Private Data Sold From Indian Call Center

Hmm... by Xest · 2006-10-06 02:13 · Score: 0, Flamebait

"Security measures and practices that Indian companies have are the best in the world." and I guess staff competence and ability to converse in the native language of the caller is the best in the world too huh?

Re:Hmm... by weave · 2006-10-06 02:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
Amen. We just recently had an esoteric problem with Windows and roaming profiles where in about 1% of the logons, the user's perms to their user hive in the registry would be removed, preventing any GPOs from applying. After two weeks of debugging and not being able to faithfully reproduce it, we called microsoft and paid for an advanced support call to troubleshoot mission critical issues. This is one where "senior management" is allegedly notified of your issue.
We never got out of India, as evidenced by the emails that went back and forth and their origin (you can't always judge by accent because there are Indian citizens working domestically). However, as you stated, the ability to understand what they were saying was enough to drag each call out to twice as long as it should have been.
Then there's the quality of the "support." We were treated as if we were Grandma with a PC problem. We provided clear userenv logs and asked specific questions like "What causes migratent4tont5 process to invoked? What exactly is it checking for since we have no nt4 machines left?" No answers to our specific questions. Instead we got "advice" like.
- It's probably a virus problem.
- Please remove all non-microsoft services from all of your machines. "What? Including our Anti-virus software?" The answer was, yes.
- It's a driver issue with nvidia video cards (we don't have any machines with nvidia cards)
After a while the case person stopped returning our calls and their email started bouncing. Emailing the manager on record for this also bounced. Seemed like their email server was having problems.
They never followed-up on the call. After another week we found out what the problem was. If the ProfileList HKLM key didn't match what local cached profiles of roaming profiles exist on any given machine, it *sometimes* triggered this process that ended up changing the ACLs on the user hive preventing GPOs from being set. Solution was a machine startup script to check that list and remove any entries that conflicted.
They never even hinted to us where to look. We just found it through a heck of a lot of trial, errors, and observations. As far as I know, over a month later, the case is still open with them. They have never bothered to follow up. Then again, they probably closed the call with some lame excuse like "Customer refused to cooperate" (yes, we refused to remove anti-virus from all 2000 of our desktops. It was a stupid suggestion and had nothing to do with the problem at all)
Re:Hmm... by RexRhino · 2006-10-06 02:32 · Score: 1

Are you saying that a security expert in the UK couldn't provide security in India, because he can't speak Hindi? What does language ability have to do with Security skills?
Re:Hmm... by gorfie · 2006-10-06 02:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

Don't be too quick to downgrade the parent. His message may seem trollish but his point is valid. They claim that their security measures are the best in the world but they also make other claims that are done purely to make their industry look more appealing to potential customers - not necessarily with any basis in reality(whether that is sales abilities, communciation skills, work ethic etc.). So if one claim is pure marketing then who is to say that the claim regarding security is anything other than an attempt to ease the fears of potential customers?
Re:Hmm... by Xest · 2006-10-06 02:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Exactly, whilst I agree my post probably came across as a little too trollish, my point was that comments like that are as ignorant and short-sighted pro-India marketing propaganda as the original article is anti-India marketing propaganda. When many outsourcing companies have been making claims like that (although of course in this case it was a response) is it suprising that western organisations hit back with an equivalent amount of propaganda? In an ideal world they'd all just grow up and avoid spreading any propaganda in the first place ;)
Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:53 · Score: 0

You have to know that the call centers follow a script. It's a rote script which was prepared by Microsoft. If you want to blame anyone, please, blame Microsoft
Re:Hmm... by Maxo-Texas · 2006-10-06 03:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

In an ideal world, the SE that gave a realistic estimate of 300 hours would get the contract.

In the real world, the SE who says it will take 150 hours and then extends it to 300 hours for various reasons gets the contract.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Re:Hmm... by stunt_penguin · 2006-10-06 03:06 · Score: 1

You mean none of them speak Troll?

How alarming.

--
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Re:Hmm... by Lactoso · 2006-10-06 03:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

GP is blaming Microsoft. Specifically, Microsoft's decision to outsource support to a foreign nation, Microsoft's lack of training of this outsourced support staff, Microsoft's apparent apathy with the end-user (used to be called 'the customer' in the old days) experience, and Microsoft's failure to meet their support claims (this was a paid support call where 'senior management' was supposedly notified).
And the saddest part of this tale is that since the problem was solved (by the customer) after having dealt with the crack MS support staff, I imagine it will appear as a successful resolution for that support center, further legitimizing their use. While in actuality, the customer is completely dissatisfied.
Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:42 · Score: 1, Interesting

There ARE lots of qualified NT admins in India, who have the professionalism and knowledge to really research this kind of problem.

Good luck finding them though, since of course the whole point of outsourcing is generally to get scripted drones on the cheap.

So yeah, it's not the country, it's the company.
Re:Hmm... by weave · 2006-10-06 03:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

There ARE lots of qualified NT admins in India, who have the professionalism and knowledge to really research this kind of problem.

I have no doubt about that. But this particular problem I described was very esoteric. Basically, if you get an userenv dump and google for some of the words found in it, you get tens of thousands of matches from other dumps people have posted over time.
The problem was, some of these in the section at issue we googled and got ZERO hits on, meaning no one has seen it before probably. No hits on microsoft's public website.
Which means it probably isn't in the call support staff's DB either. And I bet a huge amount of cash that these call centers have requirements to limit the number of calls they escalate to engineers in Redmond, so they are very reluctant to do so.
In the end, no support for truly difficult problems. The sad thing is, since this string was very unique, if this was open source OS we could have at least searched the source tree for the string and determined what logic happens to trigger that to be outputted in a log file. :-(
Re:Hmm... by fastgood · 2006-10-06 04:17 · Score: 1

They never followed-up on the call.
It's a good bet that your call was "recorded for training purposes."
Training is usually non-existant, managers referring back to past recorded calls is non-existant, but you know that someone has saved all the provided names, numbers, and financial information.
Re:Hmm... by stfvon007 · 2006-10-06 04:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

This happened to me. had an email adress that didnt get any spam and only used it for internal company communications. Emailed Leadtek one day about a part that needed a replacement, and boom, spam stars pouring in the next day.

--
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
Re:Hmm... by Sarisar · 2006-10-08 23:12 · Score: 1

Not on the phone if the Indian only spoke Hindi.

How are cases prosecuted? by weave · 2006-10-06 02:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

If a worker who works in same country as the company is caught in fraud, they are prosecuted and thrown in jail. If a megacorp outsources off-shore and the employees of that company are involved in fraud, exactly what assurances does that company or its customers have that the perps are prosecuted?

Also, I always wondered why companies that outsource are assured their trade secrets are not sold too.

Re:How are cases prosecuted? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:19 · Score: 1, Informative

I work at an outsourced customer support company. The policies where I work is if your caught abusing the information you get, you get fired. Simple as that. As for prosecution, if the offense was great enough, the company does prosecute I believe - I've never actually seen something this serious where I work, so I'm not 100% sure about how they deal with prosecution.
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by tygerstripes · 2006-10-06 02:36 · Score: 1

IANAL, but I would assume that the company is liable, not the individual. The likelihood is that the company will take action against the outsourced-service-provider. If they then choose to take action against the individual, that's their prerogative.
That's not much of an "assurance" of prosecuting the individual, sure, but in terms of civil action you will be more likely to win compensation from a company than an individual so you're on a winner there. If it's not about the money but the principle, well, life's a bitch.

--
Meta will eat itself
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by pete6677 · 2006-10-06 02:42 · Score: 4, Informative

Most shady people who would sell others' information would not care about being fired from some $7.50/hr call center job. Prosecution is not a big threat either, as rare as it is for people to be aggressively prosecuted for data theft. This is true no matter what country the call center operates in. It's just what will inevitably happen when you farm out important corporate operations to the lowest bidder. Of course they will take shortcuts and of course there will be shady people willing to exploit the situation. The only thing surprising about this article is that people didn't realize the potential for these problems a lot sooner. And the only thing that surprises me about fraud is that it isn't more common, as easy as it is to do. All it takes to succeed is a little common sense is a complete lack of morals.
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:52 · Score: 0

See the recent store of a grandmother who was robbed and beaten by thugs, who broke her arm... the police decided to only press charges against the grandmother, not the thugs, because she pushed one of the thugs when they were robbing and assaulting her.

And where did you read that, the National Inquirer?
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by xoyoyo · 2006-10-06 03:04 · Score: 2, Informative

That is ever so slightly overstating the case:

The woman in question was not beaten and robbed. A youth stood in her way in a public park and demanded that she hit him. She did. So he hit her back. It is against the law in this country to assault people even if they ask you to, so she was arrested. She is not going to be prosecuted as the CPS has decided quite rightly that the public interest would not be served by prosecuting her. No doubt the entire incident could have been handled more sensitively but it isn't quite the world gone mad picture you seem to have formed.

Details here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/5368900.stm
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by LordSnooty · 2006-10-06 03:10 · Score: 1

Most shady people who would sell others' information would not care about being fired from some $7.50/hr call center job
Well maybe they should, otherwise how would they get the information? Is this a once-only ripoff?
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:17 · Score: 1, Insightful

American slashdotters don't want the truth. They want more reasons to bash the UK. Whether they are true or not. Makes them feel better about the piss poor state of their glorious republic.
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by LindseyJ · 2006-10-06 04:05 · Score: 1

If every UK citizen is as rediculously generalizing as you, maybe Americans have a point.
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 04:08 · Score: 0

Bring an action against the executive within the UK company who made the decision to outsource bank data to a 'leaky' subcontractor?
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by CodeBuster · 2006-10-06 07:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

What assurances does that company or its customers have that the perps are prosecuted?

It depends upon the country, but in popular outsourcing destinations, such as India, the assurance is basically worthless. The Indian court system is a byword for red tape, bureaucracy, and inefficiency that lends new meaning to the phrase, "waiting in hell for a glass of ice water". Nothing gets done without every petty bureaucrat getting his palm greased and even then it is not unusual for cases to spend fifty (50) years winding their way through the system. In fact it is so bad that families actually inherit lawsuits because the disputes cannot be settled within the lifetimes of the original parties.
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by Dun+Malg · 2006-10-06 08:14 · Score: 1

A youth stood in her way in a public park and demanded that she hit him. She did. So he hit her back. It is against the law in this country to assault people even if they ask you to, so she was arrested.
You could look at it that way and determine the CPS acted appropriately, but you'd be wrong. The law is not a computer program with a series of boolean conditions that call "CPS->Arrest(citizen)" when an IF...THEN evaluates true. Laws are expected to be enforced based upon the "reasonable man" theory. Would a reasonable man consider it assault in the case of a punch from an elderly woman against a belligerant young man who impeded her passage along a public walk and goaded her into it and then proceeded to use it as justification for breaking her arm? Unlikely. CPS should not have either.

--
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by derfla8 · 2006-10-06 08:21 · Score: 1

$7.50/hour? Take that into context of quotes that one can hire 5-10 for the price of 1 from UK. So these guys are making $0.75/hour? That's what makes exploitation of data more likely when outsourcing offshore. But unless the consumer is aware and cares, such losses are a minor hit when taken with the savings in taking things offshore. So enpower yourself by doing business with those who care about your data.
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by xoyoyo · 2006-10-06 20:52 · Score: 2, Informative

And the CPS didn't. Read the rest of my comment and you'll see that the CPS dropped the prosecution as being not in the public interest, presumably for more or less the reasons you describe (although see below). The CPS does not arrest people: the police arrest them and the CPS decides whether to prosecute.

The police are discouraged from showing too much discretion: in this case a sensible copper would have simply pointed out the facts of the law and moved on to something else more important, but not all policemen are sensible, somew are worried that if they show too much discretion they will be reprimanded fot it.

Even if she had been prosecuted I believe assault can still be tried by jury in which case a jury of her peers would have injected some rationality to the process.

I don't know where you get this notion that laws are expected to be enforced on a "reasonable man theory". This is entirely true in some civil law (libel springs to mind, while patent law requires an expert in the field). Criminal law on the other hand is a system of absolutes, exactly as you claim it is not: if you do this, then you have broken the law.

Within those laws there are tests for reasonableness, but that's not the same thing as the reasonable man straw man you put up. I imagine you think (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you expect the reasonable man evaluation of a case like this to say "well they were obviously winding her up and the outcome was completely unbalanced so she shouldn't be arrested". Instead what the test for reasonableness in assault looks for is whether the contact was reasonable: this is the way that the assault law can distinguish between behaviour in the office and on the rugby field (to give extremes). It would obviously be unreasonable if I were to pull you to the floor so my colleagues could sit on you while we were discussing the quarterly sales figures; on a rugby field it would be perfectly reasonable. Punching somebody (outside a boxing ring) is always regarded as unreasonable.

If there is a worrying trend in British law it is not the tendency to blame the victim rather than the aggressor, which is a rightwing fantasy, but to remove the checks and balances required to inject exactly the kind of reasonableness you and the grandparent desire. Instead we have non-judicial ASBOs, a diminution of jury trial, the ending of the double jeopardy rule and the proposed lifting of the right to silence. And all of these things have been done in the name of cracking down on bad guys and speeding up conviction, not in the name of ensuring that terrified grandmothers (as in this case) are not harrassed by the law.
Re:How are cases prosecuted? by tygerstripes · 2006-10-08 20:32 · Score: 1

Again, IANAL, but I don't think that's possible. The corporation has liability, but the shareholders have limited liability in a Ltd or PLC. The CEOs, board of directors or whoever are only criminally liable if they can be shown to have acted illegally or in a manner that shows they knowingly or negligently threatened people's data-security, finances etc without informing their customers of the risk or, in any case, threatened them against UK law. In that event it is the crown that prosecutes, and you can bring suit against the company, but not against the individual - that is the company's prerogative.
Anyone experts out there, please step in. I think the above is generally correct, bu I'm out of my depth here.

--
Meta will eat itself

Its the Economics, STUPID by Anarke_Incarnate · 2006-10-06 02:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

When you pay someone a wage, that relative to those of the people they deal with, they will become angry and resentful. The point of moving offshore is to save costs because the cost of living is so low, making the wages low.

Thus, the people who know they are making a great deal less than people in the UK or US feel that they are doing this to equalize themselves. It is a psychological phenomenon. People don't just want to do well, they want to do better than others.

Re:Its the Economics, STUPID by Anarke_Incarnate · 2006-10-06 02:17 · Score: 1

Doh, should have said "is lower, relative to"
Re:Its the Economics, STUPID by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:38 · Score: 1, Interesting

It's also a big example of "you get what you pay for". I don't care about outsourcing to india in the sense that I'm going to a lose a job (i'm good enough at what I do and confident, 2 weeks anywhere and I'll have a good job), it's that information is being sent to workers with the idea that we'll save money if we pay rajeesh only 5 cents an hour. well guess what, that means that your information is being secured by a guy making 5 cents an hour (OK I don't know exact rates) and he is far enough way that you are just a number or statistic to him. If you didn't see this coming, go outside and start bashing your head against a brick wall, cause you desperately need something to make you smarter than you are.
Re:Its the Economics, STUPID by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2006-10-06 02:46 · Score: 1

Thus, the people who know they are making a great deal less than people in the UK or US feel that they are doing this to equalize themselves. It is a psychological phenomenon.

You're completely correct, but this does not apply only to India. Wage disparity correlates more strongly with violent crime than pretty much any other social phenomenon. The way most modern cultures have evolved, the primary motivation to not steal is ethical. Punitive measures are very weak motivation by comparison. For all those arguing that this is prevalent because of lax security or a legal system that is less likely to punish, you're barking up the wrong tree. When one person starts with less resources and is rewarded with less despite being both smarter and a harder worker, that person often feels no ethical restriction from theft. When the poorer person is treated in a mercenary fashion in the first place and sees others treated the same (sorry about the layoff, it's just business) why would anyone expect them to consider selling customer data in a different light?
Re:Its the Economics, STUPID by baba_geek · 2006-10-06 03:05 · Score: 1

I beg to differ... The wages that an Indian worker gets might be low compared to the wages in the US but they are significantly higher than the average wage in India. In fact, if you take purchasing power parity (PPP) into account, an Indian call center employee can probably afford a higher standard of living than the people they are serving. Hence, Indian call center employees are likely to be a lot happier than the same employees in the US...
Re:Its the Economics, STUPID by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 04:24 · Score: 0

It's not psychological...it's just a matter of not enough oversight and incongruent international legals systems. In general in any large group of people there are those trying to exploit the system for personal gain. This is not a psychological phenomenon based on inequalities with people they only distantly know. It has nothing to do with money here versus money there but with an attempt increase in buying power locally. It has even less to do with the fact that it is India and more to do with the inability to regulate foreign workers to the level that EU privacy laws demand.
Re:Its the Economics, STUPID by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 04:49 · Score: 0

and they want more than they are actually worth - thus requiring the need to outsource
Re:Its the Economics, STUPID by CargoCultCoder · 2006-10-06 08:10 · Score: 1

When you pay someone a wage, that relative to those of the people they deal with, they will become angry and resentful.

Cool theory: where is the evidence in this case?

Given the number of cases we've seen the last few years in the US of very well paid executives committing crimes to make more money ... were they angry and resentful too?

My manager, and I suspect many of my newer coworkers (since hiring wages seem to increase faster than existing salaries) are making more than I am. Should I be angry and resentful? (Oddly: I'm not.) Since my cost of living is several times that of folks in, say, India, does it really make sense for them to be upset that I'm being paid several times more?

Cool theory, but it might need some fleshing out. And some evidence that it actually applies to this particular problem.
Re:Its the Economics, STUPID by Anarke_Incarnate · 2006-10-06 08:33 · Score: 1

Understand it is a propensity for these actions and not a guarantee that they will occur (unless you look at it from the point of view that a few will do so ,when given the chance, out of a much larger whole.).

Why is it that people must assume that if there is an explanation for something, that it must shoehorn into every circumstance. Yes, there are very rich and powerful corrupt people. That is for a slightly different reason. I never did say that ALL cases of this type of behavior are linked to the relative inequality between classes/countries.

People want power. They want to be better than others. Tell them that they are and they will believe. This is not fiction, though it does not work in every case. It worked for the Nazis. Look for it elsewhere. The patterns don't have to be PERFECT matches, but they all seem to link up.

Blame it on India! by RexRhino · 2006-10-06 02:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

Of course, there isn't any reason to believe that private data couldn't be illegally sold in the UK... or in the U.S., or France, or Canada, or Germany, or Japan, or whereever. In fact, data theft has most certainly happened in all those countries!

But you are going to have a salvo of posts demonizing India as a place to do buisness. People with either a xenophobic agenda, or a protectionist agenda will jump on this with the whole "India is evil! Don't outsource to India" paranoia and hysteria, when in fact there is no reason to believe your data is more secure anywhere else.

Re:Blame it on India! by Xest · 2006-10-06 02:23 · Score: 1

Indeed, as mentioned on The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/05/india_expo sed/ It's just as bad elsewhere, however as with my original post in response to this story, the suggestion that data security in India is the best in the world is equally as ignorant a comment so I think we're all just as bad as each other ;)
Re:Blame it on India! by merky1 · 2006-10-06 02:33 · Score: 1

Actually, its more of a problem with outsourcing in general. The people handling the infrastructure you outsourced have very little invested in the success / failure of your project. The group that you outsourced to probably has enough of a customer base that your data as an entity is not that important to the bottom line.

I caught a recent episode of 30 days (by the guy who did SuperSize me), where they sent an american to work in India. One of the topics of discussion (towards the end, and they really breezed over it) was that even if the call center shut down for a day, the customers wouldn't mind since losing one day occassionally was still less than not outsourcing. Until the perceived risk is greater than the cost savings, outsourcing will continue, and data integrity will continue to degrade.

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--WooooHoooo--
Re:Blame it on India! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:38 · Score: 0

Yes, there are corrupt people everywhere. However, you miss the bigger picture. Now that data has leaked they have to deal with AT LEAST 2 different legal systems, and there is no guarentee that either one will necessarily cooperate with the other. The already small chance of actually apprehending the culprit and setting an example for others who would try to do the same is reduced even further. That is the real root of the issue.
Re:Blame it on India! by Danga · 2006-10-06 02:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

People with either a xenophobic agenda, or a protectionist agenda will jump on this with the whole "India is evil! Don't outsource to India" paranoia and hysteria, when in fact there is no reason to believe your data is more secure anywhere else.

There is a reason to believe my data would be more secure somewhere else and for me that would be here in the US. The reason it would be safer is because if someone were to sell my information working at a company here in the US then they would be held accountable to the laws we have against that and they would pay the price because I certainly would go after them myself if necessary. If the person who sells my data happens to be in another country then I would not have the choice to go after them myself and even though they most likely would lose their job their home country may not have any laws against what they did with my information so they could basically get away with it. So while there truly are "bad apples" everywhere there would be MUCH more deterent to sell someones personal information in a country that has laws against it than in a country where those laws do not exist.

I think if I was making $2/hr (I made that up, I don't know what the real number is but I am sure it is low compared to the US) while I knew I was being exploited for cheap labor and was offered a large sum of money in exchange for personal data knowing I would lose my job but not be in trouble legally that I would probably take the money and go hunting for a new job.

Basically I hope that some laws are passed in the US (and other countries) that already have laws guarding personal information to make sure if companies outsource access to that information that they are only allowed to outsource it to a country that has at least the same laws in regard to personal information. The best choice would to not outsource that information at all (so if the company in another country did not persue the employee legally I could do it myself) but at least this way if someone did do something with my personal information I would have some hope that they would be punished more than just losing their job.

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Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
Re:Blame it on India! by daEnlitnd1 · 2006-10-06 03:05 · Score: 1

If the person who sells my data happens to be in another country then I would not have the choice to go after them myself and even though they most likely would lose their job their home country may not have any laws against what they did with my information so they could basically get away with it.

Actually, it wouldn't matter. You would go after the company that you gave the information to in the first place. It would be their responsibility to ensure that your information is protected.
Re:Blame it on India! by Murmer · 2006-10-06 03:14 · Score: 0

The point is not "India is a bad place to do business". The point is "your data can be trivially moved from a place where its security is a legal requirement to a place where those laws don't apply."
I'd like to see privacy laws that include data-migration limits. Like "once you've agreed to a privacy statement, it is then illegal to move that data to another national jurisdiction", or something.

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Mike Hoye
Re:Blame it on India! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:48 · Score: 0

C'mon, it's just not xenophobic agenda, or a protectionist agenda. We have law and order situation also here. Or course, I am not saying UK or France or US is heaven where nothing like this happens; It does there to. But its lot more in India or Philippines because of abysmal law and order. WE all know how easy it is to bribe a police in India and get away with anything, including murder!
Re:Blame it on India! by Not_Wiggins · 2006-10-06 04:04 · Score: 1

I think if I was making $2/hr (I made that up, I don't know what the real number is but I am sure it is low compared to the US) while I knew I was being exploited for cheap labor and was offered a large sum of money in exchange for personal data knowing I would lose my job but not be in trouble legally that I would probably take the money and go hunting for a new job.

You're spot-on.

The reason why low-wage centers are always going to have more fraud (whether located domestically or off-shore) than higher-wage locations is simply a matter of motivation to steal: the greater the disparity between what I earn normally and what I could make by stealing is directly proportional to how tempting it is.

For example, let's assume that data could be sold for $40K US.

As an IT worker within the US, making $80K/year makes $40K tempting, but not really worthwhile if I like my job. But, if I am making $4K a year, I could effectively stop working for 10 years from the money made on that one theft... the temptation is much higher.

This doesn't even address the difficulty companies can have prosecuting internationally.

--
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Re:Blame it on India! by RexRhino · 2006-10-06 04:07 · Score: 1

I don't know how easy it is to bribe a police officer to get away with murder in any country, as I don't have much practicle experience with that kind of thing. :) And I suspect that either in the West, or India, it is too rare to make any sort of absolute judgements. But bribing a police officer to get away with murder (or to commit murder on your behalf), is not unheard of in the developed world either.
Re:Blame it on India! by kiran_n · 2006-10-06 05:42 · Score: 1

What happens when the data is stolen from a country and sent to another country?

How do you contain that? Whom do you go after to get that data back?

Theft Happens! As long as there is some motive somewhere to do this - it will be done!
Let's face it - companies outsourcing to India have obviously taken a look at the legal implications (in terms of jurisdiction and a "if things go wrong scenario") - and these companies have not become big and successful by doing the wrong things! (Well one or two or ten maybe - but hundreds - I don't think so).

All this gets more coverage then it probably deserves because of obvious reasons! The world is becoming a more global place and people have to accept that. Indians have to accept that as well - and this is causing an amazing amount of contrast on an immediate basis (maybe things will get better as the overall economy improves).

Look at it at a Karmic level - and it just might make sense (that and a visit to India will help as well).

--
No Sig is Good Sig.
Re:Blame it on India! by dotdash · 2006-10-06 05:43 · Score: 4, Informative
I think if I was making $2/hr (I made that up, I don't know what the real number is but I am sure it is low compared to the US) while I knew I was being exploited for cheap labor and was offered a large sum of money in exchange for personal data knowing I would lose my job but not be in trouble legally that I would probably take the money and go hunting for a new job.

A call center employee in India does make about $2.3 dollars per hour. However, I am really tired of people quoting these low Dollar figures for pay, while forgetting to mention that the "low pay" tends to be rather high for the local economy.

Let me give you some estimate of costs and expenses in US Dollars. These numbers are for cities like Bangalore and lie closer to the upper limit. I have considered the kind of restaurants and other establishments a young and hip call-center employee is likely to haunt. In the interest of full disclosure: I am Indian, and am quite familiar with the goings on in India in the IT and BPO fields.

Here is the summary before I give you the details: A call-center employee has the potential to save about 35% of his monthly pay. I wish I could do so in the US. Even by Indian standards, 35% is very good savings potential. For comparison, my sister and brother-in-law live in Bangalore, do not work in IT or BPO, and together earn less than the average call-center employee does. Mind you they both have daily expenses. They also have other expenses (schooling and feeding children mostly) an average call-center employee tends not to: The average call-center employee is single, in early 20s, and quite often not contributing much financially to his family.

With numbers like these, I can argue that call-center employees in India have a lot less incentive to sell out. That is, people in the US might look for "supplemental income" more than an Indian call-center employee does. Now, I don't believe that is so, just like I don't believe the argument that the lower Dollar-wage makes Indians (or other nationals) sell out data.

Here is the deal: For every 100 guys selling data, there is one guy buying it. The buyer shops in India because doing so is less expensive for him. So, how about we also look at where the buyers are coming from and what they do with it?

Average Monthly Numbers
- Pay: $444.44
- Expenses: -$276.75 (Everyday expenses (-$150.9), and rent and other montly expenses (-$125.85)
- Savings: $167.69 (37.7% of income)
Everyday expenses (Note: Call centers in India give their employees free refreshments and free/subidised transportation)
- A cup of coffee at a really fancy coffee house: $0.33 (yes, 33 cents)
- A cup of ice cream at a really fancy parlour: $0.65 (must buy ice cream for the girl that tags along)
- A pack of cigarettes: $1.5 (cigarette smoking seems to be on the rise)
- A full meal at a really fancy restaurant: $2.22
- A day pass on a city bus: $0.56 (though the average call-center employees are unlikely to take a bus: they ride bikes)
- A can of beer: $2.00 (most people don't drink beer everyday, but I list it here in case you are wondering)
Monthly expenses
- Rent: $44.00 (A native is likely to live with parents, and pays well below this number)
- Hair cut: $0.55
- Movie tickets, for four shows: $3.00 (movies are the most popular form of entertainment)
- Concessions at the movies for four shows: $4.50
- Apparel for self: $10.00
- Apparel for the person you are wooing: $10.00
- 10 gallons of gas: $48.8 (yes, gas is that expensive)
- Vehicle maintenance: $5.00
Big-ticket
- A new motorcycle: $1000.00
Re:Blame it on India! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 06:48 · Score: 0

There is a reason to believe my data would be more secure somewhere else and for me that would be here in the US. The reason it would be safer is because if someone were to sell my information working at a company here in the US then they would be held accountable to the laws we have against that and they would pay the price because I certainly would go after them myself if necessary

Yeah, so AT&T sold your data to NSA. Why don't you go after them?
Re:Blame it on India! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 08:35 · Score: 0

<Sarchasm status="on">Too right - you should read the article above, about the Department for Homeland Security and it's use/abuse of Passenger Data for passengers on flights. Oh yeah...that information's not going anywhere except the DHS.</Sarchasm>
Seriously - if you really think that you're data is more secure in the Land of the New McCarthyism, you need help.
Re:Blame it on India! by sgt_doom · 2006-10-06 09:01 · Score: 1

..."India is evil! Don't outsource to India" paranoia and hysteria...

Your diatribe is most silly and nonsensical. There's absolutely nothing xenophobic about one's economic survival - and not wanting corrupt American (or Euro or Japanese) corporations offshoring one's job - or bringing in foreign replacement workers -- the proper term is scabs, dude!! The best way to fight foreign scabs is to attack the local corporations doing the offshoring. Eventually, the rubes in America will wise up - after they've wasted money on their Thomas Friedman B.S. books (Friedman's networth from marriage: $2.5 billion) - and take matters in their own hands the way previous Americans did.

And there's nothing special about India - they have to survive off the jobs offshored to them because they're not talented enough to create their own industries.....talk sense, sonny....
Re:Blame it on India! by RexRhino · 2006-10-06 10:23 · Score: 1

There's absolutely nothing xenophobic about one's economic survival

You are assuming that economic survival is zero sum... that when India gets wealthy, we get poor, and when India gets poor we get wealthy. This is a xenophic concept. There is no reason the interests of the U.S. and the interests of India can be mutual. No one is "stealing jobs", as jobs aren't property or a scarce resource, they are a consentual relationship between employer and employee. Claiming India is going to steal jobs and is bad for America is like claiming that lesbians are going to steal women away from heterosexual men and therefore lesbians are bad for men - you can't steal a relationship with a person!

and take matters in their own hands the way previous Americans did.

The United States has historicly had a liberal trade policy. The major exception to this was shortly after the crash of '29, when the U.S. and other countries rushed into protectionism... and it cause the Great Depression. Previous generations of Americans took matters into their own hands by doing better work, investing in new technology, and out producing the competition regardless of labor cost... not by protectionism.

The U.S. is the richest and most powerful country in the world. If a U.S. worker is completly interchangable with a third world worker, then we are a third world country living off the previous generations accumulated capital, and no amount of trade restrictions are going to help us. In a country as rich as the United States, Americans should have such a high education level, work ethic... our infrastructure and services offered should be so overwelmingly superior, that an American worker should not be replacable at any price. If an American worker only has the same skills and habits of a person in a third world country, if we don't have better telecommunications, transportation, or lower corruption than a third world country... if the U.S. offers no benifit for keeping a factory in the U.S. other than threatening people - then sorry, the U.S. has non-trade problems that won't disapear just because you ban Indian products or services.

Previous generations of Americans competed with foriegn labor in the past by having such high technology, high education, good infrastructure, good work ethic, and therefore high productivity that doing buisness in the U.S. was well worth paying more for labor. Jobs are moving from the United States to India, because America is now so comparible in many types of technology, education, and especially work ethic, to India and the Third World, that why pay an American 100 times more for third world level labor?

And there's nothing special about India - they have to survive off the jobs offshored to them because they're not talented enough to create their own industries.....talk sense, sonny....

Um, lets not forget about 400 years of British Imperial control, plundered natural resources, and completly failed British economic central planning and paternalistic social planning, that left India in dire poverty when they finally got independence in 1947.
Re:Blame it on India! by sgt_doom · 2006-10-06 10:32 · Score: 1

The U.S. is the richest and most powerful country in the world.

It would take far too long for me to address all the erroneous issues you have raised, so, suffice it to say, the USA went backrupt approximately 2.5 years ago (or around that period). If you haven't figured that out by now, you don't even possess the fundamental knowledge necessary to debate this subject.....
Re:Blame it on India! by Danga · 2006-10-06 13:05 · Score: 1

What happens when the data is stolen from a country and sent to another country?

Well if the person who stole that data resides in my home country or their country has laws (that are enforced) against stealing data then not only will the person likely lose their job but they will face legal ramifications as well. I do not want to only have legal recourse against the company, I want to be able to go after the employee too because otherwise there is not as much deterent for the employee to do such things.

How do you contain that? Whom do you go after to get that data back?

Theft Happens! As long as there is some motive somewhere to do this - it will be done!

It is near impossible to contain it and get it back once the data is out of the country. All that I am saying is I would prefer people who handle my personal information to be in a country that has laws against them mistreating my personal information because that is WAY more deterent then just having to lose a job.

Yes, theft happens and always will happen. However, sometimes the payoff is not worth the risk. As an example lets say someone in India who handles my personal information makes $3840 a year (I based that on $2/hr). Now, someone offers them $100 per credit card account information and they may easily be able to somehow get 1000 accounts which I think is a rather low number. They could then go sell that data, make $100,000, and basically make about 26 times as much as he would have made in one year, they could not work for a decent amount of their remaining life. Would this be very tempting to do if the worst thing that could happen would be I would lose my job? YES, if I lose my job who cares, I have 26 years to find a new job. Would it be as tempting if I could lose my job, lose all the money I made, and also go to jail for a long time? NO, the risk would not be worth as much since getting caught is relatively easy to do.

Right now there are almost no enforced laws in India dealing with keeping personal information confidentiality, so the worst that happens to Indians that go sell this information is they lose their job. Big deal. Once they have laws and enforce those laws THEN I won't have as much of a problem with them having access to that data.

Let's face it - companies outsourcing to India have obviously taken a look at the legal implications (in terms of jurisdiction and a "if things go wrong scenario") - and these companies have not become big and successful by doing the wrong things! (Well one or two or ten maybe - but hundreds - I don't think so).

Ha, don't make me laugh, do you seriously think the companies have considered legal implications as much as the huge cost savings? The bottom line is all that most companies care about and the only thing making the companies now consider the legal implications is because a lot of them have been embarrassed in the last couple of years by having outsourced employees sell customers personal information.

--
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
Re:Blame it on India! by Travoltus · 2006-10-07 09:08 · Score: 1

You are assuming that economic survival is zero sum... that when India gets wealthy, we get poor, and when India gets poor we get wealthy. This is a xenophic concept. There is no reason the interests of the U.S. and the interests of India can be mutual. No one is "stealing jobs", as jobs aren't property or a scarce resource, they are a consentual relationship between employer and employee. Claiming India is going to steal jobs and is bad for America is like claiming that lesbians are going to steal women away from heterosexual men and therefore lesbians are bad for men - you can't steal a relationship with a person!

1) Economic survival is a negative sum game.
2) The reality is, India is getting wealthy and it is at our expense. That is not xenophobia, it is fact.
3) Jobs are a highly scarce resource as well as a consentual relationship between employer and employee. IT jobs are not growing in the United States, they are growing in India. If IT jobs were not offshored to India, they would need to be done anyway, they would be done in the US as they always were before.

--
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!

Good to know by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:19 · Score: 2, Funny

It's good to know that there isn't anyone in America who'd do the same thing...

Is it necessarily just Indian call centres? by Alicat1194 · 2006-10-06 02:21 · Score: 1

While the report focuses on Indian call centres, has any research been done into centres in other countries? It may be that it's not an 'Indian-only' phenomenon, but something that happens everywhere else as well.

--
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol

Re:Is it necessarily just Indian call centres? by Brickwall · 2006-10-06 04:43 · Score: 1

Absolutely not. I worked for two weeks in a boiler room where we called people to tell them they had "won" a free trip to the Bahamas, and all they needed to do was let us charge $400 for "promotion costs" to their credit card. I thought it was fishy, but one night the sales manager from the downtown location came up to give us a pep talk.
This guy was practically frothing at the mouth as he told us how piss-poor a job we were doing, and how the downtown team was closing 3 times as many people as we were. Then, in response to someone's question, he said, in a very evil voice, "Your job is to pull cards. Got that? Pull cards!!". I realized at that moment that credit card fraud was probably very big on his agenda. I quit that night.
And this happened in Toronto, Ontario. Since we were calling Americans, it was difficult for them to prosecute us, as the RCMP is hopelessly understaffed (they recently admitted that they can only go after about 10% of the organized crime they know about because they don't have the manpower to go after the rest), so they couldn't get much co-operation.

--
What was once true, is no longer so
Re:Is it necessarily just Indian call centres? by innocent_white_lamb · 2006-10-07 10:19 · Score: 1

And this happened in Toronto, Ontario.

Did you report this operation to the RCMP?

They have Operation Phonebuster (http://www.phonebusters.com) set up to deal with just exactly this sort of thing.

--
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!

If the security is the best in the world by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:21 · Score: 0

Then wouldn't the criminals have to be the best in the world to get past it? I haven't read the article yet, but saying that you have great security after said security fails is kind of silly to me. "Don't worry about that guy who picked your locks last night and stole all of your stuff. Your locks are the best in the world!"

Of course by bytesex · 2006-10-06 02:22 · Score: 1

I goes without saying that the security measures in Indian companies are among the best; why, with all those CMM level 5 companies, security comes for free !

--
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.

Courts and Law by blueZhift · 2006-10-06 02:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

While I'm no fan of offshoring, in all fairness, it is true that data theft as described is not a problem unique to India. The real question is, how are these things handled by the courts and laws of the countries in which they occur? If there is some assurance that perpetrators will be brought to justice and things put to rights, as much as possible, then it may not be as big a deal. However, if the courts or laws are weak/corrupt and the penalties associated with data theft are laughable compared to the benefits, then you have a big problem. Many companies have been attracted to India and other countries by relatively cheap labor, but they really need to look at the rule and culture of law in any country they plan to do business in as well. This of course assumes that they are truly interested in benefitting the customer and haven't just added in data theft as a cost of doing business.

--
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started

Re:Courts and Law by happyemoticon · 2006-10-06 03:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

The real question is, how are these things handled by the courts and laws of the countries in which they occur?

"The Indian prosecutors had everything they needed to throw the book at them, until they found out that the police had stapled the CDs and floppies containing the data to their forms."

(elaboration from a story I heard about Indian police a few months ago)
Re:Courts and Law by hey! · 2006-10-06 03:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

While I'm no fan of offshoring, in all fairness, it is true that data theft as described is not a problem unique to India. The real question is, how are these things handled by the courts and laws of the countries in which they occur?

I think you're almost there.

The real question is what are the risks entailed by offshoring, and how do you prepare for them? The stance of authorities in the offshore countries is just part of that.

Let's assume for sake of argument that the law in the other country is aggressive about disclosures of private data. Great, so when this happens to you, where do you find yourself?

Well, the class action suit follows, it's certain that it's going to be in this country, with your company as the target. Why? Because the lawyers aren't going to bring suit in Offshoristan, they don't even know how.

Now you can hire a law firm in Offshoristan to recover the damages you have to pay under the class action. With any luck the wheels of justice turn faster there and you have the settlment in hand to pay off your customers.

If you outsource domestically, you still aren't off the hook, but when you point the finger at the outsourcing firm, it isn't telling the plaintiffs they have to go to Offshoristan to get relief, which I think will not go over well.

Which is not to say offshoring is a bad strategy, its just that you probably need to factor in some things, like the differences in law between the countries, the means you would use to recover any damages, and some form of insurance so you're not caught in between.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:Courts and Law by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2006-10-06 03:38 · Score: 1

However, if the courts or laws are weak/corrupt and the penalties associated with data theft are laughable compared to the benefits, then you have a big problem.

The problem is how to stop these crimes, not punish people after they commit them. To this end we have to look at the motivation of the criminals. Having a lax criminal system may make them more likely to steal customer data and resell it, but it is by no means the primary factor. The main reason people don't steal is not out of threat of punishment. Most people put on an honor system and treated well, are honest. No the real problem comes when workers are treated unfairly in such a way that motivates them to steal because they do not find it to be unethical.

Many companies have been attracted to India and other countries by relatively cheap labor, but they really need to look at the rule and culture of law in any country they plan to do business in as well.

They need to look at the culture and the cultural differences, but not necessarily the legal culture. Do you want to find really high rates of crime? Don't look for the least punitive legal system. Look for the most unfairness. In particular, look for wage disparity. Whenever you have people who are not as smart and who don't work as hard making orders of magnitude more than others, you'll see high crime. People recognize the inherent unfairness in one not very nice person being born into excessive wealth while they are born poor, have little chance to advance and desperately need just a fraction of what the rich person wasted on clothes to feed their kids this month. So, many turn to crime, often not even those who are poorest.

With India and the US, you have several problems. One, the highest paid people in the "chain of command" are all Americans. Second, they don't work very hard and were born into relative wealth, in a rich country where they did not have to work all that hard. Third, not only do they not work hard and enjoy disproportionate luxury, they don't treat those they hire as people. American business treats workers dispassionately. You can be laid off from a job you need to feed your kids because of a decision by someone who does not even know you and they tell you "it's just business." At that point taking the customer database and selling it is "just business." The truth is, the cost of building worker loyalty, treating them well, and making sure they know the company will look after them is usually cheaper in the long run than the cost of having everyone in the company behave adversarially and having to try to monitor them all as potential threats. Unless American companies can look to the long term instead of net quarter, these problems will only become more common.
Re:Courts and Law by sgt_doom · 2006-10-06 10:05 · Score: 1

The real question is, how are these things handled by the courts and laws of the countries in which they occur?

Nope, blueZhift, the real question is why don't you "get it" after all this time?? Part of the reason for offshoring is the avoidance of American laws - including privacy laws. I'm deeply concerned you are reading /., yet don't possess the requisite logic or abstract intelligence to comprehend this! Next you'll be suggesting that after all these jobs have been offshored - the corps will one day simply bring them back to their originating countries - that ain't the way economies work. By that time the damage will be done and it will be far too late.....

News flash! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:23 · Score: 0

Companies caught off guard about offshore pitfalls! details at 11!

I get a kick out of companies that act suprised that when they have their product manufacturered in china, grey/black market knock offs hit the market the same time or earlier than their product does.

Data getting stolen and resold,

Software getting resold in russia or elsewhere :-) gotta love that one! get your product written offshore and then act suprised when your product surfaces as a for sale product elsewhere.

I have seen all the above recently.. an internal application that gave us the edge was outsourced and then mysteriousally a 100% identical product was for sale 1 month later in europe.

yeah, saving a few bucks by outsourcing is a great idea! When can we outsource the middle and upper management? I am sure 2nd and 3rd wolrd countries can do a far better job than the idiots we have running our companies now.

The boss of Nasscom by krell · 2006-10-06 02:24 · Score: 0, Troll

" Sunil Mehta, a vice president at Nasscom"

I saw a picture of this guy once.

--
Where were you when the voynix came?

Re:The boss of Nasscom by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:41 · Score: 0

Duh, Dear Indians and other outsource takers. Stop stealing worthless data.

Please steal My personal details instead, i will pay you 10$ each year to make me remember my anniversary ..

Please Please ?!

What can you say by Garette · 2006-10-06 02:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

A related atricle on BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5405438.stm
Not every Indian is necessarily corrupt. However, even an handful can ruin the reputation of the entire bunch. The Indian Govt. has to crack down really hard on the people caught seeling the data.

PS: I am an Indian too...

Re:What can you say by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 04:04 · Score: 0

No, not every indian is corrupt. I don't think anyone is trying to make that point.

But on the other hand, thinking that it's all the same everywhere is also a bit naive. I've lived in India for 6 months, and during that time I saw more corruption than I've seen my whole life living in Sweden.

I'm sure people in Sweden would be just as easy to buy information from in the same situation, and that's my point.
People in India simply get paid less. Someone from a country with higher average salary can pay pocket change to get something illegal done.

Have a look at the "global corruption index". You'll see that the poorer countries (or the countries with lots of poor people) will be a lot more corrupt than richer countries. That doesn't necessarily mean that the people there are worse than others, it just means that their price is lower.

Wow... by certain+death · 2006-10-06 02:24 · Score: 1

I knew this would happen...Not that I am some great predictive mind, but I knew it. I stopped using Bank Of America when they made their IT people train their own replacements in India (and other countries). When this fellow says that their security is the best, I wonder exactly what that means...Do they have patched and updated systems, do they use top tier vendors for their security hardware (firewalls, etc) do they practice and follow the same financial/disclosure regulations that American companies have to? (SoX, HIPAA, etc). Do they do background checks on all of their employees, and if they get a hit, do they not hire that peson? I have a million questions for this guy, do you think we can line up our questions and have the answered? I doubt it. I am damn near to the point that I am going to move to freaking Alaska, cut my Internet connection, and start living off the land!!! This identity theft crap is about to push me over the edge! Anyone else feel this way?

--
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus

Re:Wow... by NineNine · 2006-10-06 03:32 · Score: 1

No, I don't. Who fucking cares if somebody gets my credit card info? Sure, it's a PITA to deal with, but a credit score just an imaginary number. It's just the grown-up world's version of "your permanent record". Big deal. If you think that your credit and money is your "identity", then you need to maybe step back and reconsider your priorities. Living in a cabin is a nice idea, but I wouldn't do it over something as trivial as my financial records. It's just money. They print more every day. My identity has nothing to do with banking. If my credit gets ruined, I'll just use cash. It's no big deal, unless you're caught up in the consumerist rat race. I consider that to be a very sick and twisted version of reality, though.
Re:Wow... by jnf · 2006-10-06 03:33 · Score: 1

-- It's not Area 51 I'm worried about- it's Areas 1 through 50.

Is this a joke or do you know what many of those areas are? (i.e. NTS/etc).
Re:Wow... by certain+death · 2006-10-06 03:54 · Score: 1

No...It is my identity that I worry about. Say someone gets your SSN, they can go get a Drivers License and become you. I do not use credit cards, but everyone and their mother require you SSN to do business with you, you use it to get a job, you use it for almost ALL government transactions. When someone becomes you, they can do things in your name, not just ruin your credit, but things like commit crimes, etc. That is what worries me, not credit or money.

--
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Re:Wow... by certain+death · 2006-10-06 04:01 · Score: 1

a little tidbit on are 50 from the Los Alamos website... Laboratory personnel can expect increased heavy truck traffic near Technical Area 50 for several weeks while construction of a new tank farm is completed. The tank farm is being built at TA-50 for the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility. While work is under way, up to 30 concrete trucks will be traveling on a weekly basis near TA-50 along Pajarito Road, according to Rick Alexander of Radioactive Liquid Waste (NWIS-RLW).

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"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Re:Wow... by jnf · 2006-10-06 04:13 · Score: 1

cool, yea your quote is spot on, I was just curious if it was a joke or not, the danger doesn't lay in area 51, it's in the others. A while back, I received an email telling me that the cow slaughterhouse would be closed due to XYZ, and I thought to myself, a slaughter house?? then someone pointed out to me that they were not making burgers.
Re:Wow... by Cybeh · 2006-10-06 04:32 · Score: 1

Well to All the above questions the Answer is YES, i am an IT security Professional, and worked on some major projects as well and indeed each and every is followed, though ISO 27001 is followed here whihc was earlier BS7799 standard, which in US is known as BS 17799. They do conduct background checks coz of the regular Audits by the client who outsource, Convergys fired more than 100 people, who failed background checks, as everybody is saying it can happen anywhere in the world, and who knows if its already happening. Cyber
Re:Wow... by NineNine · 2006-10-06 05:37 · Score: 1

So you're saying... somebody gets arrested for a crime. They show an ID that is your name and your SS#. They claim to be you. Right? What about fingerprints and DNA? Isn't that all standard these days? Hell, the FBI has my prints on file due to a stupid temp job at the USPS years ago, even. Can stealing a SS# really cause anything other than a credit headache?
Re:Wow... by certain+death · 2006-10-06 06:05 · Score: 1

Thanks, but I would prefer to have someone who is actually running the place answer the questions. I believe that if ANY Company has my personal information, I should have the RIGHT to audit them myself. I happen to be an Information Security pro myself, and the old standard applies in this situation, DO NOT believe anyone when they insist that they are secure. Every system has vulnerabilities, perhaps yet unknown, and NOTHING is secure.

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"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Re:Wow... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 06:38 · Score: 0

Well, I have visited the offices of several of India's leading IT companies (including Infosys, Wipro, and Tata Consulting Services) and can say for sure that the security policies they have in place are at par with, if not better than, what is seen in most US companies (they do have stringent policies on all the aspects you bring up).

Part of the reason is because the customers (the US companies who outsource work) place very strict (often excessive) restrictions and conditions related to security. For example, in one of the companies, employees do not even have internet access on their desktop computers (by that I mean, the only connections allowed are VPN connections to other locations of the company or the customer's office). No outside e-mail, no browser, no IM, and no other software of any kind. While this is certainly only a small component of the overall security solution ("complete security" has so many dimensions and challenges to it that it seems to be an oxymoron to me), its an indicator that these companies do place a fairly heavy importance on safe handling of information.
Re:Wow... by Cybeh · 2006-10-06 20:36 · Score: 1

See, I understand your concern, I did a assessment of 4 major call centres in India and one was Convergys, for a Number 3 credit card company in US, so i am perfectly aware of what actually is done, but yes if the agent who has the information has something else in mind we cant really help it, India is offering world class infrastructure and services, but still many poeple in west think we still travel to offices in bullock carts lol. In cyber crimes the punishment is 5 years of rigrous imprisonment a non bailable pffence and a very hefty fine. And i helped setup a Cyber crime division in Delhi Police as well. I would say visti India some day and you'll have an Idea, even i am concerned with some local bank frauds being exposed, but its basically to do with Individuals rather than the oraganisation, and no body is going unpunished thats for sure.

Cyber

corruption in India by dhuv · 2006-10-06 02:26 · Score: 1, Offtopic

I think the problem lies with the attitude that the majority of the people have in India. To this day there is widespread corruption throughout the entire government and this process has been accepted by a majority of the people because they grow up with it as kids. In India, kids bribe the cops when they ride around on scooters without a license and get caught.

This leaves many of the people without a sense of ethics because they consider bribes just part of life.

Dont get me wrong, many of the people are not bad inherently, you dont see school shootings in India like you do in the US, but there is the issue of ethics because kids grow up in that environment and accept it. (Similar to the extermists that think Americans are evil, they really do think that because that is what they grew up around)

This is not going to change overnight, it will take atleast a couple of generations to change.

Re:corruption in India by MemoryDragon · 2006-10-06 03:27 · Score: 1

Ok... lets bring it to the point, you are in a job, where you can barely survive on the salary, someone wants to give you a sum you probably can live all your life like a king where you live for something you probably easily can get away with uncaught, so what are the chances even in the west that you say no. As for the america being evil thing, simply stop being evil outside of the us, and you will become accepted by the rest of the world, like you used to be...
Re:corruption in India by cloudmaster · 2006-10-06 04:16 · Score: 1

Well gee, when you put it that way, screw everyone else in the world. So long as I get some cash. After all, money is the only thing that matters!
Re:corruption in India by MemoryDragon · 2006-10-06 04:38 · Score: 1

I just wanted to bring it to the point that the phenomenon is not indian only... but you just brought the entire current us culture into one central sentence, and the reason why the rest of the world currently hates the USA :-)
Re:corruption in India by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 04:40 · Score: 0

Ok... lets bring it to the point, you are in a job, where you can barely survive on the salary, someone wants to give you a sum you probably can live all your life like a king where you live for something you probably easily can get away with uncaught, so what are the chances even in the west that you say no. As for the america being evil thing, simply stop being evil outside of the us, and you will become accepted by the rest of the world, like you used to be...

You're only supporting the parent's post, indirectly, at least. He talked about the widespread acceptance of corruption, which the country makes little effort to clean up or even try and stop. Because of this, call center employees dont have to worry about getting caught or thrown in jail or whatever, as you aptly pointed out. That having been said, its significantly easier to get away with it in India than it is in the west because they dont have the same regulations and restrictions. People want to do all sorts of selfish or detrimental things everyday to get ahead but they choose not to because the governemnt has rules in place to punish them if they do. Its a mindset formed not just through basic human instinct, its a product of one's environment and necessary self preservation based on the reality of repercussion. The parent wasnt necessarily blaming the call center employees as much as the government and the cultural climate it has produced.

What can anyone say anywhere? by krell · 2006-10-06 02:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Not every Indian is necessarily corrupt. However, even an handful can ruin the reputation of the entire bunch. The Indian Govt. has to crack down really hard on the people caught selling the data."

Substitute "American" for "Indian" in that sentence. Then start going down the line with other countries. P.S. I am an American too.

--
Where were you when the voynix came?

Well, in my case... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:27 · Score: 0

The first ever spam started pouring into my inbox (I never ever ever used my work e-mail address to register anywhere on any website for whatever purpose) after I conducted an e-mail business communication with an Indian company. If none from their company sold my address to spammers, then their ISP did it!

In any case, transmitting your e-mail address to India is like posting it in the open.

Re:Well, in my case... by Mondor · 2006-10-07 01:57 · Score: 1

Not necessary. There is a lot of worms, that once penetrating your computer read your address book and submit all addresses to spammer's website. So they don't have to sell your address, this happens automatically once your e-mail address is saved on infected machine... Or once machine, where your address was saved, becomes infected.

It's not that it's everywhere that's the problem! by erroneus · 2006-10-06 02:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's that it is beyond the reach of local law enforcement which complicates things.

Let's say that the same crime happpens locally. Local laws are applied against local criminals. If I recall correctly, the last time this issue was discussed, "identity theft" and related fraud weren't necessarily a crime in India or at least they didn't have the same level of urgency out there. Whatever the case, there is no guarantee that the handling of these problems would reflect the same level of justice as it would locally due to disparity of law enforcement priority, communications among law enforcement, etc.

On the other hand, if we had some sort of international treaty regarding these matters, that might balance out the problem. For example, all employees of these call centers should be made to operate under the laws of the city, state and nation of the company they are representing and if they are suspected of being in criminal violation of such laws, they should be extradited to the city, state or nation for criminal prosecution.

But in my opinion, that wouldn't really be enough. These people are simply too far out of reach to be held accountable. I just feel like we're at risk having some rather critical information exported to other countries for processing where our laws and regulations do not necessarily apply. It's bad enough when it happens here on our own soil, but at least we can take SOME action against it. Internationally, it's just all the more complicated.

Credit card numbers anyone? by SanderDJ · 2006-10-06 02:28 · Score: 1

(imagine Indian accent) Hello? Yes, you want credit card numbers? Of course sir, no problem sir. How many would you like to have? 100,000? Certainly sir. I will e-mail them to you now sir. Anything else? No? Have a nice day sir. Thank you sir.

Re:Credit card numbers anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:48 · Score: 0

(imagine Indian accent)

* tries to imagine humor *
* doesn't succeed *

Stick to your day job.
Re:Credit card numbers anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 09:01 · Score: 0

That's because you tried to imagine humour. You should have tried to imagine bigotry.

As if dishonesty is limited to India. I have no idea what country the original poster hails from, but really it doesn't matter - no country has an entirely honest populous.

Anyone who thinks differently...is probably a member of the same chapter of The Clan as the person who posted the parent to your post.

I watched this, by joe+155 · 2006-10-06 02:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

last night, people were selling amazing amounts of information. One person claimed (and showed a recording as proof) to have actual voice recordings of people handing over credit card and security numbers...

Whilst this might be just a few bad apples it does make the whole sector look bad, and I'm not sure I want to be giving my card numbers to compainies who outsource so readily without checking fully what staff are up to.

Interestingly though was the response from the banks, which amounted to "so what". They really don't care. Whenever someone is a victim of fraud through these, or other, means they simply pay up and give the customer their money back, which apparently is cheaper than making sure that it doesn't happen - besides not everyone will notice, and they profit from the people who are scammed and don't notice

--
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''

Re:I watched this, by Raistlin77 · 2006-10-06 02:36 · Score: 1

and they profit from the people who are scammed and don't notice

Really? In what way?
Re:I watched this, by REBloomfield · 2006-10-06 02:52 · Score: 3, Interesting

I saw it too, and realised where the three cold calls i recieved earlier this year may have originated from. I was called on my mobile by an middle eastern sounding man or woman, and told that they could move me to a much better contract, and if i was happy they could go ahead and make the change straight away as they had all the details they needed. They hung up when I demanded to know what details they had and where they got them from. Scary stuff; I'm careful with my details, and I haven't bought a mobile 'phone over the 'phone or online like most of the people mentioned.
It was eye opening for my wife, she had no idea how easy it was to commit fraud with a few card details and the CSV number on the back. She doesn't buy anything remotely, so wouldn't know better, but i was shocked that many people could be this open to potential fraud.
Re:I watched this, by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 10:01 · Score: 0

Recently I had a call from someone speaking broken English who claimed to be from my bank who asked for some security details to confirm my identity. I refused but called the bank to check it out as the first caller hadn't hidden their number. Turned out it was their credit collections department.

One of my friends was called by another bank recently to offer him a business savings account and that conversation started by them asking for his security details.

If institutions like banks are still actively practicing this kind of thing then it's going to be hard to stop the general public falling of it. This is two of the major highstreet banks in the UK, one of which advertises that they'll never ask for such details over the phone.

can the fired bad guys sue easily? by krell · 2006-10-06 02:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

"I work at an outsourced customer support company. The policies where I work is if your caught abusing the information you get, you get fired. Simple as that"

Is it easier to fire the bad guys there because you are less likely to have a crooked lawyer come up out of the ooze and file a frivolous "wrongful termination" lawsuit? I know that is a problem in the US.

--
Where were you when the voynix came?

Re:can the fired bad guys sue easily? by weave · 2006-10-06 02:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

Fired? That's it? I'm curious of the economics of the crime then. Is it possible that one can earn enough coin by selling information where they never have to work again, and hence firing is worth it?
Re:can the fired bad guys sue easily? by Name+Anonymous · 2006-10-06 02:44 · Score: 2, Informative

Is it possible that one can earn enough coin by selling information where they never have to work again, and hence firing is worth it?
In a word: Yes!
In more detail, a credit card number with enough information to use it (name, address, phone number, etc) is worth about $100. So if you work at a place that has lots of customers (Amazon or Paypal for examples) you could very well make enough money with all that data.
Re:can the fired bad guys sue easily? by khallow · 2006-10-06 02:54 · Score: 2, Informative

Is it easier to fire the bad guys there because you are less likely to have a crooked lawyer come up out of the ooze and file a frivolous "wrongful termination" lawsuit? I know that is a problem in the US.
This isn't any more of a problem in the US. It's very easy to fire someone who has committed a crime. The fired employee would have to weigh any potential compensation against jail time (or perhaps more jail time).
Re:can the fired bad guys sue easily? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 05:05 · Score: 0

Well, at the call center I work at, the only information we can access or change is basically phone numbers, addresses, names and a bit more personal information - no financial information. But even abusing this information is taken seriously. The company that is outsourcing does daily audits on the accounts we have here, and if anything is off, someone gets in trouble. If its an agent accessing information he shouldnt or gets caught copying the information, they get fired. As for the question about the possibilty of an ex-employee sueing for wrongful termination - we were required to sign an agreement. It basically says if we abuse the information, we're fired. And they have those logs to prove such activity took place.

I'm not saying it is secure - if I wanted to, I could probably walk out of work with copies of a few dozen peoples information - information that they wouldn't want others to know - and not get caught. But as it stands, it's extremely difficult to enforce such a policy when there are people on the other end of the phone.
Re:can the fired bad guys sue easily? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 06:09 · Score: 0

In the US call centers, if some lawyer comes out of the ooze and sues for wronful termination on that point, depending on circumstance, it may or may not be fought. When the person fired is reminded of the federal offenses they have committed and have not had charged against them, they usually drop any suit. Oh, if the offense is bad enough, the offending person lands in a world of FUBAR. It seriously does not pay.

Banks move call centers, we pay the price. by Trifthen · 2006-10-06 02:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

I saw this coming last year when several banks here stated they were moving many services unrelated to call centers, out of the US for financial reasons. It would appear that people generally don't care about others, which is only exacerbated by national identity detracting from emotional identification. What does an Indian care about some schmuck from the UK? About as much some guy in the UK cares about an Indian.

Then again, it could be argued that by sending financial services to the lowest bidder, banks are encouraging wholesale fraud. It's probably a combination of many factors, these only being the low-hanging fruit. I'd like to think banks would be more responsible with our money, but apparently charging outrageous interest rates on loans and transactions isn't enough of a profit.

--
Read: Rabbit Rue - Free serial nove

Re:Banks move call centers, we pay the price. by TheRecklessWanderer · 2006-10-06 05:01 · Score: 1

OK but I would add... What does some guy from Manchester care about some guy from Edinborough, or London? What does some guy from Liverpool care about someone from Weston-Super-Mare? What does someone from South London care about someone from North London? And what does someone from Smith street in London care about someone from Jones Street in London? See my point? You can always regionalize things, and ultimately people mostly only care about people in their own family, and maybe not even then.

--
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
Re:Banks move call centers, we pay the price. by Trifthen · 2006-10-06 07:26 · Score: 1

Heh, that's why I said "then again..." Other people made the same point, so I won't reiterate. I mean, if I were a poor Indian, I might consider stealing from Western Country X if it meant a big payoff. And a "Big Payoff" isn't so hard to pull of in poor countries. It's a natural consequence of sending financial services to unscrupulous providers that bid low and hire badly.

--
Read: Rabbit Rue - Free serial nove

The best in the world by gutnor · 2006-10-06 02:31 · Score: 1

"Security measures and practices that Indian companies have are the best in the world."

And what about the rest of world like US, Japan, Europe ?

Well, I guess the "best in the world" just follow "cutting edge", "breakthrough", "leading", "enterprise", "professional" in the list of expressions Marketing department sucked the meaning.

Mind you, I'm not bashing India, that happens everywhere: in Europe Spain, France and Belgium all declared at various time that they have the best healthcare system in the world ...

In other news by CaptainZapp · 2006-10-06 02:35 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Michael Corleone critized the NYPD for refusing to release half a dozen of his family members, councelors and buddies. He argued that the NYPD should corporate to root out the bad apples under the mafiosos, which in essence consists of his competition.

Mr. Corleone is quoted as stating: "There are bad apples in every industry around the world, and these incidents happen in the Ukraine as well as in St. Petersburg and Tokyo. Our practices are the best and most efficient in the world".

--
ich bin der musikant

mit taschenrechner in der hand

kraftwerk

offshore identity theft too by peter303 · 2006-10-06 02:37 · Score: 1

Why should IT and manufacturing be the only ones benefiting from offshoring? Let crime do so also!

(I think this might be a joke, but its not funny.)

Call center employees shouldn't be able to do this by Fastolfe · 2006-10-06 02:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

If the company designed its security and auditing correctly, call center employees should never have the ability to do this in the first place. Why are they trusting call center employees with wholesale access to customers' private data? Competent companies will require the employees to provide an explanation every time they access a record, and these will be tied to their phone records to make sure they are only accessing information relevant to their current task. A good audit trail, flagging unusual access behavior, combined with limiting access only to individual records at a time would have stopped these breaches.

Yes, some of these outsourced call centers are inexpensive because they don't do things like this. But you get what you pay for, right?

This is why I don't outsource by Serveert · 2006-10-06 02:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't believe in cuttting corners, I don't think that's a long term strategy. For example, I don't hire people I don't trust. I hear people talking about outsourcing and they mention giving them a part of the non-critical portion of the code. Why bring these people on board who you don't trust? Short term profit? What about long term profit when these people you don't trust steal the rest of your code and compete against you?

Or, since you're just looking at them on a cost basis, paying them as little as possible, they aren't motivated. So their productivity is lower. I believe you should hire people and give them ownership and high pay. That's a long term strategy. All these companies outsourcing right now are going to get a rude awakening down the line.

--
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.

Re:This is why I don't outsource by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2006-10-06 03:48 · Score: 1

I believe you should hire people and give them ownership and high pay. That's a long term strategy.

In general I agree with you, but sometimes outsourcing does make sense. The conditions for this are, tasks that are outside the core competency of your organization, where there is sufficient competition, and where failure is not disastrous. The company I work for treats us very well. We also outsource some work to foreign nations. The thing is, we make sure the code we contract them for is modular and while we don't treat them with distrust, we also don't give them access to all our code. For small companies in particular it may make sense to outsource the development of chunks of code that is not vital, but which provides added value. We know the risks associated with it, but the cost savings is important right now. We're also in a field where good workers are sometimes hard to find. We almost always have open slots for people because we're rapidly growing and coders who meet our high standards are hard to come by. I just thought it was important to note that outsourcing really does make sense for some situations, just not in the long term for many of those situations to which it is currently being applied by American companies.
Re:This is why I don't outsource by Serveert · 2006-10-06 04:21 · Score: 1

Not to criticize your organization specifically, what you says is the case at most companies, even ones I have worked at. They outsource for cost and personell reasons(can't find enough talent).

But in starting my own company, I have yet to run across this personell problems. The reason is, over the years, I have kept in contact with the well paid but very productive people I have worked with. At this point I have a short list of extremely amazing employees who would drop what they're doing to work for my company when the time comes. I know that paying these guys a lot and giving them ownership translates into high productivity. Many companies I've been at were reluctant to hire these people after seeing their 6 figure price tag. Now the top brass at those companies, who were so concerned about costs, are now retired and jetsetting around the world.

And their companies are now going downhill. But they don't care, they have their millions. Outsourcing is 9 times out of 10 a way to redistribute wealth to the very top, and that can last only so long in my opinion. A competitor will spring up who treats their employees better, pays them a higher salary and has more talent. So I believe the free market will eventually make people realistic when it comes to outsourcing / skimping on their "human resources".

--
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Re:This is why I don't outsource by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2006-10-06 05:05 · Score: 1

But in starting my own company, I have yet to run across this personell problems. The reason is, over the years, I have kept in contact with the well paid but very productive people I have worked with. At this point I have a short list of extremely amazing employees who would drop what they're doing to work for my company when the time comes.

This is how a lot of companies start, including this one. Fast forward about 5 years down the road when you've grown to 100+ employees, most of whom were referred by someone internally. Trying to find more, really competent people with a clue when it comes to network security is no easy task. Those we have are overworked. So what do we do? We look for chunks of code that have little to do with our main business and which we're not really great at anyway. Then we hire someplace to write it for us. It works and it really is helping a lot.

And their companies are now going downhill. But they don't care, they have their millions.

Almost everyone here has stock options and none of us have cashed out and left since we have not IPO'd. A lot of the original crew have grown and moved on. Google poached a few. The people at the top were hired because we knew they were in it for the long haul. Smart executives can gut a company and make themselves some real cash. Smarter executives can grow a stable company worth a fortune as an acquisition or IPO. We're all acting our best interests here, including the executives. We just make sure their best interests coincide with those of the employees as well.

If you have any doubts about how well this works, we're a poster child for venture capitalists. Every year we're written up for how consistently the company's profits are increasing and how quickly we went from a start-up to stable and profitable. We're talking 100% year on year growth, while profitable, for many years now.

No Blame it on our Government by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 02:44 · Score: 0

I'll bite. I don't blame India, just our government. I don't think the US government is bad, just in bed with business. It disappoints me to watch the government go after allofmp3.com in Russia, a legal company - in an effort to close it down because of RIAA cronies. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061005-7915 .html It's ok that the RIAA and the MPAA can outsource labor to these countries. That simply make America more competitive (WTF that suppose to mean). However, that same goverment does not give a DAMN if your private data is thrown all over the world (Yes India that does include you and China). Do those same countries have strong IP laws for protection? This basically has been discussed before. Our Law enforcement can't reach overseas to India, but it sure can try to have Russian law changed. No protections for me or you on individual rights but certainly protections for the corporate world. I write this as a coward because I know the kind of response I'll receive.

Re:No Blame it on our Government by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:00 · Score: 0

I'll bite. I don't blame India, just our government. I don't think the US government is bad, just in bed with business.

I'll bite back. This was in the UK, not the US. From the introduction above (you don't even need to read the article): During the taping of the show thousands of U.K. bank customers had their personal information sold by the staff of a call center.

I write this as a coward because I know the kind of response I'll receive.

What, pointing out that you posted before reading? Heck, I do that sometimes. However, I don't assume that every story involving invasion of privacy has to be about the U.S. -- other countries have their own problems.
Re:No Blame it on our Government by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 04:20 · Score: 0

Thanks Pal, I read the article (days ago). The fact that it happened in the UK did not matter. Their Law enforcement doesn't have some magical reach that our's doesn't. The same event happened last year with US data, and the year before. Truth be told, the UK's outsourcing (although common) doesn't hold a candle to the amount of money from the great USA. Your right, though ... I don't give a rat's ass about other countries problems, just my country. Thanks though.

I'm shocked... shocked... by Maxo-Texas · 2006-10-06 02:51 · Score: 1

to discover people making 15% of 1st world wages can be corrupted with large amounts of money for valuable private data.

It would be no different in the 1st world-- except it would take about six times as much money to corrupt them at the same level.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Re:I'm shocked... shocked... by digitalhermit · 2006-10-06 04:15 · Score: 1

It would be no different in the 1st world-- except it would take about six times as much money to corrupt them at the same level.

Bull. People steal for pennies. It's not the value, but the idea. I've seen executives with $100K annual salaries lose their jobs for pilfering from the "Ferengi Cafe" and taking advantage of a broken vending machine. One manager at my former company stole a $500 laptop.
Re:I'm shocked... shocked... by jargon82 · 2006-10-06 04:37 · Score: 1

You've hit it on the head there. Consider this. The Indians in question get paid well above the average for what they would if they worked at locally generated jobs. So they're well off. Why then, would they take the bait on something like this? Who knows. But perhaps they'll take a bribe for a few tens of thousands to hand over some confidential information. After all, hey, thats a few years of pay to him! He'll be a rich man! A mid level manager at a US company might take a bribe for several hundred thousand to hand over some confidential information. After all, hey, thats a few years pay to him! He'll be a rich man! A (decimal) order of magnitude difference to the "offering" party, but really no difference to the "recieving" party. If your the offerer, who would you go to?
Re:I'm shocked... shocked... by Maxo-Texas · 2006-10-06 06:28 · Score: 1

A lot of people are ethical.

Lost wallets get returned *with the money* every day.

The manager may have felt justified to steal the $500 laptop because the company worked him a lot of uncompensated overtime and didn't deliver on its promises to him. Not saying he's right- just saying people steal easier when they feel really it is a reckoning.

I bet people that new "bob" the vending guy wouldn't steal from him while people that don't have no problem stealing from the vending machine- since they've lost money to machines in the past and not gotten it back.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Re:I'm shocked... shocked... by Maxo-Texas · 2006-10-06 07:41 · Score: 1

I read somewhere back in the 90's that most people will sell out for only $10,000 if it is presented to them as actual hard (and presumably untracable) cash. This despite insisting they would never do so when it was merely theoretical.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Just The Tip of The Iceberg by aldheorte · 2006-10-06 02:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Consider what happens to code development shipped offshore. It amuses me that businesses with strict non-open source code policies offshore code development because it's pretty much a de facto, if unofficial, grant of open source. It's even worse when people use offshore resources for "secret" prototype development and the such in an attempt to save money on project startup. I cannot think of a worse venue to put confidential new development into.

This problem is a compound problem. First you have low wage workers that are more likely to succumb to temptation of selling such secrets. Second, you have jurisdictional problems - technically you could make a legal claim through treaties and the like, but the hassles and delays would take years and years to resolve and probably give no real satisfaction (this is why I say de facto in the above, even if you disallow something, if there is no real useful legal remedial process behind it, whatever agreed is basically unenforcable). Third, there are cultural problems where intellectual property and consumer privacy are fairly artificial constructs of the legal systems of developed countries.

The bottom line is that this is only going to get worse and I imagine that Western companies will soon face legal liability for outsourcing in two ways:

1. To shareholders for assigning development to offshore resources that results in compromise of trade secrets or the like.
2. To consumers for breaches of privacy and resulting identify theft and the like.

The companies will argue that they entered into contractual agreements with third parties so it wasn't their fault, but I suspect that many of these cases could and will be successfully pressed on the basis of a lack of due diligence, especially against the backdrop of known incidents such as this.

Re:Just The Tip of The Iceberg by theneb · 2006-10-06 03:15 · Score: 0

The parent brings up some pretty good points. Not only is this a problem in software but also in harwdware where chip layout design, analysis, synthesis etc are also outsourced. These can also be sold to different companies at huge prices. I think the only pepole who are benifitting from this temperorily are high level execs in the west who are reaping the profits of cheap labour and fattened profits. Ironically they are also digging the grave for their own countries, by offshoring desing level jobs (already effects of this can be seen) and not fostering innovation locally. 20 years down the road, if we dont do something about this, things are going to turn upside down. Where do you even start with this when this is totally being accepted by both worlds, the outsouring and the outsourced?

Its the Criminals, STUPID by mcmonkey · 2006-10-06 02:56 · Score: 1

B.S.

I won't even repeat such hog wash by quoting the parent post. Poor/poorly paid people don't break the law because they're poor/poorly paid. If it were that simple, why do rich people break the law also?

Wages should be based on the value of the work, not relative to those the worker deals with, or relative to the worker's self-esteem.

As even the parent admits, we're not talking about people on the edge of existence--someone stealing a crust of bread just to survive another day. We're talking about people that have some and want some more. Someone with $10 who decides to break the law to get $100 doesn't suddenly become enlightened. They typically become with $100 who will break the law to get $1000.

Re:Its the Criminals, STUPID by krell · 2006-10-06 03:10 · Score: 1

"Wages should be based on the value of the work, not relative to those the worker deals with, or relative to the worker's self-esteem."

What a novel concept: the idea that trades should involve the actual value of something. Sort of blows to bits the idea of minimum wage, living wage, etc.

--
Where were you when the voynix came?
Re:Its the Criminals, STUPID by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:50 · Score: 0

I won't even repeat such hog wash by quoting the parent post. Poor/poorly paid people don't break the law because they're poor/poorly paid. If it were that simple, why do rich people break the law also?

Are you a fucking retard? Of course it has an impact. That's why you don't pay your cops eight bucks an hour like a certain suburb of Chicago did awhile back and then figure out that the majority of them were corrupt. I don't give a shit what you say, there is causation. There IS a crime differential based on income level.
Re:Its the Criminals, STUPID by Anarke_Incarnate · 2006-10-06 04:01 · Score: 1

They don't break the law because they are poor. They are not poor, relative to their environment. They simply see "us" as being able to absorb a loss easily, or don't care because of jealousy or simply greed and desire. This is not native to India, Pakistan, Mumbaba, Detroit, or anywhere. This is part of human nature.
As far as rich people being crooked too, they are also doing it to "get ahead." Part of another psychological issue is the fact that many people have a hard time knowing when they have "enough." Whether it is wealth, power or anything, really, people have a hard time stopping. They want to be better than others, and then lastly better than they are now

Cheap shot journalism by nuggz · 2006-10-06 02:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

These type of "fear the indian call center" play really well because they hit such a high number of issues.

ID theft- scary, currently a nice hot issue.

Privacy - little recourse for violations,

Offshoring - They're stealing jobs!!
Jobs people don't want. FWIW there are some larger call centers in various parts of North America that are growing.

Indian accents - some people have trouble with them.

Racism - Some people just don't like them even if we solve all the other issues.

This is just cheap shot journalism at an easy target that gets people upset. This same type of privacy violation can and does happen in every part of the first world.

Re:Cheap shot journalism by faraway · 2006-10-06 03:28 · Score: 1

The question shouldn't be whether 'this happens in every part of the first world' or not, it is whether the information theft is more prevalent in an (non-'first world') environment that is dealing with our (first world) personal information more and more as companies off-shore to poorer countries like India. India has a GDP per capita of $3344, that places the average monthly salary somewhere near $300? Someone making $300 a month working long long hours might be more inclined to *steal* from people who make much more than them, of a different race, of a different nationality, 4000+ miles away to achieve their own selfish goals (whether feeding their family or buying nice first world goods at first world prices - after all, trust me, they're not wiping their asses with Charmin Plus Aloe toilet paper, last time I went to a non-first world country I learned that really quickly). Not to say the same isn't true in first world countries with rich people also stealing (Enron?) for their own selfish reasons. But again the main question is: is it more prevalent there, and is there a system to punish these people? If you haven't lived outside the first-world you really don't understand how 'having laws against something' and 'having laws against something enforced' are two completely different (on a magnitude not comparable to the first world) things with the latter being a huge problem in none-first world countries.
Re:Cheap shot journalism by jnf · 2006-10-06 03:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

I didn't RTFA, but it should hit a very important point. When I worked in the banking industry we had four or five bases of operation in India, we then had a problem that no one really wanted to talk about- we couldn't do background checks on the employee's in India, so we were not even in compliance with our own policies. This was a huge issue because these people had access that ranged from nothing to administrative access over all of the workstations and some of servers.

Think about that for a moment and then tell me it's still racism.
Re:Cheap shot journalism by Lactoso · 2006-10-06 03:39 · Score: 1

Yes, it's a sensationalistic story. The only way it could be better is if it was found that the Republicans were shipping bagged spinach to India as payment for these call centers. :-)
And I agree with all of your points but one. 'Indian accents'. I don't see people having a problem with Indian accents specifically (as opposed to Chinese, Russian, Filipino, whatever), but rather with their attitudes. While India may have a very large population of technically proficient, English speaking (as a second language) people, the people themselves are from an entirely different culture. They very often come across as patronizing and then quickly escalate to hostile. More so than other nationalities IMO.
Then again, I've had many incidents of dealing with American 'support specialists', who speak English (as a first language) and are very nice, but are just really stupid (or frustratingly reticent to depart from their support script). So, frankly, I'm not sure what's worse. An Indian with great technical knowledge but poor communication skills, or an American with great communication skills and poor technical knowledge.
Re:Cheap shot journalism by geekoid · 2006-10-06 03:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

Offshoring - They're stealing jobs!!
Jobs people don't want. FWIW there are some larger call centers in various parts of North America that are growing.

Jobs people don't want? what you mean like programming? or the thousands of people that have been fired so there call center/support job can go to india?

To say migrant works do jobs most people don't want is true(ever pick strawberries for a day?); many people want office jobs.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Cheap shot journalism by MrMickS · 2006-10-06 04:01 · Score: 3, Informative

The programme did speak to someone working in a call centre in the UK. That person pretty much said that the security was so lax that any of the breaches levelled at India could also take place within UK call centres. So the programme wasn't making cheap shots.
The difference between India and the UK was the manner in which this data was marketed. Outside Hyderabad, which had G.Bush visiting and high security at the time of the investigation, the personal information was being dealt as any other commoditiy. That is, openly traded. The makers of the programme weren't able to gain access to data as readily within the UK. The speculation, as it was untested, as to why this was the case was down to jurisdictional issues.
A large number of UK companies have taken advantage of the services supplied by Indian call centres. The security of data is a genuine concern. The numbers being talked about were in the 50,000 - 100,000 new leads per month. This is fraud on a large scale even if its only being carried out by a relatively small number of people. Some of the sample data, which when challenged was said to be made up, was used to track one person down that was prepared to appear on camera and confirm it as true. Interestingly this data was obtained because the person had a credit check done in a UK shop which happened to go through to an Indian call centre.
Incidentally the programme did say that the information was garnered not from banking call centres but mostly from ones used by mobile phone companies. The implication being that the banking call centres had a higher level of security.

--
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
Re:Cheap shot journalism by mutterc · 2006-10-06 04:41 · Score: 1

There's also "anti-corporatism":

The U.S. government apparently doesn't have a problem pushing for harsh copyright laws in other countries, so that foreign citizens in foreign countries can get taken down if they pirate American entertainment content.

No effort though on trying to get laws enacted that protect regular American people, though. Even all put together, we're not nearly as important as Disney.

On the other hand, it's not like American data-protection laws are any good either; you don't own your data, so any company can buy and sell any information about you to their hearts' content. If only the EU could get their privacy laws pushed out to the rest of the world...
Re:Cheap shot journalism by cyber-vandal · 2006-10-06 05:45 · Score: 1

How could they grow if people didn't want those jobs?

This is just cheap shot journalism at an easy target that gets people upset. This same type of privacy violation can and does happen in every part of the first world.

People are upset because they're losing their livelihoods or at the very least having to accept a lower standard of living (or are afraid of it happening to them) which, funnily enough, is not racism or stupidity but perfectly understandable. Do you have positive news for those people or just the usual empty ivory tower economics professor bullshit?
Re:Cheap shot journalism by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 07:07 · Score: 0

Yes, but, bank call centers are supposed to employ better security. Security related do occur occasionally, just like anywhere: Man held in HSBC India scam probe.... The worker is said to have supplied customer data to fraudsters, leading to a total of £233,000 being taken.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5122886.stm

Re:It's not that it's everywhere that's the proble by fdiskne1 · 2006-10-06 03:02 · Score: 1

I just feel like we're at risk having some rather critical information exported to other countries for processing where our laws and regulations do not necessarily apply.

Too late. Your personal credit information is already there. I had a problem getting a credit report from one of the credit reporting agencies. When I called them to be sure they took care of the problem, the phone was answered by someone with such a heavy Indian accent I could barely understand him. The first question out of his mouth was "What is your social security number?" I wrote to my senator and congressman and state's attorney general (Republican AND Democrat). They all say that it is perfectly legal for credit reporting agencies to send our information out of the country and that there is no more risk from Indian companies than from American companies. I disagree and it pisses me off but there is absolutely nothing I can do except tell my congresscritters my thoughts and vote accordingly. There's nothing I can do to prevent the companies from accumulating this information on me and shipping it out of the country.

--
But why is the rum gone?

Wrong. In the real world... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

it's the SE who says it will take 150 hours and then extends it to 450 hours for various reasons who gets the contract.

A List Of Bad Assumptions by Petersko · 2006-10-06 03:06 · Score: 1

"The reason it would be safer is because if someone were to sell my information working at a company here in the US then they would be held accountable to the laws we have against that and they would pay the price because I certainly would go after them myself if necessary."

You can't be serious. You're trying to tell me that your data is safer because you have laws and accountability? People commit murders, traffick in drugs, break into homes, and yes, STEAL DATA, in the U.S. all the time, even though it's illegal to do so. Do you think India has no enforceable laws against IT workers stealing data? They are enjoying the economics of being a prime outsourcing provider right now, and they'll defend that.

"If the person who sells my data happens to be in another country then I would not have the choice to go after them myself and even though they most likely would lose their job their home country may not have any laws against what they did with my information so they could basically get away with it."

We're talking about India. Not some hypothetical lawless frontier.

"So while there truly are "bad apples" everywhere there would be MUCH more deterent to sell someones personal information in a country that has laws against it than in a country where those laws do not exist."

Gee. What a completely correct, but utterly pointless statement.

Re:A List Of Bad Assumptions by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2006-10-06 05:31 · Score: 1

We're talking about India. Not some hypothetical lawless frontier.

Depends - how much money have you got? Also, consider the case of Jessica Lal from upthread.

--
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Re:A List Of Bad Assumptions by uradu · 2006-10-06 06:34 · Score: 1

> You're trying to tell me that your data is safer because you have laws and accountability?

Yes, that's pretty much how it works. You're just creating a strawman by equating relative security with absolute security. No country in the world can guarantee total data security, but there are huge differences in relative security to be found in various countries. In this respect I will have to differentiate between Europe and the rest of the world, because most (western) European countries take data privacy a lot more seriously, esp. that of the private citizen. While the US likes to think of itself as top notch when it comes to data security, the general attitute amongst the population and in the business world is rather non-chalant when it comes to personal data. Private individuals are routinely asked for far more information than required to be rendered any given service. Social security numbers are given out like candy to the asking. And when crass data security breaches such as the leaking of thousands of credit card accounts hit the news, most people shrug and switch channels. If it's that bad in the US, don't even pretend that India is any better. Most of the so-called Third World (and I would include most of Eastern Europe and Russia for the purposes of this argument) don't even see data (or intellectual property for that matter) as something particularly valuable and worth getting worked up over. Some are still struggling with adequate law enforcement in the much more tangible physical world, let alone in the much more abstract world of bits and bytes.

To use an analogy: think of movie piracy in the US vs Asia. Yes, it happens in the US as well, and there are street corners in most larger towns where you can buy pirated DVDs for dirt cheap. But if you think the US laws in that respect make absolutely no difference, you obviously haven't travelled to Asia or Russia recently.
Re:A List Of Bad Assumptions by Petersko · 2006-10-06 07:23 · Score: 1

"To use an analogy: think of movie piracy in the US vs Asia. Yes, it happens in the US as well, and there are street corners in most larger towns where you can buy pirated DVDs for dirt cheap. But if you think the US laws in that respect make absolutely no difference, you obviously haven't travelled to Asia or Russia recently."

It's a flawed analogy because there's no real need for Asia to enforce American copyright laws. The country gains nothing by cracking down on DVD pirates. In the case of India, criminal activity in the outsourcing industry could harm a relationship that is of huge benefit to India at many levels. It's in their best interests to put a stop to it.
Re:A List Of Bad Assumptions by uradu · 2006-10-06 14:09 · Score: 1

> It's a flawed analogy

Most analogies are flawed by their very nature.

> It's in their best interests to put a stop to it.

Yes, but there is a crucial difference between "interest" and "legal requirement". When one or more corporations can wiggle between the laws of multiple countries to avoid responsibility, culpability becomes a lot trickier to enforce. In the end a company in India might find it economically advantageous most of the time to play nice with an outsourcing partner, but when caught between a rock and a hard place (say a bigger incentive to sell out, or potentially large damage inflicted by some "bad apples" in the company) it might be very tempting for them to say "hey, your laws don't really apply to us anyway."

Some hackers tried this in the 70s by mcmonkey · 2006-10-06 03:06 · Score: 2, Informative

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Consider what happens to code development shipped offshore.

It would be easy for someone to slip in a virus to round off the fractions of a cent in the interest computations and put the remainders in an account.

You just need someone who knows the credit union software to install it.

Re:Some hackers tried this in the 70s by Mister+Whirly · 2006-10-06 03:38 · Score: 1

Yeah, like Michael Bolton and Samir. Just make sure Lundberg doesn't catch you, or he'll make you come in on Sunday....

--
"But this one goes to 11!"
Re:Some hackers tried this in the 70s by wbean · 2006-10-06 04:13 · Score: 1

It would be easy for someone to slip in a virus to round off the fractions of a cent in the interest computations and put the remainders in an account.

It's not that easy. You calculate the interest on an account and post the credit to the account and the debit to interest paid. The debit and the credit have to match. There's nothing left over for the rogue programmer.
Re:Some hackers tried this in the 70s by kckman · 2006-10-06 04:18 · Score: 1

I think this was already achieved in Office Space. They were almost certainly headed to "pound me in the ass" prison had it not been for the fire. Real life and art are often intertwined.
Re:Some hackers tried this in the 70s by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2006-10-06 05:37 · Score: 1

Just because this one scam is guarded against doesn't mean that there aren't many more that could be prepetrated.

--
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Re:Some hackers tried this in the 70s by wbean · 2006-10-06 07:20 · Score: 1

Absolutley! It's just that I've been hearing about that penny rounding scheme since the mid-sixties (yes, I'm that old) and have never been able to trace it to an actual incident.
Re:Some hackers tried this in the 70s by mcmonkey · 2006-10-06 07:37 · Score: 1

Absolutley! It's just that I've been hearing about that penny rounding scheme since the mid-sixties (yes, I'm that old) and have never been able to trace it to an actual incident.

Of Course. When I^W^WIf someone were to actually pull off such a plan, you'd never hear about. No one would even know the money was missing.
When the best capers are over, no one knows anything is missing.

Also.. by FeralTitan · 2006-10-06 03:07 · Score: 1

I think we should also worry about the guys who are paying for this illegally sourced data - in my opinion that is where the problem begins.

And you are basing this on what? Bull Crap? by deadmongrel · 2006-10-06 03:08 · Score: 1

And this applies to everyone? My customers make more than I do and I would be stealing from them to make myself better than others? What a load of crap and someone thinks that insightful.
Someone willing to steal will do so no matter how much money they make. There is no psycological phenomenon that generalizes "people" making less would steal from people making more.

Instead of being defensive about this. by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:12 · Score: 0

Why not stop companies from being so careless with OUR data?

Our personal data is shared so willy-nilly by businesses and when our identity is stolen because of THEIR neglect, we are the ones who are stuck with the burden of proof, forever. Fo the rest of our lives we will have to prove that we were not the ones who ran up all that: debt, parking tickets, felonies, etc....

Not suprised by CaptScarlet22 · 2006-10-06 03:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

Money talks in any language....

--
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!

nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:19 · Score: 2, Informative

if you had watched the program you would of seen them talk to UK callcenter employees who could supply the same data, the only reason they went to India was because of the numbers, UK employees wanted 10-50 times what the Indians wanted for each piece of data and they (indians) could supply them in much larger quantities (100,000 fresh details per month) so as responsible jounalist do they followed the big fish not the little minnows

Financial incentives by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:23 · Score: 0

Most likely if someone was blatently caught in the act stealing data in the UK, they would face no jail time whatsoever. Where as, on the other hand, I would assume that India would probably have more severe punishment than the UK.

Theoretically perhaps but judging by India's corruption rating, such a punishment, if it exists, should be easy to avoid with a few well placed financial incentives.

Re:Financial incentives by ShibaInu · 2006-10-06 03:54 · Score: 1

I worked in India in 1992. The company I was working for sent me over there to work with Indian programmers on a product we were trying to sell in the US. I went over on a tourist visa, which expired in six months. My boss bribed a customs official $100 to extend my visa, no questions asked, and he did. This was pretty common pratice.

India may be pretty different now, but I doubt the corruption levels are down to "US" levels - not that we don't have tons of corruption here.

news video on the scandal by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 03:26 · Score: 1, Informative

http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showI d=2053

everything is cheaper in India by ashwinds · 2006-10-06 03:31 · Score: 1

....including crime. People can be bought off for lesser. This is sad, but true.

statistic by cowboyUmer · 2006-10-06 03:37 · Score: 1

by the time i finish writing this post indian population will add 100,000 to the total number

Re:statistic by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 04:05 · Score: 0

by the time i finish writing this post indian population will add 100,000 to the total number
More realistic is that the current populations of China and India exceed the total world population of just 70 years ago. And there are more living in those two areas today than the whole rest of the world had as recently as World War II.
Re:statistic by l0cust · 2006-10-06 04:43 · Score: 1

..and just when you get to this part of the comment, 13 women across the world will be having orgasms, 25 kids will be trying to see the nude pic on a magazine cover and 1 million men will be thinking about sex. So.. what the fuck does that have to do with the data sold in Indian Call Center ?

--
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.

Re:It's not that it's everywhere that's the proble by Maxo-Texas · 2006-10-06 03:42 · Score: 1

LoL.

So I'm going to be paying for an $1,800 ticket to fly someone to the states for punishment now.

By Grapthar's hammer. What a savings.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Nope. India is just a morass of corruption. by frost22 · 2006-10-06 03:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

They can not even prosecute clear cut cases of murder, when there is ample proof.

Just a somwhat current example: the murder of Jessica Lal.

The victim, an attractive model, worked at the bar at a friend's party in a fancy restaurant. A son of a powerful politician comes in with his entourage and asks for a drink. She refuses to give him one, because the bar is already closed. The man - offended beeing refused in front of his friends - pulls a gun and shoots her direct in the face.

Numerous witnesses. Ample evidence. OJ Simpson was a mystery compared to that. And yet, after seven years of judical wrangling, the man walks away free (not that he ever spent a day in jail). Witnesses who can not remember anything, a police that just happens to destroy or devalue all evidence - the case stinks of corruption.

Its been a major scandal in India half a year ago. But only because the victim was well known and had many influential friends of her own. Had she been a simple rural woman, we wouldn't even know. Local observers note that affairs like that are standard practice - if you are rich enough in India, there is no law that applies to you, because everybody is corrupt and can be bought.

Don't believe me ? Just google for Jessica Lal, and read the whole sordid story.

--
...and here I stand, with all my lore, poor fool, no wiser than before.

Re:Nope. India is just a morass of corruption. by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 05:13 · Score: 0

True. That case stinks of corruption and bought witnesses. But I am sure powerful people don't throw money left and right to protect their son from a murder charge anywhere else in the world. Not saying it justifies what happened but its not a 'those Indians' case, its the weakness of human nature. Maybe its much easier to get away with that sort of thing in developing countries like India than somewhere, say in UK, but it happens everywhere.

Btw, you must know that the case is not closed. The father of the accused - a powerful politician - has been forced to resign after media highlighted his acts of putting pressure on the people involved in the case. The case is very much in media limelight and I am sure the guy will be punished. No matter whats your perception of India, the conditions is still not that bad that an act like that will go unpunished by the law.
Re:Nope. India is just a morass of corruption. by NubKnacker · 2006-10-06 07:56 · Score: 1

Your point is taken, India has a lot of corrupt politicians. But can you say with certainity that other countries don't? Surely this isn't the only example of political power being misused which kinda moots your point.
Re:Nope. India is just a morass of corruption. by chifut · 2006-10-06 10:07 · Score: 1

have you been at the time and place of the murder? how do you know what has happened? if no witness remembers anything, how do you know what happened?

How do you know it doesn't happen more often? by Svartalf · 2006-10-06 04:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

All you see is the more careless ones getting caught. Identity theft actvities goes on, even in the US- we just
have a better handle on it so that the sloppy ones don't get very far. In India and elsewhere, you pay for cheap,
they don't give a care about security- what costs is the pay for the labor to be less inclined to do corrupt things
and for the security to ensure that if they do, they typically get caught real quick.

All because of some idiot that has an MBA that thinks he has a solid handle on economics and business thinks that
it'll be cheaper to do this "offshoring" thing- because everyone else is doing it and you can't afford to not do it.

Well, I'm here to tell you that if you can't afford to pay people here in the States (or UK, or Australia, or...)
you probably really can't afford offshoring it unless you get lucky. Offshoring is a damn crapshoot- and you might
get lucky, the odds with you for a while. But, at some point, it comes back to roost and all that money you "saved"
just got flushed down the toilet in liability suits, lost reputation, and reperations to the poor sots that got
screwed by the identity thefts, etc. that comes from it.

Sure, there's sharp people over in India and Russia. Do you think for one moment that you're GETTING those people
when you offshore? If you do, you're fooling yourself. The really competent ones cost as much as they do here over
there. What are you getting when you do the offshore thing? The middle of the crowd at best and the bottom of the
barrel leavings- because they're cheaper.

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas

Re:How do you know it doesn't happen more often? by TubeSteak · 2006-10-06 06:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

The really competent ones cost as much as they do here over there.
Cost of living "over there" is drastically lower than it is in the U.S. or the EU.

30,000 USD is a lot of money in India or the former Soviet States.

I know there are at least a few American /.'ers, who make a low end American IT salary, but do quite quite well living in India.

Maybe one of them will chime in

--
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Re:How do you know it doesn't happen more often? by Svartalf · 2006-10-06 06:33 · Score: 1

Yeah, but I just got told by one of the people we've got at my current contract job (Who WOULD know...)
that this is the case- the really skilled ones are collecting close to what we'd make over here and
living like kings over there.

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas

Legal recourse by dodobh · 2006-10-06 04:09 · Score: 2, Informative

The law is being made a lot more stringent, and every person whose personal data has been compromised can get compensation upto 5 crore INR (50 million INR) as civil damages, as well as criminal action leading to fines and/or imprisonment. Under Indian law, any affected individual can bring a criminal lawsuit, without having to wait for the government to intervene.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cyberlaw-india/ message/2848

--
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.

What Channel 4 didn't mention by Peregr1n · 2006-10-06 04:15 · Score: 1

What Channel 4 didn't mention is that there have been far greater losses through the same kind of fraud within the UK than from India. So taking the figures to their logical conclusion, it's safer to have your call centres in India than in Britain. But that doesn't make such good headlines!

Re:What Channel 4 didn't mention by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 05:22 · Score: 0

What Channel 4 didn't mention is that there have been far greater losses through the same kind of fraud within the UK than from India.

Perhaps they didn't mention it because it's not true. What's your source of information?
Re:What Channel 4 didn't mention by sgt_doom · 2006-10-06 09:09 · Score: 1

Nope, it's safer to have your information in the country of origin where it's protected by that country's privacy laws.....

Yes - blame it on India! by frost22 · 2006-10-06 04:30 · Score: 1

people do not act ibn a vacuum. India is ripe with corruption, and the reason is that society tolerates corruption. As long as India as society doesn't not eradicate corruption, stuff like that happens all the time.

And yes, that means really hard punishment not only for the ccorrupt officials but also for the bribers. When was the last really rich man convicted to a really long prison sentence for corruption ? Why do politicians tolerate obviously corrupt or bribing colleagues in their mid ?

--
...and here I stand, with all my lore, poor fool, no wiser than before.

I speak ISO-8583. by LifesABeach · 2006-10-06 04:52 · Score: 1

In the U.S., the banks do not pay up. What happens is that a credit card client sees an invalid transaction; All the Client has to do is call the credit card company and state that the charge is unlawful; At this point there is some talking about how little work the bank employee must be forced to do. The credit card company will then mail a piece of paper that the client signs basically stating, "yup, that charge is bogus". What is done at the same time as mailing is that credit card transaction is reversed. The vendor selling the product is left holding the bag. Law enforcement then handles the issue as a local theft. Depending on the success of the bad guys, are the larger organizations of the Good Guys sniffing around, searching. Usually, the vendor can coordinate with local law enforcement types to get the bad guy.

But from my standpoint, people that hold my personal data it is like, "The Sword of Damocles", and I am forced to be the Damocles character; I do not like it. Personally, I think that when a transaction is completed, ALL financial information should be erased/destroyed. I think anyone who sells, or buys personal information should be imprisoned for many many years. It does not serve the common good to ignore these types of bad guys.

Barreling Bad Apples by Doc+Ruby · 2006-10-06 04:53 · Score: 1

Of course there are bad "apples" in every industry, in every country. That's why we have laws against bad "apples", government oversight of industry, reporting requirements, consumer watchdogs... a whole infrastructure the people use to protect ourselves from irresponsible and criminal corporations.

US corporations often avoid handling data inside the US because even our crude and inadequate privacy laws still add costs and risks to those operations, but overseas there's little to no risk to the US operation that dispatches the profits (or at least extracts them from our pockets).

Real privacy laws in the US would protect Americans from corporations sending data overseas avoiding US controls. And good ones would make the entire chain required to protect the strongest link in the dataflow, rather than letting everything spill out the weakest.

We'd protect our privacy, and protect our jobs that treat private data right. If we forced foreign competitors to pay the full cost of the privacy protections we require, we'd have a truly global workforce we could use, rather than letting the world work against us at our expense.

--

--
make install -not war

Russians Learn Upside of Outsourcing by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 05:01 · Score: 0

Internal Memo From: Alexei V. To: Yuri K. RE: Cost savings from outsourced identity theft Cost for 1,000 credit card numbers from U.S. call center employee: $1,000 Cost for 1,000 credit card numbers from Banglaore call center employee: $250 Our Russian division expects outsourcing of identity theft to reduce their operating costs by $20-25% in the next fiscal year which could translate to an increase of bottom line profit of nearly $100 million.

Meanwhile.. here in UK by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 05:02 · Score: 1, Informative

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/26/offshoring _misperception/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/05/india_expo sed/

"In June, an Indian worker was arrested for allegedly defrauding £233,000 from the accounts of about 20 HSBC customers. However, the Royal Bank of Scotland lost nearly 100 times that amount of money (£21m) to a man working for the bank in Edinburgh."

Incidents of reported fraud in the UK have tripled in since 2003, according to BDO Stoy Hayward. The British government is conducting a review of unreported fraud the UK, which is it describes as "chronic".

But that never makes it to the prime time TV or headlines!! ?

Guess we would rather get fleeced by our white bretheren?

Still think outsourcing is a good idea? by borgheron · 2006-10-06 05:07 · Score: 1

If they're doing this with personal information, just imagine what they're doing with code and other sensitive information!

GJC

--
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep

If you've never heard of the case before by phorm · 2006-10-06 05:13 · Score: 1

I hadn't, but I found these sites:

News index on the case
Wikipedia entry

However, I should be mentioned that this stuff does happen in the USA as well. If a person is wealthy+powerful enough, you can threaten, buy, "remove" or many other things to witnesses. For the police, depending on the local level of corruption or bureaucratic influence, some of these may work as well.

Re:If you've never heard of the case before by phorm · 2006-10-06 05:17 · Score: 1

Oops, my wikipedia entry was unlinked.

Here it is.
Re:If you've never heard of the case before by dbIII · 2006-10-07 00:07 · Score: 1

I should be mentioned that this stuff does happen in the USA as well. If a person is wealthy+powerful enough, you can threaten, buy, "remove" or many other things to witnesses. For the police, depending on the local level of corruption

I've seen it a hundred times in US cop shows and thought it was unrealistic. The rich influentual man threatens the cop that arrested him and says he'll never work in that town again etc. Doues the politicisation of law enforcement really make them that vunerable to influence? When many of the police in my state were corrupt it would never have worked - they would have beaten the crap out of anyone trying that then charged them with resisting arrest on top of everything else. Now they just throw the book at them instead - threatening a police officer means years of hard time.

Grrr by phorm · 2006-10-06 05:19 · Score: 1

OK, and my paste buffer is messed up. Stupid middle-mouse-button, CTRL+V paste buffer difference:

wikipedia entry

grumble, grumble (please feel free to mod previous post down)

All your Data are Belong to Us by WillAffleckUW · 2006-10-06 05:35 · Score: 1

or whoever will pay us more than the paltry $5000 a year we make.

Somehow, this should have been filed under the category "obvious consequences of outsourcing and offshoring".

--
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --

Its all about simple math & law enforcement by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 05:41 · Score: 0

Well, I live in poor developing country where bribe is just part of the culture.

All the outlaws here when making dirty money like corruption, fraud, white collar crime know the "ratio rule".

Start with number 10 just for simplicity sake, and multiply it by any numbers you like that make sense at the place where it will happened.

With that 10 points, here comes the "ratio rules" that always works here :

- 10 for the police
- 10 for the prosecutor
- 20 for the judge, since they make the decision
- 5 for the warden to make your stay there a lot shorter and comfy than you could imagine
- 5 for reservation, its for those journalists just incase they put you in their spot light
- 50 , its for your self and in some cases this could feed you whole big family for generations in luxury.

Now, who says its difficult to break even or better if you're rich, you'll never get jailed.:)

Racism Xenophobia or simple economics by swalters1 · 2006-10-06 05:44 · Score: 1

Time for the people in the UK to show a reaction to the news that their ID has been stolen, by doing what they do in the US, file a law suit against the bank employing the call center. What happens in the call center is partly the responsiblity of corporation that employs them. There.. matter settled....right? Shipping jobs off to India that "no one wants"? One of my good friends works in a call center in the UK. She, and others like her, are college students trying to get through school. The extra cash helps keep them going and makes it so they can occasionally buy something from one the places that makes something "that no one wants the job to make" It's all interconnected. Everytime you remove an income generator (for people) from an economic system you weaken that system and displace people. Lets face it, they may not be good jobs, and you're not going to spend your life doing it, but their is a need for this sector of jobs. I know, why don't they just get jobs at walmart, or starbucks, or... well think about it... if you keep moving jobs like these out of an economy, it won't be long before people in that economy can't afford to buy the things these people sell. (I know .. slippery slope... poor arguement right?) WRONG, ask Walmart why they withdrew economic support from the GOP (Republican Party) because their politics allow and ecourage (They pay companies to "relocate" to othe coutries, not directly, but they offer "Economic incentives for helping under privledged nations") the movement of jobs to other countries, thus removing the ability of Walmart to sell products, and thus reducing their profits. People don't get that globalization isn't a good thing, and not just because these people's ID was stolen, but because the process of shipping off "jobs no one wants" take away income from the country who ships it off. The goal of most mega-corporations, and certain governments is to create a global economy where each country depends on another for goods and services, but not just a little like now, completely and totally. It sounds great on paper, every country working towards common goals, sharing the labor and making sure all products and services are provided to all people.... of course the last countries that tried that didn't fair so well.. or am I the only one who remembers pre-democracy USSR? (Wait.. I didn't say globalization is as bad as communism did I?) YES! They both have the same fatal flaw. They assume everyone will do what is best for everyone else. In the real world it doesn't work that way. Greed over rides the drive to do good. Which brings us back to this issue.... If these people were A) in the same country as their callers, it wouldn't have taken a year to catch them. B) If they were paid decent wages, an offer of $9.50USD wouldn't so easily pursuade them to sell the info. So.. Step 1, sue the company util they move their call center back to the UK. Eliminate their "savings" by causing so much legal damage that they can't afford not to, but remember, you have to agree to drop the law suit, as soon as they agree to move the center back to the UK for at least 10 years. (I can hear it already, that's blackmail!) No, it's the consumer demostrating the one power they all have and using the one resource they all have access to. It's an unfortunate truth in the modern world. You can't legislate change for the good, you can't use consumer power to change behavior (not in the short term anyway) but the threat of a good old law suit can change behavior quickly... very very quickly. Don't beleive it? I have one word for you OREO. Step 2: If you can't get them to move it back, don't do business with them at all... or any other UK financial instiution that uses foreign call centers. That my rant, respond as you wish.

Re:Racism Xenophobia or simple economics by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-07 03:39 · Score: 0

Wall of text criticaly strikes Eyes for 3049.
Eyes die.

13 min Video here by tycoman · 2006-10-06 05:57 · Score: 2, Informative

http://jiyocricket.blogspot.com/2006/10/channel-4- call-centre-id-theft-exposed.html crazy stuff. all ur data belongs to them

Cheap to hire, cheap to bribe.... by AmazingRuss · 2006-10-06 06:15 · Score: 1

...I bet you can bribe Indian workers for 1/6th what you can bribe American workers for.

How about fixing the source? by AP2005 · 2006-10-06 06:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Almost every post here is just anti-outsourcing. How about fixing the source of the problem: a few numbers (social security, credit card) are required to get anything done, and these same numbers can be used to destroy your identity. This is what makes the data so valuable in the first place. I can't believe that all the money saved by outsourcing is not enough to provide a more secure platform for online commerce. Changing laws in one country is not a solution by itself in a global economy. This will just make it more expensive to do business in that country and US/UK companies will find a call center in a place with more lax laws. A quicker and more effective solution is to hold companies liable for identity loss, so that some of their profits from outsourcing can be channeled to building more secure infrastructure.

We have to realize that this is an inevitable cost of globalization. If we believe that globalization is a good thing overall, then the first world has to adapt too. A country like India has "information services" to offer to the global market and is competing on price. How is this different from any other commodity being traded globally?

Re:Call center employees shouldn't be able to do t by rob_squared · 2006-10-06 07:09 · Score: 1

Because customers trust call center employees with all that data. Very many times I've been given credit card and other identifying information over phone and E-MAIL!

But in general I agree with you. However, when banks are outsourcing, how can you possibly avoid it?

--
I don't get it.

Sucks, but what can be done? by bigsimes · 2006-10-06 07:28 · Score: 1

I wonder if the indian 'computer' police still staple floppies and compact discs to their crime reports? Or still equate taking a monitor away to taking the 'computer'.

Seriously, what can I do to stop the indians even getting access to my data in the first place? I would rather my particulars were held with some kind of sanctity.

Absolutely nothing we can do probably. There ought to be something though, right?

Sucks

MOD PARENT UP by Mark+of+THE+CITY · 2006-10-06 10:22 · Score: 1

Thank you.

--
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton

Offshore concerns by Obstin8 · 2006-10-06 11:15 · Score: 1

I was ordering a new Dell PC online yesterday. For some reason the order kept refusing to include the XP Pro media kit. Called Dell, got put through to an Indian lady 'Online Sales Asst' who had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. Escalated me to someone who's VM box was full which caused immediate disconnection.

Called Dell back, asked for a Sales rep (it's like my 12th system this past year). Finally got routed to a sales rep in India (asked him). I then chose not to place the order with him, since I didn't feel comfortable handing my CC information to someone 10,000 miles away - operating with little oversight, rudimentary knowledge of English, and in a country whose laws and practices regarding information privacy are probably sub-standard at best.

I eventually completed the online order instead. It wasn't xenophobia or some other politically incorrect impulse that caused me to cancel the order with the online rep. I'm a Canadian, and live in a community heavily populated by South Asians. I just didn't have that comfort level handing over my CC info to this fellow.

I'm an independent IT consultant. I naturally find these out-sourced call-centers repugnant by definition, but realize they are a fact of life. But surely Dell can do better! Why is basic comprehension of my problem an option? The original responder had zero clues as to what I was talking about. Why was the Tier 2 rep's voice-mail full? Why isn't Dell monitoring this crap?

Finally, why aren't they building call-centers in New Orleans, or other impoverished places in USA and Canada? Y'know - where English is not a second language, and they'll be happy for minimum wage? Sheesh!

Lets take a step back by Vaibhav_Locke · 2006-10-06 11:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

So I've heard a lot of anti-India, anti-outsourcing, anti-brown people and so on. Lets go back and clear up a few basic points, the stuff that can be readily checked by spending 5 minutes on google.

Indian call center employees aren't being exploited, they don't go through every day burning with the knowledge that Chuck from Portland makes more money than they do. People need to stop looking at this from their perspective, in America you could barely eat on $5000 a year but in India, where the buying power of one dollar is much much higher than compared to the 1st world, that's enough to comfortably put you into the lower middle class income bracket. There are people who make less than $10 a month. So nobody's doing this out of some misdirected anger at the white oppressors making them slave at their terminals, many Call Centers are Indian companies, locally managed and recruiting from colleges and universities where they can get young, educated people who are doing this as their first job out of school, anything they make is good money.

On the issue of accents: Compared to the level of English the average American high school graduate can accomplish, any one of these people could run circles around you in a literary duel, if ever there was one. We speak with accents because we're not native English speakers, we learn hindi/benglai/punjabi/gujrati/tamil as well as English, and take on the speech patterns of the language spoken most often. So, if you choose to ridicule us because of our accents, know that the average Indian high schooler usually knows 3 languages (at least 2) and can probably understand a couple more, as compared to the American kid who's struggling with his one. And guess what? I bet Shakespeare had a pretty funny accent too ...

Third, and this point has been made already but its worth reiterating, this isn't a local Indian problem. I remember 4 separate instances of large scale personal data theft in the U.S over the last year, and I don't even pay that much attention so there's probably more. So, before you break out the stones, look back at the glass walls you're in.

Does anyone really believe... by HangingChad · 2006-10-06 12:03 · Score: 1

...that a foreign government is going to sit on a treasure trove of information about US citizens and not use it? That's right up there with believing democracy is going to break out in the middle east. You don't think the Indian and Pakistani governments aren't data mining our data and systems for competitive intelligence? Wake up already. We're outsourcing data on millions of Americans to potentially hostile countries and yet no one sees that development in the same light as keeping all our war ships in one harbor in Hawaii.

These days they can start while kids are in grade school and track their whole lives. Grades, attendance, medical issues, legal problems, everything. I'm really grateful to be old enough that some of my electronic history happened before the days of endless inter-connected databases being hosted in Asscrapistan.

--
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage

Re:Does anyone really believe... by sgt_doom · 2006-10-06 12:29 · Score: 1

Hey! How come some neocon script kiddie hasn't modded this guy to troll yet? For his brilliance, forthright honesty, intelligence, lucid logical reasoning and obvious superior intelligence? (That sound you hear is the tumultuous clapping of thousands in the background. Thanks.)

RT(his)FA one more time by sgt_doom · 2006-10-06 12:07 · Score: 1

RT(his)FA

Re:It's not that it's everywhere that's the proble by sgt_doom · 2006-10-06 12:38 · Score: 1

Naaah...that's what the Department of Homeland Security is for -- remember that delusional deviant, Mark Karr - the one who claimed to be the murderer of little JonBenet so he could get free - first-class (business class) fare back to the States? Your tax dollars at work, amigo.....

Wow by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-06 15:34 · Score: 0

wow your comment is one of the most stupidest I've ever seen on /., how old are you? four years old? There is a whole stackload of investigative and judicial material on the web available for this case. Again, how old are you? Are you aware of how justice systems work? Man, you are stone cold stupid.

Re:Call center employees shouldn't be able to do t by Fastolfe · 2006-10-06 15:56 · Score: 1

Perhaps you misunderstand my point here. When you interact with a call center employee, of course that employee is going to have access to confidential information about you. You're either going to provide it to them, or they're going to be able to pull it up in order to do their job properly. I'm talking about the wholesale access to customer information.

A mere employee should never be able to pull up enough information in bulk for it to be valuable enough to trade with, and any attempt to gather this information piecemeal should be detected by proper auditing.

Regarding the Best In The World practices... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-07 00:01 · Score: 0

"This is not a widespread problem in India. Security
measures and practices that Indian companies have are the best in the
world."

Indeed, the anti-scam security measures of Nigerian police is probably the best in the world...

However, English company shall be twice as careful to give its sensitive information to Indian company - it may be, that for Indian employee his English employer is just a "damned colonist", just like white people are for Nigerians, or christians are for muslims.

Of course this is just a crime with weak excuses promoted to the level of national idea, but nevertheless, it allows them to not feel guilty after doing crime against you.

What part of by Travoltus · 2006-10-07 08:57 · Score: 1

"Do NOT process my personal information in any other country" do you not understand?

Is it the "that country's laws aren't the same as mine" that pro-offshoring people don't get?

Or is it the "The FBI has no jurisdiction over the criminals in that country" that's slipping by here?

Or are you failing to grasp "it takes pennies to our dollar to bribe a manager over there to hand over thousands of people's personal information" that's going over the heads of the globalists?

Please tell me, which part is in error?

--
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!

Re:It's not that it's everywhere that's the proble by Maxo-Texas · 2006-10-07 18:38 · Score: 1

And... who pays the taxes that pays the budget that pays for the ticket?

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Torrent? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-15 15:43 · Score: 0

Is their a torrent for this show? Would like to watch and judge for myself.

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Private Data Sold From Indian Call Center

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