use of Unicode

"The latter approach is generally preferred, as it tends to give a much shorter and more manageable list."

Faultless logic, but not even some government departments are capable of understand it!

I recently had to contact the DVLA (The UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) because I needed to tell them that the letters relating to traffic offences I was receiving were for cars registered to the previous house owners.

I wanted to tell them about the two cars that should be registered to the address. They said I had to give them a list of all the vehicles not registered at the address.

I tried to explain that it would be a very long list, but was simply told that their computer system worked that way!

ps As unbelieveable as this might appear, I can assure you that I did not make it up!

"The latter approach is generally preferred, as it tends to give a much shorter and more manageable list."

Faultless logic, but not even some government departments are capable of understand it!

I recently had to contact the DVLA (The UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) because I needed to tell them that the letters relating to traffic offences I was receiving were for cars registered to the previous house owners.

I wanted to tell them about the two cars that should be registered to the address. They said I had to give them a list of all the vehicles not registered at the address.

I tried to explain that it would be a very long list, but was simply told that their computer system worked that way!

ps As unbelieveable as this might appear, I can assure you that I did not make it up!

"...told that their computer system worked that way!"

Might be true - all too often is with "outsourced" IT...

:-(

However, quite often the real situation is, "we don't understand the computer system, but this is the way we use it"
(which is also often a result of "outsourced" IT)

:-(

Have you made an estimate how large the email would be, if you iterated through all possible combinations - and remember to remove your two cars from the list :)

It would be quite funny to see them receive a list of millions to billions of entries, with a note saying that they have received the specifically requested information and that they might possibly be violating some government regulation or other if they don't make the requested change.

I was a bit involved when Denmark developed the "social security number" system.

first two true stories:

it was decided that it should be possible to determine the persons sex from the number and the government people involvced did the governmanr thing and came up with all kinds of screwy schemes. Then one of the data processing people said "in the binarry system used by computers, odd numbers end in a one" and held a finger up "even numbers end in a zero" and held a hand up with thumb and forefinget closed. So, now, in Denmark, if you are male your numver is odd, if you are female it is even,

With the current influx of people from countries with no records Denmark has almost run out of numbers for january 1, since such people when asked about their birthdayd and answer "I do not know" have been routinely assigned jan 1 by the clerks.

now for the thing mentioned in the title "using programs 'backwards'"

"to err is human" and, of course, on occasion, somebody "get killed" and walk in as the living dead "it says my number refer to a dead person". The program has a security feature that nade it impossible to resurrect the dead. For a person to get a new number is, of course a major hassle and someon found out how to use the program "backwards". Let the dead emigrate to any contry and immigrate again and voila! he is alive :)

Erik