I have seen people do this and wonder why?? any one can see my license with the truck in the drive way, or driving down the street. it is in public domain all the time. Why do people scramble it on the forums?

 

The reason behind it is more or less a privacy issue. By posting on a forum it makes it easy to track down info on the owner of a vehicle. In most states and provinces you can do a plate-owner lookup and determine not only where the truck resides but also who owns it. By reading up on a user's posts one can determine what modifications/stereo system and possibly alarm system that vehicle has installed.

Because of this I would suspect that car thieves would frequent enthusiast forums in order to target vehicles rather than blindly recording plate numbers and addresses as they drive through neighborhoods. Less work and a much higher payout in expensive electronics.

 

Basically what Q-Tip said. I got into the habit of it from my old Integra forum (those cars are regularly in the top 10-15 on the most stolen cars in the US list). It doesn't seem to be as prevalent here by comparison but a lot of people will still blank out the plates. It's a little extra security basically.

 

ok thanks. never understood that.

 

I agree with all the above...