I've been thinking about the perfect crime, but only for a hot moment.
Two stories are inspiring such thoughts. The first is of some guys who made the mistake of monetizing their hack of electronic subway passes. They figured a way to cut a paper passcard with some moola in it such that each piece had the same value. They added a nickel of value to it and got a fresh card from the machine, which in turn could be cut into sections and the trick repeated. The crime was perfect until they got busted selling the 'legit' cards on the street at a discount.
The second story is of a network guy who set up some kind of system lockout on the network he was responsible for in order to make some demand or other. He shortly thereafter turned over the password and protocol which got the system back on foot. This one is especially interesting because his accusers charge him with putting in some special programs that will leave the system in perfect tact until it accidentally crashes, and then the administrative mode to fix the crash is somehow permanently disabled. Meaning the system is fine but the next time it crashes will be the last time because he would have rendered it impossible to fix or debug.
If this guy actually did that, it's a very brilliant self-serving application which amplifies his importance as a fixit man. The righteous thing to do should have been to quit without announcing any demands and hope the system didn't crash for several weeks or months.
Anyway, I've noticed that implicit in the desire to do a crime is often the desire to profit from that crime. It's rather the sore spot isn't it? Sabotage without a goal resulting in the desired inefficiency without any additional connectable motive has got to be part of the formula for a perfect crime. A profiteer has to seem to gain from sheer luck. N'est-ce pas?
It turns out that nickel has recently tripled in price over the past year or so. Who the hell pays attention to the price of nickel? Well, somebody. Moreover, how many refiners of nickel are there in the country? Are there maybe eight smelters in the whole US? Remember how the Bass brothers tried to corner the silver market in the 80s? Well why not by speculative amounts of the nickel market and find some way to have a couple smelters knocked offline in a totally 'coincidental' manner? Or since cobalt rises and falls with nickel, why not target the nickel plants with your terrorism and work the cobalt angle instead?
Just thinking.
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