Word: thief
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Those of us who have been poor know what nonsense it is to believe that having little makes one a thief. Creating reasonable motives for unreasonable people only serves to goad them...
...bookie, police traced a $30,000-per-day betting account back to an $11,000-a-year teller at the Union Dime Savings Bank and discovered that he had made off with $1.5 million by the computerized shuffling of funds among little-used accounts. Even if caught, a computer thief may not be prosecuted. Fearing embarrassing publicity, some firms merely fire the offender and absorb the losses...
Several other federal cases have nearly foundered because of insufficient laws. The conviction of one man, accused of stealing confidential information from a Federal Energy Administration computer in Maryland, was possible only because the thief had dialed into a system from his office a few miles away in Virginia. He was prosecuted under an interstate wire-fraud statute. In response, Senator Abraham Ribicoff has introduced a bill prohibiting misuse of federal computers or any data-processing machine affecting interstate commerce. The bill would impose stiff punishments: up to 15 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. Says Justice Department...
...thieves. Most authorities agree that computer owners must install more elaborate security measures. Says one: "Cracking a computer system's defenses is about as difficult as doing a hard Sunday crossword puzzle." One computer, protected by a five-digit code number, was illegally entered in minutes when the thief ordered the computer to begin trying every one of the 100,000 possible combinations. But tighter security would cost both money and time. Says Robert Courtney of I.B.M. "If you're running thousands of transactions a day, you don't want to spend ten seconds or so every...
...North Yemen, a convicted thief is required to pick up his chopped-off hand and raise it to his forehead in a salute to the presiding judge. That sort of thing is not done in more liberalized Muslim societies like Libya. Although Strongman Muammar Gaddafi imposed Koranic law in 1973, thieves are usually jailed instead of having their hands amputated. "We want these people to work," says a Libyan police official. "How can they work if we cut off their hands...