Just Wait 'Til Next Year!

‘Twas the year before Christmas, and all through the land The disk drives were whirring with computer thefts grand. Though the codes and the passwords were prepared with great care, The embezzlers and felons popped up everywhere.

While bankers and executives were snug in their beds And visions of profits danced in their heads, Computers and terminals and DP machines Were covertly used for criminal means.

Commercial Trust in New Jersey received such a clatter When a keypunch mistake made a bank account fatter. One-tenth of a million was lost in a flash And a simple coin dealer had that much more cash.

In Flushing, a student who knew some DP Awarded himself a Phi Beta key. His grades were altered so lively and quick That his peers were amazed and the faculty sick.

Two agents in Bridgeport for the U.S. DEA Discovered that selling drug data would pay. An IBM mainframe was used for the crime, And they managed to profit for quite a long time.

In Toronto, an Amdahl was used for abuse As students put CRT screens to misuse. And Hawthorne, California, saw funds fade away When a Honeywell system took part in foul play.

Even NASA had its share of computer-crime men, Stolen DP directories and breached PDP-10’s. And who can forget the Belmont affair, When programmer and cash were suddenly not there.

In L.A., the UCB staff had a fright When one million dollars was lost overnight. And Security Pacific had its day to rue When a clever programmer took ten million-two.

Now congressmen, now senators and banks of the nation, All struggle to enact preventative legislation. And Abraham Ribicoff is getting his licks. While sponsoring Senate Bill Seventeen-Sixty-and-Six.

Today, for computers with data encryption, Total security is nothing but fiction. And computer criminals and crooks continue to jeer, “If we didn’t get you this time, just wait ‘til next year!”

Thanks to the reader, who sent this to Richard Forno, who posted it to the Info Warrior list