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Employee Outsourced Programming Job To China, Spent Days Websurfing

New submitter kju writes "The security blog of Verizon has the story of an investigation into unauthorized VPN access from China which led to unexpected findings. Investigators found invoices from a Chinese contractor who had actually done the work of the employee, who spent the day watching cat videos and visiting eBay and Facebook. The man had Fedexed his RSA token to the contractor and paid only about 1/5th of his income for the contracting service. Because he provided clean code on time, he was noted in his performance reviews to be the best programmer in the building. According to the article, the man had similar scams running with other companies."

4 of 457 comments (clear)

  1. Not news to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    We did something like this more than 7 years ago.
    "We" being a team of developers in Eastern Europe. Our employers were two brothers who had moved to the US and had found IT jobs. We did their work for them and had time left over for side projects. Our team of 5 people got some fraction or other from their regular salaries and it was still a good wage for us. Things have changed in the last couple of years, but not by that much.

  2. Bellman by water-vole · · Score: 5, Informative

    The 18th century Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman did something similar. The king of the time (Gustav III) liked his songs and gave him a really cushy job as head of the state lottery. Bellman new he would not be able to hold down a job so he employed someone else to actually do the work and he lived from the difference of what he got from the king and what he paid the person doing the work. He spent most of his time in pubs and wrote an enormous number of drinking songs. He is the Swedish equivalent of Robert Burns.

  3. Re:Part of me says, "Good!" by Luckyo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well enough not to be found out for a long time and be found best coder of the workplace.

  4. Re:Part of me says, "Good!" by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Informative

    So money is the only thing that motivates you to work?

    Of course it is....? Are you kidding?

    I'd assume that is the case for most people out there.

    If I won the lottery tomorrow, with enough money to never work again, I'd be out of here so fast it would make your head swim.

    I'd likely not even bother coming back for my stuff at my desk (not that much there, nothing really personal).

    The only reason I work...is to earn as much money as possible, which gives me the means to pay for the life and lifestyle I enjoy. If I didn't have to burn hours working for money, I can tell you, I could easily spend the rest of my life pursing happiness to the fullest!!

    I like to travel, date various women, I have hobbies, I have TONS of things that I'd be doing every day if I didn't have to bother coming to a job to work.

    Why would anyone work if they didn't have to?

    I know there are some fringe cases out there, people who apparently actually define themselves by their jobs. They're also the ones that hit deep depression or get really overly upset if they lose their job, or something goes wrong at work at times.

    I've never understood that, I guess I never will.

    I'm defined by myself, and I really, really do LIKE myself....and would love to not have to work, and spend more time having fun and doing interesting things.

    Are you just joking, or do you actually work for any other reason than making money?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........