r-ribbon was an especially valuable
source of data, as its long one-strike ribbon of film contained the
contents of every letter mailed out of the house. The letters were
neatly retyped by a police secretary equipped with a large desk-mounted
magnifying glass.

There is something weirdly disquieting about the whole subject of
"trashing"--an unsuspected and indeed rather disgusting mode of deep
personal vulnerability. Things that we pass by every day, that we take
utterly for granted, can be exploited with so little work. Once
discovered, the knowledge of these vulnerabilities tend to spread.

Take the lowly subject of MANHOLE COVERS. The humble manhole cover
reproduces many of the dilemmas of computer-security in miniature.
Manhole covers are, of course, technological artifacts, access-points
to our buried urban infrastructure. To the vast majority of us,
manhole covers are invisible. They are also vulnerable. For many
years now, the Secret Service has made a point of caulking manhole
covers along all routes of the Presidential motorcade. This is, of
course, to deter terrorists from leaping out of underground ambush or,
more likely, planting remote-control car-smashing bombs beneath the
street.

Lately, manhole covers have seen more and more criminal exploitation,
especially in New York City. Recently, a telco in New York City
discovered that a cable television service had been sneaking into telco
manholes and installing cable service alongside the
phone-lines--WITHOUT PAYING ROYALTIES. New York companies have also
suffered a general plague of (a) underground copper cable theft; (b)
dumping of garbage, including toxic waste, and (c) hasty dumping of
murder victims.

Industry complaints reached the ears of an innovative New England
industrial-security company, and the result was a new product known as
"the Intimidator," a thick titanium-steel bolt with a precisely
machined head that requires a special device to unscrew. All these
"keys" have registered serial numbers kept on file with the
manufacturer. There are now some thousands of these "Intimidator"
bolts being sunk into American pavements wherever our President passes,
like some macabre parody of strewn roses. They are also spreading as
fast as steel dandelions around US military bases and many centers of
private industry.

Quite likely it has never occurred to you to peer under a manhole
cover, perhaps climb down and walk around down there with