On 12/27/18 11:36 AM, Paul Gilmartin wrote: > On Wed, 26 Dec 2018 08:28:07 -0500, Mark Regan wrote: > >> https://www.computerworld.com/article/3330396/application-development/situation-normal-all-fudged-up.html >> > Did I miss something? Did it describe the "one adjustment," on the "One card" > that he added? Would it be obvious if I were familiar with 1401 operations? > > Regardless, if was so easy I'd call their security lax. > > -- gil
Probably not related to 1401 operations so much as unit-record. The obvious thought from typical unit-record processing is that each card corresponded to a unit and the number of personnel in the unit. The totals were surmised to be in error because 55 people in secret positions in unknown units had been deliberately omitted -- in other words, bad data with no way to "fix" it because correct data was no doubt classified. Pick one card for one unit, add 55 people to the count for that unit, now totals across all units magically agree with the total persons known to be in country. Officer who made impossible report request now satisfied. No serious breach in security -- data already known to be in error now just in error in slightly different way. I can't speak for today's military, but in the late 1960's Army the main purpose of many reports was to give the illusion of precision and that proper procedures were always being followed; but many routine reports were just routinely signed and filed, and even some that were not so routine were occasionally deliberately fudged for good reasons. I recall in particular one monthly "Fire Marshal" report where an undetected typo caused it to indicate we had acquired some serious fire hazards, and that typo was propagated from the carbon copy for several months before we realized the error and corrected the next submitted report. No one upstream ever complained about our fire hazards -- the reports were obviously assumed to confirm "good" inspections and were filed away un-read. Joel C. Ewing -- Joel C. Ewing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
