Salami slicing
 | It has been suggested that Salami tactics be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since June 2020. |
Salami slicing refers to a series of many small actions, often performed by clandestine means, that as an accumulated whole produces a much larger action or result that would be difficult or unlawful to perform all at once. The term is typically used pejoratively. Although salami slicing is often used to carry out illegal activities, it is only a strategy for gaining an advantage over time by accumulating it in small increments, so it can be used in legal ways as well.
An example of salami slicing, also known as penny shaving, is the fraudulent practice of stealing money repeatedly in extremely small quantities, usually by taking advantage of rounding to the nearest cent (or other monetary unit) in financial transactions. It would be done by always rounding down, and putting the fractions of a cent into another account. The idea is to make the change small enough that any single transaction will go undetected.[1]
In information security, a salami attack is a series of minor attacks that together results in a larger attack. Computers are ideally suited to automating this type of attack.
In academic publishing, salami publication, sometimes also referred to as salami slicing, is a strategy of dividing the results of a single research project into several publications, especially when aimed at getting bigger recognition of the work (based on bibliometric criteria), see least publishable unit.
History
Thomas C. Schelling wrote in his 1966 book 'Arms and Influence':[2][3]
Salami tactics, we can be sure, were invented by a child […] Tell a child not to go in the water and he’ll sit on the bank and submerge his bare feet; he is not yet ‘in’ the water. Acquiesce, and he’ll stand up; no more of him is in the water than before. Think it over, and he’ll start wading, not going any deeper; take a moment to decide whether this is different and he’ll go a little deeper, arguing that since he goes back and forth it all averages out. Pretty soon we are calling to him not to swim out of sight, wondering whatever happened to all our discipline.
Financial frauds
In January 1993, four executives of a rental-car franchise in Florida were charged with defrauding at least 47,000 customers using a salami technique.[4]
In Los Angeles, in October 1998, district attorneys charged four men with fraud for allegedly installing computer chips in gasoline pumps that cheated consumers by overstating the amounts pumped.[4]
In 2008, a man was arrested for fraudulently creating 58,000 accounts which he used to collect money through verification deposits from online brokerage firms a few cents at a time.[5]
In 1996, a fare box serviceman in Edmonton, Canada, was found guilty of stealing from the city's transit agency by stealing coins from the fare box. Over 13 years, he walked away with 37 tonnes of coins with a face value of nearly CA$2.4 million, having used a magnet to lift the coins one at a time out of the fare boxes (all coins of the Canadian dollar at that time being made at primarily of steel or nickel). He was sentenced to 4 years in prison and was eligible for parole after 18 months.[6]
In Buffalo, New York, another fare box serviceman stole more than US$200,000 in quarters from the local transit agency over an eight year period (2003 through 2011). Blaming a gambling addiction for his crime, he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.[7]
In politics
On 6 September 2018 British MP Tom Tugendhat, in a House of Commons speech, accused the Russian Government of salami slicing tactics:[8]
We have seen the physical reality of that in the energy markets, with the Russian Government deliberately salami-slicing those markets in order to salami-slice alliances.
Salami tactics "are often associated with power grabs by Nazi Germany in the 1930s".[3] Between 1933 and 1939 the Nazi regime undertook a series of small steps aimed at breaking through the Entente at Versailles — this has been called a "classic salami slicing moment".[9]
China
In fiction
Film
Salami slicing has played a key role in the plots of several films, including Hackers, Superman III, and Office Space. In the latter title, the characters reference Superman III as inspiration.[10]
Television
In a 1972 episode of the TV series M*A*S*H, Radar attempts to ship an entire Jeep home from Korea one piece at a time. Hawkeye commented that his mailman "would have a retroactive hernia" if he found out.[11] The 1987 TV movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Murdered Madam features a murder trial involving the transfer of fractional cents by bank employees.
Music
Johnny Cash's "One Piece at a Time" has a similar plot to the M*A*S*H episode, but with a Cadillac having parts from model years 1949 through 1973.[12]
See also
References
- ^ "Salami Attacks".
- ^ Schelling, Thomas C. (2020-03-17). Arms and Influence. Yale University Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-300-25348-1.
- ^ a b Voeten, Erik (3 December 2013). "'Salami tactics' in the East China Sea". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
- ^ a b Salami fraud By M. E. Kabay Network World Security Newsletter, 07/24/02
- ^ "Hacker takes $50,000 a few cents at a time". PC Pro. 2008-05-28.
- ^ Henton, Darcy (27 Dec 2010). "LRT thief stole nearly $2.4 million, one coin at a time". Edmonton Journal. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
- ^ "Convicted parking meter thief amassed $210,000 in stolen cash — all of it in quarters". National Post. Postmedia Network Inc. Associated Press. August 17, 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
- ^ "Hansard 6 September 2018 - Global Britain and the International Rules-based Order". 6 September 2018. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
- ^ Farley, Robert (26 December 2014). "A Holiday Primer on Salami Slicing". thediplomat.com. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
- ^ "The Salami Technique".
- ^ "Season 1 Ep 12". M*A*S*H.
- ^ "One Step at a Time".
External links
- How computers enable salami slicing to occur
- A Network World article discussing salami fraud, with several examples