Playboy learned this lesson in the 70's and 80's. Never publish a Playmate leaning on a car with a visible license plate. The Law Enforcement Teletype System was abused horribly by police all over the country running that license plate when the new issue came out. Apparently there were bragging rights on having potential inside info on a half naked woman. The relevant agency would have to send out a plea for them to stop because they didn't have the resources to deal with all the incoming requests. Police at the time were bound by similar rules on NOT running license plates without probable cause.

I'm told that after the machine was taken off display, it passed through several hands and is now the personal property of one Faheem Rasheed Najm. Sounds plausible to me.

This MS site graphs some of the Usenet trends that are being monitored. You can bet there are plenty more that aren't shown. http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/