1. No one would be interested.
2. It will take too much time.
3. I'm not that interested.

Work was good again today. I think I figured out how companies start the slippery slope to falsifying thier financial reports.

At work, one of my jobs is to completely erase the hard drives with a "wipe" utility. There is an automated process that runs with a minimum of supervision. After the wipe is done a log file is written to a server with the details.

Sometimes the process completes but the file somehow doesn't write. I notify my boss and he "creates" the log file with the pertinant detils. Sometimes other processes in this migration may not show as done, even when the tech has watched the process complete. That may be escalated up the ladder until someone manually "fixes" the completed logs and causes them to be recorded as that portion of the migration finished.

It could be a small step to not even completing these processes to just "faking" the results and logs. That would go thru the system and show complete.

Perhaps the faked results reflected in fraudulant financials started as little "fixs" or "adjustments" that, when desired by upper mangement, just kept getting larger until the financial reporting took on a life of it's own.

No excuse. These accountants still need to go to prison,
but like the convicted criminal gambler said when asked how he turned to a life of crime and gambling, "It started with Bingo Night at the catholic church."

Lost in the Ozone again, Curiouoso*