Salami Slicing (Salami Technique; Salami Attack)

Entry in progress—B.P.
   
 
Wikipedia: Salami slicing
Salami slicing is a series of many minor actions, often performed by clandestine means, that together results in a larger action that would be difficult or illegal to perform at once. The term is typically used pejoratively.
 
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.
 
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 politics, the term salami tactics has been used since the 1940s to refer to a divide and conquer process of threats and alliances used to overcome opposition.
 
In academium, salami slicing refers to the practice of creating several publications out of material that could have been published in a single journal or review. (See also least publishable unit).
 
Salami slicing attacks
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. While opening the accounts and retaining the funds may not have been illegal by themselves, the authorities charged that the individual opened the accounts using false names (including those of cartoon characters), addresses and social security numbers, thus violating the laws against mail, wire and bank fraud.
 
In Los Angeles in October 1998, the district attorneys charged four men with fraud for allegedly installing computer chips in gasoline pumps that cheated consumers by overstating the amounts pumped.
 
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.
 
Historically, actual physical “penny shaving” may be considered a form of salami slicing. The edges of coins made of precious metals have been clipped or shaved by individuals in order to procure small quantities of said metals at a time with the intention that the coin would still retain its nominal value.
   
Wiktionary: salami technique
Etymology
From the notion of using small steps to reach a goal, like slicing a salami.
Noun
salami technique
1.to reach a goal by using small, consistent steps.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
salami, n.
Ellipt. for salami technique in sense below.
1979 Amer. Banker 11 Apr. 10/2 Salami is a truly automated crime. It’s taking small slices over a period of time. It’s taking very small amounts of money from very large numbers of accounts, say in a bank savings system, and transferring them automatically into a favored account.
1984 Sunday Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 10 June 49/1 Salami, one of the most common fraud techniques.
1985 Today’s Computers July 105/3 The tried and tested salami (decimal cents) type of fraud would flourish, but at a much higher level.
1989 Independent 9 Mar. 1/4 Many of the people detected nothing of the ‘salami’..or ‘Logic Bomb’, the tools of hackers intent on crime.
 
salami technique, a way of carrying out a plan by means of a series of small or imperceptible steps; spec. (orig. U.S.) a type of computer fraud in which small amounts of money are transferred from numerous customer accounts into an account held under a false name.
1975 Economist 5 Apr. 64/2 The German government used a ‘*salami technique’ of reflation throughout last year. It authorised a bit more public spending here, a slightly bigger subsidy there. The first reflationary slices were small and tentative. The next were more substantial.
1981 P. SOMERVILLE-LARGE Living Dog ii. 27 Michael’s way of embezzling involved what is known in America as the salami or thin-slice-at-a-time technique. It relied on stealing tiny sums of money from other people’s accounts.
1984 Financial Rev. (Austral.) 7 May 30/2 A favourite play of the computer criminal is the ‘salami’ technique which involves the alteration of instructions which can be used to change interest payments to accounts.