Sign up for a new account or log in here:
Home › News › Industry News
Software developer outsources his job to China, makes good money goofing off all day
In this economy you'd think there aren't many six-figure jobs that let you wander aimlessly throughout the web all day between cat videos and catching up with social networks. And you'd be right. But one software developer in his 40s was living the dream nonetheless thanks to the magic of outsourcing.
A Verizon report recently detailed one the case of an employee at a U.S. based infrastructure company who was outsourcing his entire job to China for a fifth of his salary. The man in question, referred to as Bob, had gone as far as physically shipping his RSA security token to China so that the third-party contractor could go through the two-factor authentication and log-in under his credentials during the workday.
But eventually the scheme was discovered when Verizon received a request from the unnamed company asking for help in understanding anomalous activity it was witnessing in its VPN logs.
Upon seeing an open and active connection from Shenyang, China, the companies initially suspected some kind of unknown zero-day malware had been able to infiltrate the network. However, further investigation proved otherwise, Bob had simply outsourced his own job to a Chinese consulting firm.
A look at his browsing history revealed what his typical work day consisted of surfing Reddit for a couple of hours, having lunch, browsing social networks, then emailing his end of day update to management. Evidence even suggested he had the same scam going across multiple companies in the area.
Amusingly, it seems that Bob at least chose his developers carefully. Performance reviews cited his clean, well-written code, and even regarded him as the best developer in the building.
User Comments: 31
Got something to say? Post a comment-
Timonius said:
Classy...maybe they should outsource his prison time to China?
-
Uh Scam? No. Deceitful yes, but not a scam. If he opened up a bunch of big security holes by allowing these consulting firms access I could see why he'd be in trouble, but otherwise I'd expect the worst that could happen to him would be losing his 'job'. Verizon was receiving everything they paid for, and high quality work, by the sound of it.
Personally, I'd never outsource my job to China. I'd pick India for sure.
-
His jig is up!
-
Busted....
-
4 people like this |
This sounds like something George Costanza would do.
-
3 people like this |Staff
I really don't see the problem here.
So companies can outsource their whole damn firm and it's all ok.
But this guy simply outsourced his job, and had the person doing it performing a terrific job surpassing all his colleagues, and he is the bad guy?
-
3 people like this |I really don't see the problem here.
So companies can outsource their whole damn firm and it's all ok.
But this guy simply outsourced his job, and had the person doing it performing a terrific job surpassing all his colleagues, and he is the bad guy?
I completely agree with this. I applaud the guy for thinking outside of the box.
-
1 person liked this |I really don't see the problem here.
So companies can outsource their whole damn firm and it's all ok.
But this guy simply outsourced his job, and had the person doing it performing a terrific job surpassing all his colleagues, and he is the bad guy?
Other than sending his RSA security token to someone else and allowing them to log in as him (probably covered by basic fraud and a serious violation of his employment security agreements)... And that he was representing the work as his own, which could potentially cause massive havoc and damages if an issue arose that needed immediate attention, and he would not be able to take care of the situation personally... The concept itself wasn't flawed, so much as the dishonest implementation of it.
Plus, the company was probably just irritated that it could have gotten 5 times the excellent work for that one guy's salary, with much lower benefits overhead. Heh.
-
1 person liked this |nategatorc said:
I haven't had a chance to meet this young man but boy does he have Straight to Upper Management written all over him.
-
I really don't see the problem here.
So companies can outsource their whole damn firm and it's all ok.
But this guy simply outsourced his job, and had the person doing it performing a terrific job surpassing all his colleagues, and he is the bad guy?
Well, when a company outsources the job, they give the security clearance and do the background check on the company they are hiring. When they hire Bob the Slacker, they do the checks on him. That's why I'd bet he'll get fired. I agree, he wasn't scamming them, but depending on the type of job he had, his employer might be a bit upset he was sharing security credentials.
-
nategatorc:
"I haven't had a chance to meet this young man but boy does he have Straight to Upper Management written all over him."
Naga...Naga....Not-gonna work here anymore, anyway. *nerd*
-
Why in the world is Verizon upset with him for doing exactly what their and every member of upper management does to the ground workers every day? (With the exception of sending their security code to China.)
-
1 person liked this |
Great upper level management potential.
-
1 person liked this |Sarcasm said:
Why in the world is Verizon upset with him for doing exactly what their and every member of upper management does to the ground workers every day? (With the exception of sending their security code to China.)Yup they are all up in arms about this yet thousands of Manufacturing jobs are outsourced to China every single day.
The man is just doing it on a smaller scale lol
-
What everyone fails to read is that it wasn't Verizon who hired him but rather a company that hired Verizon to audit the VPN logs whether Verizon was the company's service provider or what not, who knows.
-
misor said:
Nah!!!
if he outsourced his job to me, I'll be glad.
-
TS-56336 said:
It happens more often here in our country...
-
VitalyT said:
Lots of developers do it, just more carefully, without security compromises like this.
-
We need more guys like him, we would have so many more job opportunities.
-
Anyone knows what the Chinese company is? Could come in handy.
-
Whats the penalty for this? lose his job obviously...but does he get fined? prison? personaly I think hes a hero
-
1 person liked this |avoidz said:
This sounds like something George Castanza would do.The Verizon guy was handed the "Pensky file". Outsourcing his own job was pretty clever.
-
It's hard to get rid of a civil servant. My boss in a civil service job did something similar. He'd be in in the morning to unlock his door, and then proceeded to another job. Sometimes he'd come back in the evening, sometimes not. The way they got rid of him was to take away his parking pass, and parking is now $35 near downtown Chicago.
-
Terrell said:
There was nothing said about him not knowing how to do his job. I mean he obviously had to interview for the job at some point I would think. So he was being lazy and decided to outsource the work. Obviously, he had better things to do with his time.
-
Moheban79 said:
I once heard of a guy that was a medical organ courier that out-sourced his job to someone else for a 1/5th of the pay. He got busted when they discovered he wasn't of a darker skinned racial minority!
Most Popular
| Trending | Featured |
Subscribe to TechSpot
Get free exclusive content, learn about new features and breaking tech news.