COMPUTER THEFT, LOW-TECH STYLE

--- begin forwarded text


X-Sender: oldbear@tiac.net
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 11:12:35 -0500
To: rah@shipwright.com
From: Somebody
Subject: forwarded without comment
Mime-Version: 1.0

COMPUTER THEFT, LOW-TECH STYLE

A thief broke into a Visa International data processing center
in California a couple of weeks ago and stole a personal computer
containing information on about 314,000 credit card accounts,
including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Diners
Club, says a Visa spokesman.

Some issuers, including Citibank, began calling customers last
week and have issued new cards.  Others are keeping quiet about
the event and monitoring accounts for unusual activity.

Authorities speculate that the perpetrator was stolen for the
resale value of the hardware, rather than the information it
contained.

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-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com)
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson
The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com> writes:

Robert> COMPUTER THEFT, LOW-TECH STYLE

Robert> A thief broke into a Visa International data processing center
Robert> in California a couple of weeks ago and stole a personal
Robert> computer containing information on about 314,000 credit card
Robert> accounts, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express,
Robert> Discover and Diners Club, says a Visa spokesman.

Not a big surprise. As we build increasingly secure systems, we shift
the weakest point of the entire system into the realm of physical
access. Honestly, I'm surprised that we don't see this  sort of thing
more often. (Or maybe they're just going undetected.) After all, it is
the weakest point at which a system will be attacked.

Robert> Authorities speculate that the perpetrator was stolen for the
Robert> resale value of the hardware, rather than the information it
Robert> contained.

Uh-huh. Wouldn't want to cause any kind of a panic among the masses,
would we? Noooo, not when the perception of our super-secure credit
card networks and other financial information infrastructure is at
stake. (And Watergate was a simple bungled burglary, right?)

-- 
Matt Curtin  cmcurtin@research.megasoft.com  Megasoft, Inc   Chief Scientist
http://www.research.megasoft.com/people/cmcurtin/   I speak only for myself.
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