Word: secrets
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...weeks ago, an American Express security official placed an urgent call to New York City-based Secret Service agent Tim Raymond. Someone in Miami had racked up at least a half-million dollars worth of fraudulent charges against more than 100 American Express accounts. The cards hadn't been stolen, so they had to be counterfeits--very good ones, since they had zipped past the security screens in the computers of the giant charge-card company...
...Skimming is the biggest problem in bank fraud today," says Gregory Regan, head of the Secret Service financial-crimes division. "It's the bank robbery of the future. It's technically simple, point-and-click technology. And the equipment is cheap. If you skim 15 or 20 accounts, you can generate $50,000 to $60,000 worth of fraud, and nobody is going to know about it till the victims get their bills, 30 to 60 days after the crime. So the odds of getting caught are reduced...
Charge card-industry officials decline to say how much they are losing to skimmers--in part because they don't want to scare customers out of using their plastic. But an analysis of industry-published figures suggests that skimmers reaped about $125 million last year, and Secret Service agents suspect that the number is actually higher, with much of that plunder going to international crime rings. "It's not unusual," says Regan, "to see a card compromised in New York City or Washington and the numbers used overseas, in Taiwan, Japan or Europe, within 24 to 48 hours...
...even got on with film. He made his first one in 1924, but took ages to feel at ease before the lens; in Hitchcock's 1936 The Secret Agent he is agonizingly squirmy. Eventually he logged some 130 credits in films and TV, most of them after he turned 75. He won an Oscar as the proper, patient butler in Arthur, but his great turns are in Alain Resnais' Providence, as a novelist with nightmares, and in Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books--where he not only played his favorite Shakespearean magician but spoke almost all the dialogue and appeared...
...What Rick is expecting from Hillary 33. Western moniker 34. Throw in 36. Turkey's new President, __ Necdet Sezer 37. They're now getting $750,000 per show 39. Wavy lines, in comics 42. New Hampshire's motto, "Live Free or __" 43. Populous area, for short 46. Its third secret was not what Vatican critics said it would be 48. Sierra Leone's captured rebel chief Foday __ 51. When 7-Down bought in, she walked out 52. Most tender 53. Bear's exhortation 54. Glaswegian...