COMPUTERS!
A file from the book
GETTING EVEN
Typed by
THE REFLEX
[Member: Omnipotent, Inc.]

The computer won't really be human until it can make a mistake, then cover
up by blaming the error on some other helpless machine.More than one critic
has pointed out that it is machines, not people, that both run and ruin our
society. It seems perfectly proper, then, to seek vengeance against these
tyrannical mechanical masters of ours.Most of us have the advantage when
fighting a machine, because we can reason, we can note shades of gray, and we
can think abstractly> beyond a set program. Machines cannot do this, unless
some person translates these abstractions into programmed sets of yes or no.

The classic way of fighting a computer is to punch a few extra holes in
the computer card. This, of course, screws up the system, and the computer
regurgitates your card. A supervisor must handle the situation manually,
which costs money and time. People punch these extra holes in cards using a
keypunch machine at a nearby school, or they simply and carefully cut a
keypunch pattern with an X-acto art knife.

This sticky trick delights repair people, in addition to you. Place a
large strip of Scotch tape on several computer cards. The slippery surface
causes cards to fall off the track and into the bowels of the machine. A
repair person has to come and perform mechanical surgery on the machine to
remove your fatal paper bullets that felled the machine. This sort of dirty
trick can tie up equipment for several hours of very, very costly down time.

Should the opportunity arise that you have a few secure moments with some
reels of computer tapes and you want to screw up whoever or whatever controls
the data on these tapes, you might try passing a portable electromagnet back
and forth across the tapes. It erases them just the way a bulk eraser cleans
off you audio tapes at home. In many cases computer-tape records are the only
records kept by many companies and schools.
