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From: jimb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Jim Burke)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Evidence from computers
Message-ID: <15037@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Date: 30 Nov 89 23:27:05 GMT
References: <3990@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <628@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> <4052@sbcs.sunysb.edu>
Reply-To: jimb@Atherton.COM (Jim Burke)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Atherton Technology, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 26

In article <4052@sbcs.sunysb.edu> brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:

>I've seen several cases where printouts were not accepted in court. For
>example, if a money machine messes up, you have absolutely no recourse.
>The receipts are worthless. (This may not be true in states other than
>New York. And I'm not a lawyer.)


This is because the transaction was handled by a machine without a human
being there to verify that you actually put the money in the envelope.
You could punch in a zillion dollars and the machine will blindly print
you a receipt without any verification.  The only thing the receipt proves
is that, yes indeed, you did punch in that number after punching the
deposit button.  You are not there later on when a teller clears and
verifies the transactions.  This is certainly riskier than if you are
standing in front of the teller verifying their handling of your transaction.
This is one reason I never deposit cash at a teller machine.  It seems too
risky although most banks do have two employees open and clear the machine
to avoid theft by dishonest tellers. 


-- 
******                Views expressed here in are my own               ******* 
Jim Burke - consultant  408) 734-9822   | I'll stop posting when they pry my 
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