should perform and, of course, when each died.
The IBM partnership helped make the Nazis an incredibly efficient killing machine, far more efficient than they ever would have been on their own, and there was nary a facet of their operations that IBM didn’t have a hand in. As Hitler sought to expand his Third Reich, IBM had salivated at the opportunity to gain even greater market share.
Knowing the culture at IBM and that nothing, especially data and information, was ever purged—no matter how damning or dangerous—Middleton demanded access to everything they had on the Nazi program. IBM declined his request. In fact, they went further, they told him it didn’t exist. He knew they were lying, and he demanded the information again.
When he was turned down the second time, it was explained in no uncertain terms that if he made the request again, or even spoke of the project, his employment with IBM would be terminated, end of story.
Realizing that they weren’t willingly going to grant him access to the material, he devised a plan to steal it.
After sufficient time had passed, he cobbled together a series of projects he knew IBM would be pleased to see him working on and began in earnest in his private lab, which was tucked away on the far side of the campus. What the higher-ups at IBM didn’t know was that he had chosen each of the projects as cover and was slowly gaining access to the genocide program and siphoning copies of everything away.
By the time his superiors discovered, quite by accident, what he was up to, Middleton had made abhorrent progress. Using only simple mathematics and the rudimentary computing equipment available to IBM and the Nazis at the time, he had completely reworked and improved their program for genocide.
The detail into which his obsession plunged was beyond sickening. Improved train schedules and boxcar capacity studies, the construction and location of concentration camps, the means for prisoner selection, their murder, and the disposal of their corpses… Middleton’s vision, notto mention his deplorable admiration of the process, which bordered on reverence, was repellent.
According to his calculations, IBM had dropped the ball. Hitler and the Nazis could have been at least 80 percent more “productive” in their killing of Jews and anyone else they saw as an enemy of the state.
When Middleton’s research was uncovered, not only was he fired, but for the first time in the company’s history they actually burned an employee’s papers. They didn’t stop there. Upon terminating him, they confiscated his identification, his keys, and escorted him off the campus. They then collected his folders and notepads and every single book and physical object in his office and burned those as well. Middleton’s disgruntled colleagues, who were never informed of the research, weren’t surprised to hear that he had eventually been let go. What they would never know is how accurate they were in comparing him to monsters like Hitler and Mao.
Unwittingly, IBM had helped Middleton unlock a box that should never have been opened. The genie, if it could be described in such benign terms, was now out of the bottle. Middleton had discovered his calling.
He worked for multiple competitors of IBM before ending up at Equifax, the nation’s oldest consumer credit reporting agency. There, he was in his element, swimming in data and learning how he could use it.
He pioneered a division that gathered, analyzed, and provided consumer information to government and law enforcement agencies. It made him an extremely wealthy and powerful executive. The division would eventually be spun off as a company called ChoicePoint, a data-aggregating firm described as a “private intelligence service,” which peddled its information to government and private industries. But as good as he had it, it wasn’t enough. Even Equifax and ChoicePoint were not a large enough launching pad for him and what he wanted to
The IBM partnership helped make the Nazis an incredibly efficient killing machine, far more efficient than they ever would have been on their own, and there was nary a facet of their operations that IBM didn’t have a hand in. As Hitler sought to expand his Third Reich, IBM had salivated at the opportunity to gain even greater market share.
Knowing the culture at IBM and that nothing, especially data and information, was ever purged—no matter how damning or dangerous—Middleton demanded access to everything they had on the Nazi program. IBM declined his request. In fact, they went further, they told him it didn’t exist. He knew they were lying, and he demanded the information again.
When he was turned down the second time, it was explained in no uncertain terms that if he made the request again, or even spoke of the project, his employment with IBM would be terminated, end of story.
Realizing that they weren’t willingly going to grant him access to the material, he devised a plan to steal it.
After sufficient time had passed, he cobbled together a series of projects he knew IBM would be pleased to see him working on and began in earnest in his private lab, which was tucked away on the far side of the campus. What the higher-ups at IBM didn’t know was that he had chosen each of the projects as cover and was slowly gaining access to the genocide program and siphoning copies of everything away.
By the time his superiors discovered, quite by accident, what he was up to, Middleton had made abhorrent progress. Using only simple mathematics and the rudimentary computing equipment available to IBM and the Nazis at the time, he had completely reworked and improved their program for genocide.
The detail into which his obsession plunged was beyond sickening. Improved train schedules and boxcar capacity studies, the construction and location of concentration camps, the means for prisoner selection, their murder, and the disposal of their corpses… Middleton’s vision, notto mention his deplorable admiration of the process, which bordered on reverence, was repellent.
According to his calculations, IBM had dropped the ball. Hitler and the Nazis could have been at least 80 percent more “productive” in their killing of Jews and anyone else they saw as an enemy of the state.
When Middleton’s research was uncovered, not only was he fired, but for the first time in the company’s history they actually burned an employee’s papers. They didn’t stop there. Upon terminating him, they confiscated his identification, his keys, and escorted him off the campus. They then collected his folders and notepads and every single book and physical object in his office and burned those as well. Middleton’s disgruntled colleagues, who were never informed of the research, weren’t surprised to hear that he had eventually been let go. What they would never know is how accurate they were in comparing him to monsters like Hitler and Mao.
Unwittingly, IBM had helped Middleton unlock a box that should never have been opened. The genie, if it could be described in such benign terms, was now out of the bottle. Middleton had discovered his calling.
He worked for multiple competitors of IBM before ending up at Equifax, the nation’s oldest consumer credit reporting agency. There, he was in his element, swimming in data and learning how he could use it.
He pioneered a division that gathered, analyzed, and provided consumer information to government and law enforcement agencies. It made him an extremely wealthy and powerful executive. The division would eventually be spun off as a company called ChoicePoint, a data-aggregating firm described as a “private intelligence service,” which peddled its information to government and private industries. But as good as he had it, it wasn’t enough. Even Equifax and ChoicePoint were not a large enough launching pad for him and what he wanted to
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