Indian Site Offers Reward For Googler Vandal

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Indian Site Offers Reward For Googler Vandal

Posted by timothy on Sunday January 29, 2012 @05:46AM from the najayaz-paidaish-khota dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Indian website Techgoss, which offered a reward of Rs. 10,000 to get photos of Facebook founder in India, did manage to get photos of Zuckerberg attired in Indian clothes at an Indian wedding. They have followed up the success of the reward for photos of the Facebook founder with a bounty of Rs. 15,000 for the identity / details of the Google India employee who vandalized open source OpenStreetMaps in Jan, 2012. (Rs. 15,000 is one week's wages for a programmer at a top IT company in India)."

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Pee-YEW! by Ethanol-fueled · 2012-01-29 05:50 · Score: 0, Troll

It smells like India in here!
Free time by erick99 · 2012-01-29 05:50 · Score: 2

Lots of free time in India??

--
http://www.busyweather.com/
1. Re:Free time by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 07:37 · Score: 0
  
  lots of people
2. Re:Free time by camperslo · 2012-01-29 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  What's the story behind the story here? Why was that website defaced? Did the person defacing it have some message of importance or was is just the action of a competitor or someone bitter for personal reasons?
  The mass media often focus on unimportant stories and provide too little detail on those that do matter. Shouldn't we try to focus on getting the bigger picture and more depth?
  Since Google relates to this story is an opportunity to bring up another deeper issue of importance. Sometimes finding out what is going on in the world requires digging deeper than what the commercial giants publish. Following a story globally is helped by the ability to translate pages or paragraphs, do searches in foreign languages, and more. In the spirit of being good not evil, Google tools helping with that is certainly appreciated. For democracy to function effectively we must be educated and informed. We certainly have a better chance at sane global policies, interaction, understanding and peace with the help of tools that work well with other languages. So it concerns me that Google has broken access to tools using its translation services. The non-commercial (free) third party OS X Text Translator version 1.2 widget ( http://sites.google.com/site/jobmlys/ ), which right on its face gives "Powered by Google" credit, no longer works. It was more powerful and provided much more understandable results than what Apple bundles and I found it invaluable in getting a deeper understanding of many things going on in the last year or so.
  Google if you are listening, instead of effectively killing such tools, work to enhance them and what new ones can do. For instance imagine how useful it could be to combine your translation ability with OCR that worked on photos from the net, PDFs, and captures from video. Whether it be for understanding what's in the news, what some individual says in that youtube message, or reading a photo of vacuum tube specs in Russian to make an audio amp with surplus parts, your tools can be REALLY appreciated in helping with deeper understanding. Doing so would promote global understanding and go a long ways, with me at least, in feeling that Google is good not evil. Maybe one day you'll provide speech (audio) search/translation tools too. I think the world can be a more stable and positive place if we have deeper understanding and are better connected. Please help!!!
3. Re:Free time by TheRealMindChild · 2012-01-29 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  What's the story behind the story here? Why was that website defaced?
  
  "Some men just want to watch the world burn". Regardless who's side they are on
  
  --
  
  "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
4. Re:Free time by Runaway1956 · 2012-01-29 18:05 · Score: 1
  
  "Sometimes finding out what is going on in the world requires digging deeper than what the commercial giants publish."
  Eliminate the "sometimes", and your statement will be accurate. None of the media reports the whole story. And, most of the media actually reports the story with a spin. The only way to get the real story in any case, is to read from multiple sources, check the police reports, and to read the transcripts of interviews. Even then, if it's really important to you that you have the full story, you had better be prepared to do your own interviews, and research the subject(s) relevant to the issue.
  ACTA, for instance?
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
5. Re:Free time by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 20:30 · Score: 0
  
  Regardless who's side they are on
  whose
6. Re:Free time by SeaFox · 2012-01-29 21:51 · Score: 1
  
  Lots of free time in India??
  Well..
  
  Rs. 15,000 is one week's wages for a programmer at a top IT company in India
  Maybe there's a glut of programming talent over there and they're targeting the unemployed.
For those in the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 05:54 · Score: 3, Informative

That's about $300, or roughly what a cashier at Safeway makes in the U.S.
1. Re:For those in the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 05:58 · Score: 0
  
  Put another way, that's almost 10 cases of Bawls, which is about three times what programmers in the U.S. are paid per week.
2. Re:For those in the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:19 · Score: 0
  
  Welcome to outsourcing.
  India for the Software,
  China for the Hardware,
  US for the SOPA/PIPA backed TSA ass raping.
3. Re:For those in the U.S. by orlanz · 2012-01-29 09:33 · Score: 2
  
  People in the US forget that most jobs in many companies require minimum wage and benefits. I am going to exclude the less than 40 hours and tip based compensations as, to include those, most of the world would beat the pants off of us.
  The minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hour; benefits and all support structure (ie: IT, janitorial, break room, etc) will easily bring that up to $10/hour. So the minimum cost of an American is ~$400/week. Although the IT guy gets $300/week, this support structure will easily bring him into the $11/hour range. Most Indian IT companies maintain campuses, employee transportation, state of the art gyms, & cafeterias with subsidized meals. They really are the top of the cream in the job market.
  So India's top of the line job costs about 10% more than the minimum in the US. So even if that job generates 1/4 the value of an equivalent position, it is still worth it for most companies. As someone who partially manages support for a large organization, I can tell you that the majority of helpdesk's time is spent on questions that are just 1-2 levels above "Did you plug it in?"; where a simple troubleshooting script is enough. Any wonder why so many jobs, such as support, get outsourced to India?
  Of course there are many many other factors that change that value & cost proposition (ie: unpaid overtime, education, dedication, culture, language, etc) but don't show up in the business case but do in the results. Personally, I would take a one year US vet over a 4 man outsourced team for my product's development and infrastructure maintenance. But would prefer the outsourced team for front end support, and testing.
4. Re:For those in the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 15:27 · Score: 0
  
  Am I supposed to feel bad about that or something?
  Oh, I'm such a greedy bastard on my six figure salary. Why, in a country where an average apartment easily runs around a thousand bucks a month, taxes eat out 30-40% of your income, a loaf of bread is almost $5, a simple medication is a couple hundred dollars a month, and it takes ten bucks of gas to get to and from work every day, how do you exactly *expect* me to live on $300/wk? Much less with a family?
  Tell you what. If you're going to hire people overseas at overseas prices, because I can't compete on price, then how about you let me have Indian living expenses and then you can pay me indian wages?
5. Re:For those in the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 23:01 · Score: 0
  
  > Tell you what. If you're going to hire people overseas at overseas prices, because I can't compete on price, then how about you let me have Indian living
  > expenses and then you can pay me indian wages?
  You always can emigrate to India :-) And even get a little more than Indians.
6. Re:For those in the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-30 04:06 · Score: 0
  
  IBM tried to move my wife to India and pay her in rupees. We declined.
7. Re:For those in the U.S. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-30 06:56 · Score: 0
  
  The minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hour; benefits and all support structure (ie: IT, janitorial, break room, etc) will easily bring that up to $10/hour. So the minimum cost of an American is ~$400/week. Although the IT guy gets $300/week, this support structure will easily bring him into the $11/hour range. Most Indian IT companies maintain campuses, employee transportation, state of the art gyms, & cafeterias with subsidized meals. They really are the top of the cream in the job market.
  $300/week is for an experienced IT guy.
  Starting salaries in the biggest IT companies (like Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, etc.) would be $300-400/month.
Validate claims? by watermark · 2012-01-29 05:55 · Score: 1

How will they validate that the employee that was turned in really vandalized the data? Witch hunt?
1. Re:Validate claims? by WrongSizeGlass · 2012-01-29 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  How will they validate that the employee that was turned in really vandalized the data? Witch hunt?
  Who knows. And how do they prevent someone from offering up an innocent (either as a joke or as a calculated move)? The world has changed. First there were bug bounties, which made sense. Now there's a bounty to identify accused vandals. Next there will be serious (and dangerous) bounties on spammers, anonymous bloggers, and who knows who else. And after that? A bounty on more than just their names? Bounties on the heads of members of Anonymous?
  
  That slippery slope people keep clamoring about? I think were about to find out if they were right.
2. Re:Validate claims? by ColdWetDog · 2012-01-29 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  The world has changed. First there were bug bounties, which made sense. Now there's a bounty to identify accused vandals. Next there will be serious (and dangerous) bounties on spammers, anonymous bloggers, and who knows who else. And after that? A bounty on more than just their names? Bounties on the heads of members of Anonymous?
  That slippery slope people keep clamoring about? I think were about to find out if they were right.
  You're a little late
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
3. Re:Validate claims? by AftanGustur · 2012-01-29 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  How will they validate that the employee that was turned in really vandalized the data? Witch hunt?
  You would be amazed what can be done with computer forensics today. Or more likely, you would be scared.
  
  --
  echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
4. Re:Validate claims? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 10:00 · Score: 0
  
  Even if it can be done, do you really think they'll bother before posting some random guy's details all over the tubes?
5. Re:Validate claims? by AHuxley · 2012-01-29 13:17 · Score: 1
  
  He or she had a great job and would have told family, friends, neighbours, mixed with other people in same the computer community -
  10? people know personally, 100? know after gathering around a friend of a friends display at work - 1000?'s share in the IT photo news - a few will will have the finale say to hire.
  If you got that far to get a top brand name job, what work is to the left or right of you or just below you?
  Its a very small world at the very top and your now very famous.
  
  --
  Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
15,000 rs is a lot less than 1 weeks pay! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:00 · Score: 0

For a programmer at a top company that's a lot less than 1 weeks salary.
Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm not trying to be trollish (although just by saying that I may have just pigeonholed myself) but this summary is *really* bad. I can barely follow the logic, grammar, or even the train of thought of those sentences!
Slashdot editors, going downhill, get off my lawn, grumblegrumble....
1. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:15 · Score: 0
  
  It's not bad, it's authentic. (Seriously, all English in India is this bad.)
2. Re:Article summary by Ziekheid · 2012-01-29 06:21 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly what I was thinking, not planning to make an effort in understanding it at this point either. * closes page *
3. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:29 · Score: 0
  
  >
  Slashdot editors, going downhill, get off my lawn, grumblegrumble....
  Thats because slashdot editors been outsourced to india.
4. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:39 · Score: -1
  
  would you expect anything less than something that originated in India...
5. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  Frankly, I agree with you. Please up your game Slashdot.
6. Re:Article summary by santosh.k83 · 2012-01-29 06:43 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Well, considering that English is not a native language, I'd say we aren't doing too bad on the whole, though there's always room for improvement. I wonder how many Americans know a second language at all, never mind whether they're good or bad in it. Seriously, many of us can speak and write pretty good English. You might try easing off on the stereotyping.
7. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 07:07 · Score: 0
  
  Who's stereotyping? English is one of India's two official languages. You don't think all of India speaks Hindi, do you?
8. Re:Article summary by PCM2 · 2012-01-29 07:10 · Score: 2
  
  Well, considering that English is not a native language, I'd say we aren't doing too bad on the whole, though there's always room for improvement.
  It may not be a "native" language, but it is an official language of the country and it's been part of Indian society for nigh on 200 years. You'd think business people, at least, would be fluent -- and I say "business people" because TFA is obviously an advertisement for this obscure Indian company's contest, rather than anything of interest to the /. audience at large. (Damn, am I flaming Indians, Techgoss, or Slashdot? I can't even tell anymore!)
  
  --
  Breakfast served all day!
9. Re:Article summary by Larryish · 2012-01-29 07:28 · Score: 2
  
  peeple in murka don ned no dang forin langwujes
  we doin rel gud with spekin plan ol murkun
10. Re:Article summary by santosh.k83 · 2012-01-29 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Well, considering that English is not a native language, I'd say we aren't doing too bad on the whole, though there's always room for improvement.
  It may not be a "native" language, but it is an official language of the country and it's been part of Indian society for nigh on 200 years. You'd think business people, at least, would be fluent -- and I say "business people" because TFA is obviously an advertisement for this obscure Indian company's contest, rather than anything of interest to the /. audience at large. (Damn, am I flaming Indians, Techgoss, or Slashdot? I can't even tell anymore!)
  Part of a miniscule fraction of India's population, till just a couple of decades back. Like most other large countries, what the government does officially has little relevance to the reality across the country. Even now, the vast majority of those who know English are the first generation learners in their families, and thus lack much scope for practice. Outside the major cities and towns, schools in English medium are either rare or the quality of the teachers (with regards to English) are abysmal, since anyone who's had a good enough education to learn good English doesn't want to sacrifice his career in poorly paid rural jobs. Only those few business people who need to interact heavily with a wide group of people, or those who'd studied at good English medium schools, are likely to be fluent in English. The adage that quality is drowned in quantity is as true here as elsewhere.
11. Re:Article summary by Runaway1956 · 2012-01-29 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Lawn? This patch of gravel with some weeds poking up? This is your LAWN?!?! FFS dude, take your decrepit old ass down to the hardware store, buy some grass seed, some fertilizer, and some garden hose. Hire a truck to dump about 10 (cubic) yards of topsoil before you start with the grass seed. There's a nice strain of Bermuda grass that only grows an inch of so high, so that you won't have to mow your yard all the time. I'll be back next year to see if you have a lawn yet. No way am I wandering into your tick and chigger patch this year!
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
12. Re:Article summary by Runaway1956 · 2012-01-29 07:45 · Score: 2
  
  I can order a cold beer in dozens of countries. I can ask about hot women in most of them too. What more does a guy need?
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
13. Re:Article summary by santosh.k83 · 2012-01-29 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  When the AC said "all English in India is this bad", I don't know what it is, if not a stereotype. All of India doesn't speak any single language, and though English was bestowed the status of an official language in the hope that it would serve as a 'link' language across the country, that hope was stillborn. I think fluent speakers of English aren't more uncommon here than in any other country where it is not a native language, official statuses notwithstanding.
14. Re:Article summary by santosh.k83 · 2012-01-29 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  Haha. I'm sure you didn't mean what you just wrote! Ironic...
15. Re:Article summary by rcamans · 2012-01-29 08:06 · Score: 0
  
  Slashdot has editors? Where do you see signs of that?
  
  --
  wake up and hold your nose
16. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 08:30 · Score: 0
  
  I agree... I was in Paris in the 90's and once asked a cab driver in French, "ou sont les super-nanas"... he took me to the best Parisian nightclub with the hottest women I've ever seen.
17. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 08:34 · Score: -1
  
  I can ask about hot women in most of them too.
  We're talking about India here. Hope you like facial hair and gum disease.
18. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 09:06 · Score: 0
  
  TWO official languages? Do you even KNOW India? India has many more languages than that - official and constitutionally recognized.
19. Re:Article summary by artor3 · 2012-01-29 10:15 · Score: 2
  
  I wonder how many Americans know a second language at all, never mind whether they're good or bad in it.
  Why wonder, when the data is at your finger tips? Unless by "wonder" you actually mean "insinuate"?
  According to Wikipedia, around 16% of Americans speak a foreign language fluently.
  Also according to Wikipedia, around 11% of Indians speak English fluently.
  And if you really mean it when you say "whether they're good or bad in it", then the number for Americans would be very high (I'd estimate 80%+) since high school students are required to take three to five years of training in a foreign language of their choosing.
20. Re:Article summary by gl4ss · 2012-01-29 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  1) site offers 10 000 rs for photos of zuk-zuck in india.
  2) site gets the photos.
  3) profit
  4) site offers 15 000 rs to get the id of the person responsible for harassing the open streetmaps operation.
  5) ??
  6) profit
  zukz sk. presumably the guy is someone who thinks he'll lose his job if openstreetmaps is successful or some nutcase like that. the site offering the reward is a nerd scandal media site or some shit like that. probably they'll get lots of hits because of this and well, maybe even catch the idiot.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
21. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 11:21 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, and he did write "official languages".
22. Re:Article summary by alreaud · 2012-01-29 12:22 · Score: 0
  
  You sho that ain't Redneck?
23. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 13:03 · Score: 0
  
  woosh woo woo woooosh !
24. Re:Article summary by Seumas · 2012-01-29 15:29 · Score: 1
  
  I'm pretty sure English *IS* the native language of the Slashdot editors.
25. Re:Article summary by Seumas · 2012-01-29 15:33 · Score: 1
  
  Three to five wasted years. What's the point of taking three to five years of French or German (usually the only two languages other than Spanish that are available in high school courses) so that you can speak the language for that one trip you save up for so you can spend two weeks in France in your entire life?
  Being able to speak another language is terrific, but it's a real waste of time that could be spent on something else that you will actually use most of your life; not just forget by your mid twenties, because you never have a need to speak it.
  Also, I'm pretty sure American high school students aren't required to take *five* years of a foreign language, since high school only consists of four grades (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th).
26. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 17:21 · Score: 0
  
  It's not bad. It's fucking horrible. I was thoroughly confused by the summary and the link and it dawned on me that whomever wrote the summary is a fucking moron.
27. Re:Article summary by wrook · 2012-01-29 21:36 · Score: 1
  
  I agree with you, so after reading all the links down as far as I could, here's the gist of it.
  Back at the tail end of 2011 a company in Kenya started to get confusing calls from their customers. The customers were asking about promises to set up websites, which is something that the Kenya company doesn't provide. The company looked at their database and noticed that an IP address belonging to a Google offshoot was scaping their company contact database. So they modified their code to provide their own phone number in a few cases rather than their customer's phone number for just that IP address. Sure enough, someone claiming to be from the Google offshoot called them (thinking they were one of the customer sites) and claimed that they had a joint venture with the Kenyan company, wouldn't they like to buy a website, etc...
  The Kenyan company was surprised but figured it must be some rogue operator in the Google offshoot doing something wrong. They figured if they contacted Google it would all clear up. But then something strange happened. The Google offshoot in Kenya stopped scraping their database and another IP address from within Google's network (in India) started up. So they offerred up their own phone number again and got a call from one of Google's call center's in India with the exact same scam.
  Thinking this can't just be one rogue operation, they contacted Google and asked WTF. Google apologized, but hasn't furnished any more information about what happened.
  Fast forward and the Open Street Maps project started discovering vandalism on their site. Some streets were deleted, one one way streets were edited to have them going the wrong way. A fictitious Olympic stadium was even added. Well, it's an open project, vandalism happens. But the twist here is that the vandalism occurred from the exact same IP address in India that was operating the scam in Kenya.
  So Open Stream Maps contacted Google and asked WTF. So far no response as far as I could tell.
  Finally, an Indian website offered a reward for a picture or information about the individuals responsible for the OSM vanalism and possibly the Kenyan scam. They had previously offerred a similar reward for getting a picture of Mark Zuckerberg at an Indian wedding, but other than that this posting has nothing to do with Facebook (despite the bizarre summary).
  Very interesting topic. Crap summary. The English is fine. It's an indication of what is important to the story that is lacking. Admittedly it's an involved story. Probably someone could summarize it a lot better than me too.
28. Re:Article summary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 23:01 · Score: 1
  
  That's comparing apples to oranges though, isn't it? I would think that many of those bilingual Americans are first/seconds generation immigrants. A more interesting stat would be "how many Americans speak a second language that isn't the native tongue of one of their close relatives".. :)
29. Re:Article summary by arnodf · 2012-01-30 05:25 · Score: 1
  
  It's basicly this:
  An Indian Marklar offered 10000 Marklars to get Marklars of Marklar Zuckerberg wearing Marklars. Now they offer 15000 Marklars to find the Marklar who vandalized Marklar.
300 bucks by vlm · 2012-01-29 06:07 · Score: 1

(Rs. 15,000 is one week's wages for a programmer at a top IT company in India).
aka about 300 USD
Also the forex abbreviation for their currency is INR not Rs. Its not important, it's one of those sociological study moments where the abbreviation you select tells a lot about your culture and history etc. I don't think Rs is offensive, but I don't know one way or the other for sure, so I'd stick with the known inoffensive INR

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
1. Re:300 bucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  Why Rs would be offensive?
2. Re:300 bucks by BasilBrush · 2012-01-29 06:39 · Score: 0
  
  What's forex got to do with it? Forex identifies the US currency as USD instead of $.
3. Re:300 bucks by SomePgmr · 2012-01-29 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  USD is correct is you're trying to specify US dollars. "$" is a mark used for various currencies.
4. Re:300 bucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 07:09 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Rs is a symbol for currencies called 'rupee' much like $ is a symbol for most currencies called 'dollar' or 'peso' or £ is a symbol for most currencies called 'pound' or ¥ is a symbol for currencies called 'yen' or 'yuan'. It's not offensive, it was the main sign for the currency (and, if you read TFA, you'll see that the Indian website in question is where it came from in the first place.)
  Apparently it was replaced in India in 2010 with a new symbol that Slashdot is filtering out (oh noes, Unicode!!), although the fact that you can approximate the old symbol with two Latin letters (it has its own Unicode code point) makes me think that the old one will never truly go away in informal typed use in English (and there are a hell of a lot of English speakers in India).
5. Re:300 bucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 07:50 · Score: 0
  
  U+S -> ||+S -> |+S -> $
6. Re:300 bucks by perryizgr8 · 2012-01-29 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  Rs has actually been used here in india since forever. no reason for it to be offensive. only very recently we've made a sign of our own, and i dunno how to type it here in this field.
  
  --
  Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
7. Re:300 bucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 10:13 · Score: 0
  
  U+S -> ||+S -> |+S -> $
  The "dollar" sign is usually called a peso sign in Europe (although its history predate peso). The dollar sign is just one variant of a blackletter S. This particular variant (S with two strokes) was for instance often used as an abbreviation of the currencies Speciedaler/Speciesthaler (Norway 15th century, Germany 17th century) and Skilling (Sweden, Norway-Denmark 18th century). You can see a los of "dollar" signs in old bookkeeping (written in blackletter) that predates USA, but on the actual coinage Roman letter forms was usually used.
  The word "Dollar" is a regional spelling of Thaler (spelled Dalder in Dutch and Spanish), which was the name of several different currencies used in many countries (including Spain at the start of the European colonisation of N. Americas).
8. Re:300 bucks by vlm · 2012-01-30 02:27 · Score: 1
  
  I know enough about India to know the forex "name" is INR which would presumably be completely inoffensive for all.
  I don't know enough about India to avoid little cultural mistakes. Telling Irish people what their currency is will by definition offend either the northerners or the southerners unless you list both pound and euro, and probably once the EU inevitably breaks up, the Punt or whatever it was. The one true currency of the one true China is (oh wait do you mean mainland or what westerners call the independent separate country of Taiwan?). The one true currency of Tel Aviv is what, the recent israeli whatever (sheckl?) or 60 years ago palestianian whatever? So I donno if Rs is/was pre-bangladeshi or pre-pakistani or maybe there's colonial-era baggage. Or as a colonial era thing is it kind of like talking about US civil war era confederate money as if it were the "real money" of Alabama. Although given the response on /. by people who apparently seem to know, Rs is not a politically sensitive currency.
  So forget about it, just an oddity that I've seen it abbreviated INR about a hundred times more often than I've seen it abbreviated Rs.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
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Who wants to be... by srussia · 2012-01-29 06:11 · Score: 1

... a decilakhpati?

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Set your phasers on "funky"!
1. Re:Who wants to be... by JaredOfEuropa · 2012-01-29 06:22 · Score: 1
  
  Don't they say 'croreopati' or some such? (10-millionaire)
  
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  If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
2. Re:Who wants to be... by srussia · 2012-01-29 08:42 · Score: 1
  
  Don't they say 'croreopati' or some such? (10-millionaire)
  Ya, but the prize is just a tenth of a lakh (100,000).
  
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  Set your phasers on "funky"!
whot? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 06:54 · Score: 0

reads like perfect Indienglish!
1. Re:whot? by arnodf · 2012-01-30 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  It's called Hinglish
Nice by drobety · 2012-01-29 06:57 · Score: 1

Whatever the merit of this "reward", I just learned about the existence of http://openstreetmap.org/#, "free geographic data", nice project!
1. Re:Nice by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 07:35 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever the merit of this "reward", I just learned about the existence of http://openstreetmap.org/#, "free geographic data", nice project!
  You just heard about openstreetmap? Boy, are you in for a treat! There are many similar great projects out there.
  If you like openstreetmap, you're gonna love this. There is a completely free encyclopaedia out there, with free information on just about anything: http://wikipedia.org/
2. Re:Nice by Seumas · 2012-01-29 15:35 · Score: 1
  
  Oh man. You are going to shit yourself when you find out about broadband and social networking.
ruddy heck old boy by Hognoxious · 2012-01-29 07:09 · Score: 1, Informative

This is being one most audacious chappie. Please do needful to find the same, IS URGENT!!!!

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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
1. Re:ruddy heck old boy by jc79 · 2012-01-29 08:30 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! This is funny because people in other countries speak differently from me!!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!
  Also: +4 Informative? Some poor modding going on here.
2. Re:ruddy heck old boy by jc79 · 2012-02-03 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting that my comment was moderated Flamebait. Is it because pointing and laughing at poor stereotype-based attempts at humour is frowned upon, or because I criticised the modding* ? Whatever, my Karma is Excellent, I'll take the hit :)
  * (which now seems to have been rectified)
CNET got to the bottom of this over a week ago by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 07:28 · Score: 0

Did Google-run computers taint rival mapping project?
Who did it:

Google had this to say about the OpenStreetMap incident:
The two people who made these changes were contractors acting on their own behalf while on the Google network. They are no longer working on Google projects.
And about those OSM claims...

Tom Hughes, OSM's system administrator, pointed a finger at the OSM representatives: "As the person who (in my role as an OpenStreetMap system administrator) first discovered this 'incident' let me start by saying that I consider this post to be grossly irresponsible and wholly inappropriate," Hughes said in a comment to the post. He added that the authors.. are making mountains out of tiny pimples here. It seems that they want this to be some sort of organized corporate malfeasance on the part of Google which is why they have tried to link it to the recent Mocality incident where there was indeed clear evidence of such behavior.

The Techgoss reward seems be a furtherance of the OSM's claims of Google malfeasance.
It wasn't a Google employee... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 07:30 · Score: 0

It was a third-party contractor who did work for Google. There's a big difference, get it right.
Indian software developers by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 07:37 · Score: 0

Ever wonder why no innovative software has ever come out of India? India is the last place you would want to outsource software development to.
1. Re:Indian software developers by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 16:07 · Score: 0
  
  I'm glad you're out there checking out each and every software product that comes out of India. Good job buddy !
Yes by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 08:51 · Score: 0

15,000 for the identity / details of the Facebook founder with a bounty of Rs.
1. Re:Yes by koan · 2012-01-29 14:11 · Score: 1
  
  you can get that for free off of pastebin.com
  
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  "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Good idea by koan · 2012-01-29 14:08 · Score: 1

Crowd sourcing a criminal investigation, someone could make a lot of money at this idea if they implement it correctly.

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"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
1. Re:Good idea by Seumas · 2012-01-29 15:37 · Score: 1
  
  In America, this is called SEE SOMETHING; SAY SOMETHING, where you report anything suspicious, like a brown person walking around. But you don't do it for money. You do it because the lady on the television and at the checkout stand at Wallmart on the little video monitor demands that you do it FOR ZE MOTHERLAND.
Wages info not true by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-29 15:56 · Score: 0

(Rs. 15,000 is one week's wages for a programmer at a top IT company in India)
Not true, depending on the company it can be anywhere between 15k-30k Rs. per week.
Binspam by vikingpower · 2012-01-29 23:14 · Score: 1

/dupe

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Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace