This is quite amazing. There’s an article on Wired about how Australia is preventing car theft by using DataDots.

As small as grains of sand, up to 10,000 DataDots are laser-etched with vehicle identification numbers and spray-glued on the engine and most other parts, making it very difficult to “re-birth” cars or sell cannibalized parts. The dots glow under a black light for easy spotting and can be read with a 30-power magnifying glass.

That’s pretty impressive! Of course, BMW is one of the manufacturer’s using these and they report a 60% reduction in theft. Subaru reports a 95% reduction! I also saw another article this morning about Variable Intensity Brake Lights and BMW has done this, but only on their 5-series.