wrong is what would happen to him if he
was right.
Instead of cruising under the police’s radar, blowing past stop signs and running down pedestrians
without so much as a slap on the wrist, Tartaro started racking up tickets right and left—but
not for violations he had committed.
In fact, he hadn’t committed nearly any violations since he’d registered the plate,
and he definitely hadn’t committed violations in every single Californian city with dozens
of different vehicles over a timeline of two years, before his plate even existed.
Or maybe he had, and lied to every media outlet that interviewed him.
Who knows?
The simplest explanation, however, is that every time a lazy California cop forgot to
plug in the license plate number for a ticket, the system would file that under “NULL,”
which just so happened to be Tartaro’s plate.
All told, he racked up $12,049 of fines before he finally managed to put an end to this bureaucratic
nightmare, which also makes this the most expensive romantic gesture since that jewel-encrusted
toilet seat that Ben Affleck bought J. Lo in 2002.
Now, Joseph Tartaro knew he was playing with fire when he got his plate changed, but you
know who doesn’t know anything about the consequences of exploiting structured query
language vulnerabilities?
Babies.
Specifically, babies who were born and given the unfortunate surname of “Null” before
these databases even existed.
Across the globe, there are tens of thousands of people whose last name is “Null,” and
much like Joseph Tartaro’s license plate, they run the risk of breaking nearly every
modern database that they come into contact with.
Websites that use registration forms—like bank sites, digital stores, streaming platforms,
pizza-delivery services, illegal online poker rings, conspiracy blogs, fan-fiction blogs,
smutty fan-fiction blogs, well, pretty much any website, really—usually look at the
name Null and think “Huh, this person doesn’t have a name, this is clearly not a real member
of civilized society, under no circumstances can we allow them to join our illegal online
poker ring.”
As a result, the Nulls of the world often face crashing websites, unusual errors, or
simple declarations that they just don’t exist.
As far as the internet is concerned, they’re ghosts, and the results can range from annoying
to downright spooky.
Christopher Null, the proprietor of NullMedia LLC, for example, often receives mail addressed
to “Mr. at Media LCC”—coincidentally, also the name of Wendover Productions’ new
money-laundering division.
Now, while there aren’t any simple solutions to these fussy databases and this word that
sends them into a spiral of virulent denial worse than my antivax neighbors, data analysts
have invented some creative work-arounds over the years.
Take, for example, this place: Null Island.
Well, actually, this stock footage isn’t Null Island at all, because it’s a completely
imaginary place marked by this sad little buoy.
Located at 0,0—where the equator meets the prime meridian—Null Island was added to
certain maps by GIS analysts to detect geocoding errors caused by, you guessed it, the word
“Null.”
Basically, any time a computer or smartphone can’t determine the geographic coordinates
of a given location—like when you take a photo with geo-tagging turned off—it will
output the location as “null, null.”
Certain thick-headed mapping programs can, however, confuse that for 0,0, a real set
of coordinates, and decide to plop you down right on Null Island—which should tell these
analysts that unless you swam out to the buoy in the middle of the Gulf of Guinea, those
four dastardly letters had struck again.
Speaking of islands, those weirdos over at Wendover Productions have released another
Nebula original documentary about an island—it’s called the Final Days of Majuro.
Those weirdos at Half as Interesting are also releasing a Nebula original next month, which
means the moral of the story is that you should probably get on Nebula.
Luckily, you can do so with the best deal in streaming.
For just $20 a year, about the cost of a bag of pizza rolls, I think—I’m not really
sure—you get access to Curiosity Stream, home to thousands of fantastic feature-length
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That’s a crazy good deal, and it’s available only by signing up at CuriosityStream.com/HAI.