Wife's call leads authorities to huge Navy crime

**superdorf** · 10-05-2008, 11:07 PM

After Victor Papagno Jr. was arrested on a domestic violence charge in August 2007, his wife, Andrea, told his bosses at the Naval Research Laboratory that she wanted his work stuff out of the house, federal sources said.
Navy officials didn't know what she was talking about.
When they showed up at the Papagno's Calvert County home, authorities found a crime scene: 19,709 pieces of stolen computer equipment from the Navy lab - hard drives, CDs, zip drives, floppy disks - worth up to $1.6 million, according to court documents and Navy officials.

You have to be a special kind of idiot to try this... although he had been getting away with it for 10 years.

**Flag Guy** · 10-06-2008, 08:41 AM

Suprised this hasn't made the local radio news yet...

**bos** · 10-06-2008, 08:45 AM

Wait, the Navy still uses floppy and zip drives?

**cmoneyr** · 10-06-2008, 08:48 AM

Originally Posted by bostinelosd

Wait, the Navy still uses floppy and zip drives?

What they didn't list in the article was the stash of punch cards that he also stole.

**pulse** · 10-06-2008, 08:49 AM

What was he doing with all that old junk? Selling it? Doesn't sound like, it sounds like it was just sitting around taking up space.

**bos** · 10-06-2008, 08:53 AM

Originally Posted by cmoneyr

What they didn't list in the article was the stash of punch cards that he also stole.

Well at least he left the abacus behind. Those are pricey.

**Flag Guy** · 10-06-2008, 08:55 AM

Originally Posted by bostinelosd

Wait, the Navy still uses floppy and zip drives?

He's been stealing stuff for 10 years... I know 10 years ago I was using Floppys and Zips were in use. The stuff that he'd have the easiest time stealing would also be legacy machines, not current equipment which would be better tracked and accounted for...

**bos** · 10-06-2008, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by Flag Guy

He's been stealing stuff for 10 years... I know 10 years ago I was using Floppys and Zips were in use. The stuff that he'd have the easiest time stealing would also be legacy machines, not current equipment which would be better tracked and accounted for...

Dont get technical on me Mr. Gentleman. =)

**Cyclonesrule91** · 10-06-2008, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by cmoneyr

What they didn't list in the article was the stash of punch cards that he also stole.

1. Excuse my ignorance, but what are punch cards.....(preparing myself to feel embaressed)

2. If he had hard drives and data storage, was he selling info or possibly a spy in the making?

**Flag Guy** · 10-06-2008, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Cyclonesrule91

1. Excuse my ignorance, but what are punch cards.....(preparing myself to feel embaressed)

2. If he had hard drives and data storage, was he selling info or possibly a spy in the making?

1. Old method of doign programing... you'd have cards you'd punch holes in (binary I'm assuming?) that you would feed into a computer in order, it would read the "program" and execute it or whatever.

Never seen 'em, just know of 'em

2. No doubt they're investigating that angle but I'm sure if he was able to get the computer there wasn't much sensitive data on it... sounds like he was just stock piling old junk

**LindenCy** · 10-06-2008, 10:22 AM

I wasn't around for punch cards, but starting to feel older.

**Flag Guy** · 10-06-2008, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by LindenCy

I wasn't around for punch cards, but starting to feel older.

I hear you on that... I've continually suprised people at work because I'm old enough to remember things like Dot Matrix printers, MS Dos, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, 5-1/2 floppys, serial connections insted of USB, internal computer speakers (with no external speakers), etc

They were also suprised when I knew who Wimpy was, but that stems more from late night cartoon watching rather than when I was born

**c.y.c.l.o.n.e.s** · 10-06-2008, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by Cyclonesrule91

1. Excuse my ignorance, but what are punch cards.....(preparing myself to feel embaressed)

2. If he had hard drives and data storage, was he selling info or possibly a spy in the making?

I think the opposite probably just happened. A lot of people like me just felt "old" when you asked that question. Punch cards were the most frustrating thing ever invented. Picture running your finger over the edge of a deck of cards and making them flutter.

If you wrote a program that had 1000 lines of code, you had 1000 cards that ran through a card reader. If line 589 had a misplaced semi-colon, you had to remove the card, recreate it and run all 1000 cards through the reader again to see if the program worked.