Yes, but somewhere I remember an actual case. I used it for a case study but it was about 15 years ago probably!
The fraction of a cent in interest calculations was (is?) a favourite story in Uni lectures both accounting and Computer Science. The one I was told went back to the US and the early days of mainframes (1960s). The interest calculation may generate a figure like $234.45 on the ledger but the actual amount calculated may have been $234.451649872 for example. The amount below the cents level was swept into a legitimate but irregularly used ledger account (such as asset revaluation reserve) and once it got to a big enough amount then would get reversed out of it and paid out.
A more AFF style (don't get angry get ahead...) one.
A senior IT manager who looked after a mid-sized company's mainframe was thought to have over-heard he was going to be sacked. Each day there was a back-up taken on tape and the tapes were then moved off-site for safety (in event of fire etc). This was very early 70s. No RFIT access cards just physical keys.
The IT guy was a jack-of-all-trades, including it turned out an able electrician. Some months after he was fired there was a problem and the back-up tapes were brought back on-site to restore the system.
The tapes were useless, totally scrambled.
So the previous days tapes were brought back. They too were useless. This process went on for apparently over 60 days of tapes being brought back in before someone twigged there was a serious issue.
Instead of bringing the tapes back they got IBM to test the next tape and it was useless too. In fact every tape going back to a few days before the guy was sacked was useless. Trouble was they did not know why. Thought just a coincidence. IBM called into site to check tape machine, and it was perfect. But when the IBM guys got back to their office they found that their equipment, test tapes etc were also useless.
Much head scratching, the only thing that could ruin the tapes like that was a strong magnetic field. So it was arranged for them to come back the next morning and check. Nothing found but tape made that previous evening was also useless despite machine checking out perfectly.
Took days more, meanwhile company virtually paralysed as system nearly 3 months out of date, no billing, no stock control nothing.
Finally someone worked it out. Tape backups done every evening, it was now late winter. So despite being a typical 60s office set-up with lots of windows, it got dark so the lights got switched on. It turns out, they never proved it but strong suspicion that the sacked guy did it, someone had created a strong enough electro-magnet by looping wire around the exit door from the facility, not the door directly into the mainframe room but a door along the corridor leading to the car park that the courier always used to take the tapes.
The wire was hooked up to the light switch so that when the light switch was turned on not only did the hall lights come on (as they were needed late in the afternoon as it was autumn) but the magnetic field was created.
That was why the first time IBM came in to check the equipment out and run tests all their equipment/test tapes etc were fine as the lights were not on, but as they were there for a lengthy period, by the time they left the lights were on and of course they wheeled their gear out through the door to the car park.
It was never pinned on the sacked manager.
