There’s an interesting article about crime reporting in the New York Times today, and the NYPD’s occasional reluctance to make official reports about crimes.

My own experience of this happened in 1990’s when my company’s computers had been hacked. Enough expensive damage had been done, so I wanted to report it even though I didn’t think the NYPD would be able to do much to track the hackers down (this was around 1995).

I called the 1st Precinct and was told they couldn’t take the report because “hacking is not a crime.” I cited the law, but he still refused to make an official report and his CO backed him up. “Okay, so if I were to hack into the NYPD’s computers right now,” I said in frustration, “and download everyone’s personal email, and all your case files and then publish everything I found on the internet, no one would arrest me?” That stopped him for a few seconds, but he still refused and I had to make a lot of phone calls before they would finally make a report.

There are of course, valid reasons for not making an official report. In any case, here’s to a better year, however good or truly bad this year was. I post this picture every December, and it’s a little sad, but I still love it.