[P2P-F] Fwd: <nettime> Software developer outsources own job and whiles away shifts on cat videos

[Dante-Gabryell Monson]

:)

related dilbert / comic :

*http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2003-08-03/*<http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2003-08-03/>

found via further conversations on the topic
*http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/01/16/0354218/employee-outsourced
-programming-job-to-china-spent-days-websurfing *

itself found via Mamading :)

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 5:43 AM, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>wrote:

>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: nettime's employee of the the year <nettime at kein.org>
> Date: Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 7:51 PM
> Subject: <nettime> Software developer outsources own job and whiles away
> shifts on cat videos
> To: nettime-l at kein.org
>
>
>
>
> Software developer Bob outsources own job and whiles away shifts on cat
> videos
>
> Verizon's hunt for firm's mysterious hacker exposes 'top worker' at firm
> who let Chinese consultants log on to do his daily work
>
> guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 January 2013 18.12 GMT
>
> When a routine security check by a US-based company showed someone was
> repeatedly logging on to their computer system from China, it naturally
> sent alarm bells ringing. Hackers were suspected and telecoms experts were
> called in.
>
> It was only after a thorough investigation that it was revealed that the
> culprit was not a hacker, but "Bob" (not his real name), an "inoffensive
> and quiet" family man and the company's top-performing programmer, who
> could be seen toiling at his desk day after day and staring diligently at
> his monitor.
>
> For Bob had come up with the idea of outsourcing his own job – to China.
> So, while a Chinese consulting firm got on with the job he was paid to do,
> on less than one-fifth of his salary, he whiled away his working day
> surfing Reddit, eBay and Facebook.
>
> The extraordinary story has been revealed by Andrew Valentine, senior
> investigator at US telecoms firm Verizon Business, on its website,
> securityblog.verizonbusiness.**com<http://securityblog.verizonbusiness.com>
> .
>
> Verizon's risk team was called by the unnamed critical infrastructure
> company last year, "asking for our help in understanding some anomalous
> activity that they were witnessing in their VPN logs", wrote Valentine.
>
> The company had begun to allow its software developers to occasionally
> work from home and so had set up "a fairly standard VPN [virtual private
> network] concentrator" to facilitate remote access.
>
> When its IT security department started actively monitoring logs being
> generated at the VPN, "What they found startled and surprised them: an open
> and active VPN connection from Shenyang, China! As in this connection was
> live when they discovered it," wrote Valentine.
>
> What was more, the developer whose credentials were being used was sitting
> at his desk in the office.
>
> "Plainly stated, the VPN logs showed him logged in from China, yet the
> employee is right there, sitting at his desk, staring into his monitor."
>
> Verizon's investigators discovered "almost daily connections from
> Shenyang, and occasionally these connections spanned the entire workday".
>
> The employee, whom Valentine calls Bob, was in his mid-40s, a "family man,
> inoffensive and quiet. Someone you wouldn't look twice at in an elevator."
>
> But an examination of his workstation revealed hundreds of pdf invoices
> from a third party contractor/developer in Shenyang.
>
> "As it turns out, Bob had simply outsourced his own job to a Chinese
> consulting firm. Bob spent less than one-fifth of his six-figure salary for
> a Chinese firm to do his job for him."
>
> He had physically FedExed his security RSA "token", needed to access the
> VPN, to China so his surrogates could log in as him.
>
> When the company checked his web-browsing history, a typical "work day"
> for Bob was: 9am, arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours, watch cat
> videos; 11.30am, take lunch; 1pm, eBay; 2pm-ish, Facebook updates,
> LinkedIn; 4.40pm–end of day, update email to management; 5pm, go home.
>
> The evidence, said Valentine, even suggested he had the same scam going
> across multiple companies in the area.
>
> "All told, it looked like he earned several hundred thousand dollars a
> year, and only had to pay the Chinese consulting firm about fifty grand
> annually".
>
> Meanwhile, his performance review showed that, for several years in a row,
> Bob had received excellent remarks for his codes which were "clean, well
> written and submitted in a timely fashion".
>
> "Quarter after quarter, his performance review noted him as the best
> developer in the building," wrote Valentine.
>
> Bob no longer works for the company.
>
>
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>
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