Re: VIN # Registry!!!!!! PLEASE READ

From: Jon Steiger (stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu)
Date: Wed Oct 27 1999 - 20:01:46 EDT


On Wed, 27 Oct 1999 stevie.o@excite.com wrote:
[...]
> please lets try and get this going???
> please respond to the List, lets hear some noise out there!!!!

   Ok, lets see if we can nail this down once and for all. It
sounds like something that could be a good resource (if enough
people add their info).

   Tremain mentioned that the VINs could be used for illicit
purposes, so maybe it isn't a good idea to have the VINs
available to everyone.

  It seems to me that what we really want to know is, "do trucks
which were built at the same time as mine have the same problems
as my truck?"

    If that's the case, then probably all we need is a year,
assembly plant, vehicle line, and build sequence for that line.
From what I've been able to determine based on decoding VINs, it
SEEMS like all 4x2's are built on one line, 4x4's on another, so
there are only 2 lines building Dakotas? Maybe someone familiar
with DC's assembly plants will be able to tell us for sure.

  Anyway, what I'm getting at is perhaps the page could allow
you to enter your VIN along with the problems you're having, then
decode the VIN to determine the line, year, plant, and build
sequence, and store them in the database that way. That way,
someone could access the information without actually having
access to the VIN.
   
  So, when someone wanted to check out the database, they
could enter their own VIN, and the browser would automatically
take them to the part of the database that has the trucks which
were built on the same line as theirs, in the same year. It
would tell them the build sequence of their particular truck,
and they could scan through the build sequences of the trucks
in the database to see if any are close to theirs.

  Is there any other info that is important for this sort of
thing? The type of info available via the VIN is:

country of origin (not important)
make (not important)
vehicle type (not important)
GVWR (important or no?)
vehicle line (important)
series (doesn't seem to be important)
body style (important or no?)
engine (important or no?)
model year (important)
assembly plant (important)
build sequence (important)

   I'm not too sure about things like the engine or body style...
Does DC run trucks of the same configuration down the line all
at once, or are they interpersed? That is, if they run a
mess of V8 club cabs then V8 regular cabs, then V6 club cabs, etc.
then it probably doesn't matter, but if the line looks like "v8
club cab, I4 regular cab, v6 club cab, R/T club cab, I4 regular cab",
etc. then it probably is important. (because for engine problems
for example, your V8 might be experiencing the same problems as
a truck built 20 trucks away, but it might just be that all of
the trucks between you two were V6s and I4s, so while you might think
they are too far away to matter, they were actually right next to
each other in the sequence, as far as v8s go...)

  Of course, we could include all that info, but anyone with an idea
about how VINs work would be able to reconstruct your VIN. It
would be a lot harder than just reading the VIN out of the database,
but it would still be possible. Is this an acceptable risk, or
do we want to be absolutely sure the VIN can't be determined? (really,
that isn't possible, as someone could use trial and error to guess
your VIN eventually, its just that the less info they have, the longer
it would take to do...)

                                              -Jon-

  .--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ----------------------------------------.
  | Jon Steiger * AOPA, DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA * RP-SEL |
  | '96 Dodge Dakota V8, '96 Suzuki Intruder 1400, '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
  `--------------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'



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