Computers: How to Soup Up a Filing System

Data bases track gifts, choirs, fish and even mops

Joe Harvey had taken precautions, but the police were too quick. Before Harvey's call-girl business in Orange County, Calif., could put its planned emergency procedures into motion, the local vice squad had seized the firm's computers and software. Recorded on 20 small Mylar discs was evidence that helped convict Harvey on two counts of pimping and one count of conspiracy: the names and credit card numbers of several thousand male customers, descriptions of known and suspected vice-squad members, and careful charts on more than...

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