taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/18/86)
[from a posting to the Risks Digest - I couldn't resist reposting it!] From the San Francisco Chronicle, Friday 15 August 1986: POLICE SAY ARRESTS IN MARIN SMASHED HIGH-TECH SEX RING by Torri Minton and Katy Butler A sophisticated prostitution ring that kept computerized records on more than 12,000 patrons has been broken after a three-month investigation, authorities in San Jose said yesterday. The ring, known as EE&L Enterprises, collected $3.5 million a year dispatching at least 117 prostitutes by electronic beeper to cities all over Northern California from a computerized command center in San Rafael, according to San Jose vice Lieutenant Joe Brockman. ``It's a top-class operation -- the largest prostitution ring, to our knowledge, in Northern California," Brockman said. He said that the business took in more than $25 million during the eight years it was in business... Records seized by police ... included customers' names, telephone numbers, credit card numbers, sexual preferences and comments by the prostitutes... The office was equipped with four desks, several IBM computers, a photocopier, a paper shredder and a wall poster announcing that ``Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.'' anyone have any pithy comments? -- Dave
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/27/86)
This article is from rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw%mcnc.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA and was received on Tue Aug 26 09:04:36 1986 > From the San Francisco Chronicle, Friday 15 August 1986: > POLICE SAY ARRESTS IN MARIN SMASHED HIGH-TECH SEX RING > anyone have any pithy comments? -- Dave I don't know about pithy, but I'm thirtenly upthet about all thith imorality! Actually, I wonder if the "ring" was much injured by this raid. Following normal DP protocols, they should have had a backup computing resource, and off-side duplicate records. They could have been back in operation as soon as their field operatives were out of jail, changing the name of the front organization and switching to a backup site with new phone jockeys. The only difference from a legitimate computerized operation is that they might also need their backup arrangements to be covert to one extent or another. For one example, they might have to be careful of surveillance of the released operatives. The fact that the police have a duplicate set of rapidly-getting-out-of-date records shouldn't affect them much, unless the police decide to harrass the customer base. I'd expect such harrassment to fail, since the customer base is probably too large and too upper-middle-class to make a handy target. But you never know. I'd really like to see a followup to find out if the operators were foresightful as I suspect they might be, or if this raid shut them down for lack of normal database backup. But I suppose it's wishing for too much that the news media would follow up competently... -- You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of day or night, you can always change the channel. --- Jim Ignatowski -- Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw [anyone know someone in the Marin Police Force? Perhaps we can get more information on the arrest and what the police plan on doing with the confiscated information... -- Dave]