Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site decwrl.DEC.COM
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-jon!moroney
From: moroney@jon.DEC (Mike Moroney)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Tylenol
Message-ID: <1770@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Wed, 19-Mar-86 10:04:11 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1770
Posted: Wed Mar 19 10:04:11 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 03:08:17 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 31


>[I wrote]
>> > they're *all* made at the same factory (in Puerto Rico) where
>> > it would be a lot easier for some paranoid malcontent to modify
>> > the contents before they're sealed.  Why couldn't this have
>> > happened?  The reported line is simply that it didn't, or it
>> > was ruled out.  Anyone know why?
 
>>   Simple probability. Since they ARE all made at the same factory, the
>> odds on two bottles tainted at the factory  showing up a few blocks
>> away from each other, and so far nowhere else, are astronomical.
>> 
>> --Greg
 
>But is that really true?  Let's say the culprit tampers with five
>bottles at the factory.  They're on the line, one right after the other.
>Odds are, those 5 will stay together for a while, through a lot of
>packing and distribution (assuming that the stuff is shipped in
>fairly large lots).  If the tainted bunch is ever broken up, I'd
>expect that to happen very late in the distribution.  And so finding
>2 tainted bottles within a 1/2 mile of each other would not be so
>improbable.

Ummm... The tampered bottles came from entirely different runs - they were
NOT one after another on the line.  It's still possible, though, but would
require a malcontent to poison exactly one bottle, wait a while, possibly
go to an entirely different machine, poison a second bottle, and then somehow
those 2 bottles have to beat the long odds and wind up a few blocks apart.

-Mike Moroney
..decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-jon!moroney