Woman Accused Of Witchcraft After Inserting USB Correctly On First Try

Tzfat, Israel August 13 – A local receptionist is facing suspicions of sorcery today because she managed to put her flash drive in a computer’s USB port without having to turn it over because it was facing the wrong way.

Malka Schor, 31, was transferring patient data from one computer to another at the medical practice where she works, and in so doing used a thumb drive. Ms. Schor allegedly copied the files onto the device and then moved the drive to the terminal at the receptionist desk, where she inserted it immediately with the male and female components of the port and drive matching in exactly the right way. Two patients sitting in the waiting room fainted, and Ms. Schor now faces an investigation by a Rabbinical court.

It is widely considered a physical impossibility to insert a USB plug correctly in fewer than two attempts, with the worldwide average closer to four. As technology consultant Joey Beyda of Beyda Testing, Inc., explains, USB connectors exist in a quantum state of both possible positions until an insertion is attempted. “Once the edges of the USB port and insert make contact, the function of the port’s position collapses along one set of probabilities, leaving only the incompatible position physically manifest,” he says. No known technology is capable of rendering a USB connection possible on first contact.

Witchcraft is prohibited under Jewish law. Although the Biblical penalty for violating the prohibition is death, Jewish courts have not practiced capital punishment since some time before the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 CE. Lacking the authority to mete out such punishments, community leaders have instead resorted to ruling that the community shun the perpetrators until proper contrition and repentance have been demonstrated.

It remains unclear how strong the case is against Ms. Schor, who professes innocence. No one claims to have seen the performance of any sorcery rituals prior to the successful insertion of the USB drive. In all likelihood, says Jewish legal expert Emunah T’feilah, the lack of such evidence will lead the Rabbis to assume that the witnesses to the successful USB use simply erred in understanding what they observed, and that nothing untoward occurred.

“It’s simply not like the defendant to go for witchcraft anyway,” said T’feilah. “I mean, she’s naturally skeptic about those things to begin with, because she’s a Virgo.”