Your Chips Or Your Life!

They are the soul of the personal computer and worth more than their weight in gold or cocaine. Small wonder then that these tiny, high-tech chips have become the latest target of the international crime set. A few tales from the cyberfront: in Greenock, Scotland, three knife-wielding masked men overpowered a factory guard last month and stole $3.7 million worth of chips and related computer parts; in Fremont, California, burglars disarmed a security system and made off with more than $1.8 million of chips and computer equipment in a January warehouse heist. And outside Portland, Oregon, five gunmen bound and gagged...