Scavenging
A Texan ripped off oil companies through computerized scavenging.
He used a computer time-sharing service bureau, the same one as the oil companies. This thief read scratch tapes—temporary storage tapes without the safeguards protecting the main ones—by phone off the service’s computer. He was stealing secret seismic information to sell to the oilmen’s competitors.
Finally, however, the service bureau caught on.
A worker there had grown curious. Why did a red “read” light glow at bizarre times? How come the customer was prowling through the tapes before entering his own data? Parker says a “simple investigation” ended the electronic scam.
Scavenging can be physical, too—nothing more complicated than rummaging through old trash barrels for printouts.
Data Leakage
“Hidden in the central processors of many computers used in the Vietnam War,” Parker says, “were miniature radio transmitters capable of broadcasting the contents of the computers to a remote receiver.
“They were discovered when the computers were returned to the United States from Vietnam.”
It was a data-leakage problem—defined by Parker and other pros as the removal of data or copies of it from a computer or a computer center. Culprits can even smuggle out secrets by hiding them in apparently routine reports. “Data leakage,” he says, “might be conducted through use of Trojan horse, logic bomb, and scavenging methods.”