RE: S/36 payroll - was AS400 user password

If I remember the S/36 environment correctly, that was probably the only way
to secure it from prying eyes.  Can't remember if you were able to encrypt
data back then on S/36.  Or was it just a byte-swapping translation table?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rob Berendt [SMTP:rob@dekko.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 1:21 PM
> To:   MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject:      RE: S/36 payroll - was AS400 user password
> 
> I knew of a company that when they ran their payroll on the S/36, for
> managers:
> All comm outside of the computer room was cut.
> The payroll data was restored.
> Process ran
> Payroll saved.
> Payroll deleted with ERASE option to write binary zeros over all data.
> 
> DBale@lear.com on 06/14/2000 11:46:51 AM
> Please respond to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com@Internet
> To:   MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com@Internet
> Subject:      RE: AS400 user password
> 
> >nice guys<
> You hope.  How many security breaches have occurred over the past 12 years
> that nobody knows about?  How many "crackers" broke in using the HR
> director's user ID and password and changed his own salary?  How would
> anybody ever known that it wasn't the HR director (_if_ they found out at
> all), assuming he kept his password an absolute secret?
> 
> Way back in the S/36 days, we had a programmer who claimed he could figure
> out what everybody in the company was being paid.  Didn't matter that he
> had
> no access to the files, programs, menus, whatever.  Turned out he used the
> CATALOG to determine where the payroll file was on the DASD and dumped the
> data.  Fortunately, he was ethical enough to inform the boss.  Payroll was
> outsourced not long after that.
> 
> How many unethical programmers knew the same thing?
> 
> Sorry for being so cynical, but I think many managers forget that it's not
> the 99.9% of their programming staff they *don't* need to worry about, but
> the 0.1% that they do.  And which one is that?
> 
> - Dan Bale
> 
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