英语翻译第八章.docVIP

1.Chapter 8 - Databases A Miami Herald reporter working a murder story on a Sunday afternoon in April 1990 did the routine things. He interviewed people who knew the dead woman and the man accused of shooting her. He got hints of infidelity and a flamboyant life style. But he needed verification. So he went to Nora M. Paul, director of the Miami Herald library. Heres what she did for him: 1. Using a modem-equipped personal computer, Paul dialed the countys mainframe computer, where Civil Court records were kept, and checked for the victims name in the index. That yielded the number of a civil case the dead woman had filed against the accused, who, it turned out, was her former boy friend. The case record contained the name of her lawyer. The reporter called him and found out about a criminal case pending against the accused. 2. The woman who answered the accused mans phone refused to give her name to the reporter or to verify that he was married. Paul found the wifes name with a computer query to the Dade County Official Records Index, which produced a mortgage deed listing the couple. 3. A microfiche file in the library contained the registration number of the accused persons car. Paul dialed CompuServe, a national database service for personal computer users, and tapped into its gateway to the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles listings. The DMV record said he drove a 1988 Cadillac. 4. A local real estate database, also accessed by computer,?yielded the details on the mans condo: how much he paid for it, how many rooms and baths, total square feet. 5. Using the mans name and current address, Paul dialed into a national credit network and got his social security number, a previous address in New York, and the name of a business he had owned there. 6. From the Miami Heralds own newspaper database, a part of the national Vu/Text service, Paul retrieved a reference to a photo of the accused and the victim attending a fashion show at a local disco. The photo itself w