Compensation for a Poster
One morning in June, 1990, a serious situation arose at Boston’s major game company “Games & Publishing”.
Employees were unable to access their computer terminals.
Initially, the system administrator wasn’t very concerned. He was used to the network being temperamental. But this phenomenon spread and grew and he began to get fl.u.s.tered.
He took various measures such as re-initializing the system, but the situation was not improved.
The pa.s.sword was changed by someone outside the network and company information was accessed.
The Boston police were excellent.
“Who would profit from this?”
They thoroughly pursued this question. Those who have a grudge against “Games & Publishing”, such as rival companies, and other related persons were carefully identified.
But no such suspects was found.
After that, there was no choice but to investigate for signs of telephone communication.
The investigator who received the request from the police station examined the data during the investigation. The number of calls made over the last three weeks was no less than 28,000.
Eventually, a phone number with an unusual call frequency emerged.
The criminals were a couple of students.
For many years they had been enthusiastic fans of the games released by Games & Publishing.
However, at that time, due to some mistake, a special poster that they should received was not sent to them.
“This is bulls.h.i.t! They have to be punished!”
“Let us show you that we are not amateurs.”
I order that the game company be punished for their crimes. This was the motive for their crimes.
Total damages awarded to Games & Publishing were $240,000.
The students got four years in prison and two years probation.
In the end, they didn’t receive the poster.