Can we afford theft?

I do not know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, but I was in a room where three stalwarts of my workplace were discussing something important. The discussion did diverge from the main topic when we had to seek the help of a computer of one of the stalwarts. They are stalwarts and an err such as forgetting a password could happen. So the point of discussion diverged to theft.

The news of hacking the salary accounts of policemen in Mumbai is trending the air. At this point, one of them narrated a story.

A young engineer has built a device which can download all the details of the plastic cards in your wallet the moment he walks past you. And the remaining story of swindling is known. Somehow, it seems, the police has been able to nab him and they are in a dilemma whether to put him behind bars or use him for solving cases. The engineer seems to have justified that if he does service he would earn some meagerly amount whereas in the present occupation he earns 20 lakhs per day. And, he is rated as the 36th ranked hacker in the world.

At this juncture, another stalwart says that he has kept the limit of my card to 20000 only. After a heated discussion about how to be safe from such activities, the 20000 stalwart said that after all, it is only 20000 and he can afford it.

Can we afford it?