Not many people seem to know about another method used for Two Factor Authentication systems. Corporate VPNs often use RSA tokens (synced with corporate servers) which display random numbers that you have to key in with your password or PIN in order to get access. The random number changes every 10-15 seconds. The RSA token expires in a couple of years or so. It works very well and requires physical access at the time of login and not just some time in the past. The way I see it, such a system would be completely safe from this type of attack. But has a significant cost component.
Another way would be for the bank to SMS a random one time password (OTP) to your registered mobile phone when you want to login. Enter that OTP with your usual password to login. Standard Chartered already does this for some of its netbanking services. Other banks do too. It can easily be extended to the rest of the system at a slight increase in cost to both the bank and the client.
All in all, systems that are invulnerable to this attack are easily implementable. And banks are waking up to this fact too. But a bit slower than is preferable.
Actually, it is WiMAX that is poised to make it big. Remember that with WiMAX being deployed, handsets capable of WiMAX will also make an appearance. And while computer penetration may be low in per capita terms, there are a huge number of people stuck with lousy broadband.
I don't know how many of you will believe this but the standard speed for broadband was just 256 kbps until recently. It was kicked up to 2 mbps. But look at the download caps. For 6-7 dollars a month, you get 1 GB. For 12-13 dollars, 2.5 GB. 30 dollars a month gets you a supposedly unlimited connection that has a top speed of just 256 kbps. 30 dollars a month may not sound a lot in US terms but taking purchasing power parity into account, it is huge.
I don't think you've studied the Indian telecom market. If you look closely, a free and extremely competitive market has made the telecom business what it is today. Compare this with the regulated market that you love so much from 20 years ago in the same country and you will see the difference.
In India, mobile towers are usually backed up with gensets. This is because erratic power supply caused by massive electricity shortage makes is absolutely neccesary to.
Here in India, all cellphone towers sport backup facilities like batteries and generator sets despite the dangers of theft, expense of diesel and maintenance of gensets and always have. Mobile phone service here is extremely reliable despite all the power outages (5 hrs daily where I live in the city and 12 hrs daily in rural areas), thanks to stupid fucking politicians who didn't allow powerplants to come up for years.
A huge number of people have surrenedered their fixed line phones and now rely completely on cellphones. Having generator backups is a good thing, especially if you are aiming for a network that can stay alive for atleast some time during natural disasters.
The Indian electronic voting system has its own flaws. Rigging is rumoured to be happening here too. But because of general lack of awareness and the perception that electronic stuff is invulnerable, few (apart from those doing the rigging), actually seem to understand the problems.
What I fail to understand is the general anti technology attitude of many here when voting machines are concerned. Do we switch back to paper accounting and abacuses because the existing computer systems are vulnerable to all sorts of security threats? We do not. So why not aim to make the voting machine perfect instead? The paper ballots are hardly foolproof. In fact, rigging was rampant in India when ballots were held with paper. This was the reason the country switched to electronic voting machines. There is no simple and permanent solution in such cases. The back and forth game will continue. It is the attitude that will decide whether the voters or the rigging experts win.
I am afraid this is not entirely correct. India has huge numbers of CDMA 2000 and GSM connections. GSM operators had SIM locked phones in the beginning. This quickly gave way to unlocked phones though because small shop owners had figured out how to unlock the GSM phones. India got CDMA starting late 2002. Earlier versions had phones locked down with carriers (as is the current situation in the US). However, this has given way to a situation where you can buy a unlocked phone from the market and get it registered with the CDMA carrier of your choice (of which there are two, apart from 4+ GSM carriers) in your telecom circle. CDMA is actually cheaper for covering vast areas but that is because of several factors. I have my doubts about CDMA being designed especially for the conditions found in the US markets. It is just far more efficient than GSM ever was. As a result, CDMA is cheaper to operate in the long run. Something that CDMA operators in India are reaping rich rewards from.
You are not far off. I am buying a new laptop and the store owner was complaining about how much of an utter piece of shit Vista was. Dozens of people have actually asked for Vista to be removed, even if they have the license and have paid MS Tax for it. Many are opting for XP to be bought and installed on their laptops instead. Apparently, the problem was that it simply takes too much horsepower just to run the damned OS, leaving nothing to actually do work on. In fact, one laptop was actually getting a fresh format and an install of XP at that very time. By the way, my laptop brand was actually stuffing Vista into most machines. But sensibly, they ensured that non Vista versions were also available.
Not so. Anyone who has been in India for a decent amount of time will know how hard it is to start a business here. There are several permissions to be taken, lots of regulatory hoops to jump through and only then can you do something useful. Those who are good at it are that way because they've learnt to game the system or they are extraordinarily good at whatever they are doing. Why do you think many Indians become successful at whatever they do in the US? It is because the restrictions that held them back in India are no longer doing so in the US.
NASA has a decent number of Indian staff. I think they exceed any other parent nationality there. Many tech companies do - ofcourse we would not agree about the reasons here at Slashdot. Take the telecom industry as an example. India is still stuck with 256 kbps as 'broadband'. That costs 10 dollars a month for just 1 GB download. It is extremely expensive for India. In the meantime, the bandwidth providers hoard bandwidth and create artificial scarcity - thus driving prices up. They are all minting money and Internet growth in the country is being hurt.
If internet connectivity got drastically cheaper, it would grow like the mobile business did. It would spur other businesses like entertainment related activity. India now has a massive telecom market than no one would have dreamed of earlier. Why? Because mobile phones and tariffs got so cheap that everyone got themselves one. Good competition and proper legislation was the key then. Doesn't exist for the Internet.
Well, you are wrong on two counts. China is already a superpower of sorts. And India will be there around 2050. India's economy growth is now at 8.5% and going up. China is not accelerating its growth all that much anymore.
As far as the caste system is concerned, do you really know about the caste system or you just parroting what someone else said? The caste system is being made out as a hindrance when it really is not one. It may have been so 20-30 years ago but not now. Everyone gets almost equal opportunities now. In fact, the way things are going, votebank politics is actually tilting the balance in their favour - though it will still take some time for them to come up to the norm in India.
Yes, India has a lot of poor. But then, India also has a middle class population that is larger than the population of the entire United States. Surely that counts for something. And India itself isn't entirely to blame. The country was plundered by the Mughal rulers first and the British later. This went on for 400 years. Take a look at history and tell us how many nations have even survived such looting. And then came the stupid politicians who took India towards their 'socialistic' heaven and set us back another 50 years.
China was actually a poorer country than India when both started out as newborn nations of sorts in 1950. China started its reforms in 1970s and India did so in the 1990s. And yet, I'd think India is well on its way up, don't you think?
So some of you lost money in Enron stock? Why is him being humiliated over the course of 5 years and being dead after that a poor punishment? There are other LIVING thieves who are stealing money and destroying lives of other people. Go after them. Stop digging graves.
Well, I've been using CDs for backup of important financial data for quite a long time now. I have CDs from the year 1998 that are perfectly readable. Ofcourse, I didn't take a chance with them. The data has already been duplicated to newer disks recently. But the fact is, the older CDs work perfectly.
It probably boils down to what quality CDs you use. There are several available. If you get cheap CDs, expect cheap results. Get good quality media and you will probably have CDs that last for atleast 7-8 years like mine have.
That is precisely the feeling I had. I wonder how many of the whiners who've posted here actually gave even 5% of their incomes for charity? The world over, there are hundreds of thousands of filthy rich bastards who squirrel their money away in many investments all over the world so that they are not taxed one way or the other. Many of them have become rich overnight thanks to IT. How many of them donate to charity other than for taxation purposes? Heck, some foundations are created for the specific purpose of actually evading estate tax.
I am willing to bet he has done more in a single announcement than all of slashdot will do for charity for the next few generations. As for the people who want him to donate to the EFF? What are you smoking? I am sure malnourished starving children have things other than open source software on their minds. What a bunch of zealots. Ever heard of fundamentalism? Yeah, thats the stuff so many of us decry in Islam. Well perhaps we are all fundamentalists too. A bunch of zealots who believe nothing except OSS is the right way. Start thinking before posting.
Frankly, I abhor that estate tax the US has. It just isn't right. If someone has toiled all his life to generate vast reserves of wealth, I think he or she has a right to give it to whoever he or she wants. People work hard so that their children can live a better life. Why should the government interfere? This is graverobbery, in my opinion. The law deserves to be repealed. People like Buffet would still give their money away.
> India has been in a horrible financial condition. > It's got large amounts of debt and it's trying to > work it's way out of them.
Foreign Exchange reserves in India currently stand over 160 Billion dollars and growing. Ofcourse, that is lesser than the 800 Billion dollars or so that China has. But it is nothing to laugh at.
> This comes with financial assistance from the > international community. You have many of these > poorer nations not able to afford the subsidies > anymore for farmers , which means more people > migrating to the cities for the promises of > these fantastic tech jobs.
Yeah, right. A poor farmer turning a software genius overnight. Sure. And as far as subsidies are concerned, it is the subsidies that the US and Europe happily give their farmers that have caused Indian farmers to stay poor in part.
> Problem is the cities aren't ready to handle > all these people, and the government isn't ready > to handle all this displaced workforce. Result? > SLUM TOWN!
No. Slums come up because real estate prices go beyond the reach of people with low incomes. That happens because corrupt thugs in the government have neglected town planning for decades. That is changing. And fast.
> India has to rely for a good deal on it's own > people to solve this problem for themselves > because they don't have the money to.
The way to do that is to open the economy. That is what has been done. And obviously it must be benefiting the Indians because you are all fuming about seeing Indians earn more than perhaps they are worth in your opinion.
> If they want to they have to start taxing > these companies more, which means.... costs > go up. On an individual level?
Another approach is at work. Widening the tax base. With a booming economy, more people are able to pay taxes - which means more money to spend on several things - which means work on infrastructure, therefore more jobs and more money. Thats how the cycle works. IT companies are virtually free of major taxation.
I am sure that the industry will grow as every part of technology grows cheaper and use becomes widespread. This will not only ensure further impetus in creating newer technologies but will mean more jobs - both for the US and India.
So what you are really saying is that one must buy the most expensive services or goods and ignore the cheap ones, right? It is really funny how well that works, eh? Why not start by subscribing to a internet service that charges you more while providing less bandwidth? How about subscribing to low value high cost cellphone plans? After all, in doing so, they will probably be paying their (white, american/european) employees well?
In fact, I do hope you are using Windows XP and not Linux and no open source software. This is because MS pays its employees while Linux is free. So no one gets paid at all. Talk about exploitation!
Screw the market economy. It doesn't seem to work at all. We want expensive stuff!
It isn't infrastructure. It was simply a matter of cost v/s benefit. The new centre simply wasn't large enough to make a major savings. Infrastructure is a problem but only slightly. Most large companies have huge gensets to take care of power blackouts. Power shortages in most cities in India will be eliminated within the next 2-4 years with the number of power plants being invested in. Around 20,000 megawatts within the next two years are expected to come onto the grid.
Costs in India are still extremely low. While salaries are on the rise, rest of the infrastructure is still dirt cheap. Land is almost free thanks to state governments. Building on the land is also dirt cheap. Different states are falling over each other in providing incentives to IT companies to set up shop. There are tax incentives, assured supplies of power, etc. You have to understand that infrastructure is a problem - only for other industries. IT is getting the cream of it all.
What caused Apple to move out? The amount of work they were going to do in Bangalore wasn't worth it.
Right. Now let me know when everyone here stops buying CDs and DVDs affiliated with RIAA and MPAA. Let me know when everyone stops buying Saudi Oil here - from the American Oil companies. After all, the oil money has been funding terrorism. Do let me know when you stop buying goods from Walmart or others who source Chinese goods.
Mmmmm.... we are all so really hot about privacy. Lets just see what privacy we have: Your electricity and telephone utility has complete details on your location. Did you refuse to give them your address?
Your cellphone operator and telco operator has details of what calls you made and to whom PLUS your address, age, name, sex, birthdate, a rogh guesstimate of how much you earn (depending on your phone bills, perhaps) and your internet usage? What of this did you refuse them? And weren't they charging you for this despite keeping all this data?
Your Bank and Credit Card company has complete details of your financial transactions. And these days, all that stuff resides on computer networks - whose security is only guranteed till the next time someone manages to break in. Do you not deal with banks?
Does your employer not maintain records about you too? And how far away from someone's hands are those records?
Now, you say that you refuse to allow Google to store your financial data. Really? I hope you plan to stop doing business with banks soon. With Internet banking, ATMs, your financial data is not far from someone else's hands.
So they aggregate the data and show ads to you. How exactly do those ads hurt as opposed to paying for Microsoft Office? Or do you not value the offering simply because it is free? Do you really think Googlenet has the time or inclination to look up your specific data, find out how much you earn....and do what? It is not as if the data is searchable by Google.com users!
I am not saying we shouldn't guard our privacy. But come on! How far do you really want to go?
Hmmm.... so when MGM makes movies in Hollywood and shows them in India, am I to insist that all the actors are to be replaced with Indian ones? Should be interesting to see Aamir Khan in that tripe Da Vinci Code instead of Tom Hanks. Maybe Indian actors in all the US and UK TV shows we get here? CNN and BBC also should replace its newsreaders and other staff with Indian ones, eh?
Or perhaps we should insist that the CKD or SKD kits of cars that are imported should be made by Indians in the US? Boeing passenger and fighter planes ought to be manufactured by them in India by Indian workers only?
You can see how far things can be pushed with the same rationale. Besides, businesses create costs in the US - but they pay taxes there too and not in India. With the costs they save on labour, they pay out increased dividends. Did you happen to forget that?
I know it is really fashionable on Slashdot to say that quality of software from India is poor but that wasn't the reason according to a friend who got laid off. I also get the feeling that a lot of Slashdotters must be experiencing orgasms finding out about this. However, many many other companies are still coming in. The outsourcing revenue growth this year is to be around 30%. Total revenue last year was about 25 billion.
In any case, if you are naive enough to think that those who got laid off from Apple are now going to be destitute, think again. I am betting they got hired the day Apple laid them off. My brother gets 10 calls a day from HR managers offering him jobs.
Now, I understand that it causes pain when a job moved to India causes pain in the US or elsewhere. But we understand it is a global phenomena. We've experienced it too. There is a huge debate in India about opening up the retail merchandising sector to foreign investment (read Walmart) or buying hundreds of planes from Boeing. We will end up exporting Billions of dollars to the US that way. So it isn't actually an 'You give, I take' situation that Slashdot is so fond of thinking. Remember that corporations, no matter how evil, have shareholders and those shareholders get dividends from profits and they spend money. It ultimately trickles down to the lowest rungs.
It is amazing than a crowd of people (definitely with above average intelligence) like Slashdot can delude themselves into thinking in ways that keep them in their comfort zones. It isn't a cakewalk here in India, you know. We jump through 10 times as many hoops as you people do, only to end up getting 10 times lesser money than you people do.
Sorry for the blabbering guys. Now I will go plot the eventual takeover of the US of A;-).
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps you were trying to be funny, but in case you were not, 'Anu' in Hindi means atom. So the name Anusat was probably for a very small satellite.
Not many people seem to know about another method used for Two Factor Authentication systems. Corporate VPNs often use RSA tokens (synced with corporate servers) which display random numbers that you have to key in with your password or PIN in order to get access. The random number changes every 10-15 seconds. The RSA token expires in a couple of years or so. It works very well and requires physical access at the time of login and not just some time in the past. The way I see it, such a system would be completely safe from this type of attack. But has a significant cost component.
Another way would be for the bank to SMS a random one time password (OTP) to your registered mobile phone when you want to login. Enter that OTP with your usual password to login. Standard Chartered already does this for some of its netbanking services. Other banks do too. It can easily be extended to the rest of the system at a slight increase in cost to both the bank and the client.
All in all, systems that are invulnerable to this attack are easily implementable. And banks are waking up to this fact too. But a bit slower than is preferable.
Actually, it is WiMAX that is poised to make it big. Remember that with WiMAX being deployed, handsets capable of WiMAX will also make an appearance. And while computer penetration may be low in per capita terms, there are a huge number of people stuck with lousy broadband.
I don't know how many of you will believe this but the standard speed for broadband was just 256 kbps until recently. It was kicked up to 2 mbps. But look at the download caps. For 6-7 dollars a month, you get 1 GB. For 12-13 dollars, 2.5 GB. 30 dollars a month gets you a supposedly unlimited connection that has a top speed of just 256 kbps. 30 dollars a month may not sound a lot in US terms but taking purchasing power parity into account, it is huge.
I don't think you've studied the Indian telecom market. If you look closely, a free and extremely competitive market has made the telecom business what it is today. Compare this with the regulated market that you love so much from 20 years ago in the same country and you will see the difference.
In India, mobile towers are usually backed up with gensets. This is because erratic power supply caused by massive electricity shortage makes is absolutely neccesary to.
Here in India, all cellphone towers sport backup facilities like batteries and generator sets despite the dangers of theft, expense of diesel and maintenance of gensets and always have. Mobile phone service here is extremely reliable despite all the power outages (5 hrs daily where I live in the city and 12 hrs daily in rural areas), thanks to stupid fucking politicians who didn't allow powerplants to come up for years.
A huge number of people have surrenedered their fixed line phones and now rely completely on cellphones. Having generator backups is a good thing, especially if you are aiming for a network that can stay alive for atleast some time during natural disasters.
The Indian electronic voting system has its own flaws. Rigging is rumoured to be happening here too. But because of general lack of awareness and the perception that electronic stuff is invulnerable, few (apart from those doing the rigging), actually seem to understand the problems.
What I fail to understand is the general anti technology attitude of many here when voting machines are concerned. Do we switch back to paper accounting and abacuses because the existing computer systems are vulnerable to all sorts of security threats? We do not. So why not aim to make the voting machine perfect instead? The paper ballots are hardly foolproof. In fact, rigging was rampant in India when ballots were held with paper. This was the reason the country switched to electronic voting machines. There is no simple and permanent solution in such cases. The back and forth game will continue. It is the attitude that will decide whether the voters or the rigging experts win.
I am afraid this is not entirely correct. India has huge numbers of CDMA 2000 and GSM connections. GSM operators had SIM locked phones in the beginning. This quickly gave way to unlocked phones though because small shop owners had figured out how to unlock the GSM phones. India got CDMA starting late 2002. Earlier versions had phones locked down with carriers (as is the current situation in the US). However, this has given way to a situation where you can buy a unlocked phone from the market and get it registered with the CDMA carrier of your choice (of which there are two, apart from 4+ GSM carriers) in your telecom circle. CDMA is actually cheaper for covering vast areas but that is because of several factors. I have my doubts about CDMA being designed especially for the conditions found in the US markets. It is just far more efficient than GSM ever was. As a result, CDMA is cheaper to operate in the long run. Something that CDMA operators in India are reaping rich rewards from.
You are not far off. I am buying a new laptop and the store owner was complaining about how much of an utter piece of shit Vista was. Dozens of people have actually asked for Vista to be removed, even if they have the license and have paid MS Tax for it. Many are opting for XP to be bought and installed on their laptops instead. Apparently, the problem was that it simply takes too much horsepower just to run the damned OS, leaving nothing to actually do work on. In fact, one laptop was actually getting a fresh format and an install of XP at that very time. By the way, my laptop brand was actually stuffing Vista into most machines. But sensibly, they ensured that non Vista versions were also available.
Not so. Anyone who has been in India for a decent amount of time will know how hard it is to start a business here. There are several permissions to be taken, lots of regulatory hoops to jump through and only then can you do something useful. Those who are good at it are that way because they've learnt to game the system or they are extraordinarily good at whatever they are doing. Why do you think many Indians become successful at whatever they do in the US? It is because the restrictions that held them back in India are no longer doing so in the US.
NASA has a decent number of Indian staff. I think they exceed any other parent nationality there. Many tech companies do - ofcourse we would not agree about the reasons here at Slashdot. Take the telecom industry as an example. India is still stuck with 256 kbps as 'broadband'. That costs 10 dollars a month for just 1 GB download. It is extremely expensive for India. In the meantime, the bandwidth providers hoard bandwidth and create artificial scarcity - thus driving prices up. They are all minting money and Internet growth in the country is being hurt.
If internet connectivity got drastically cheaper, it would grow like the mobile business did. It would spur other businesses like entertainment related activity. India now has a massive telecom market than no one would have dreamed of earlier. Why? Because mobile phones and tariffs got so cheap that everyone got themselves one. Good competition and proper legislation was the key then. Doesn't exist for the Internet.
Well, you are wrong on two counts. China is already a superpower of sorts. And India will be there around 2050. India's economy growth is now at 8.5% and going up. China is not accelerating its growth all that much anymore.
As far as the caste system is concerned, do you really know about the caste system or you just parroting what someone else said? The caste system is being made out as a hindrance when it really is not one. It may have been so 20-30 years ago but not now. Everyone gets almost equal opportunities now. In fact, the way things are going, votebank politics is actually tilting the balance in their favour - though it will still take some time for them to come up to the norm in India.
Yes, India has a lot of poor. But then, India also has a middle class population that is larger than the population of the entire United States. Surely that counts for something. And India itself isn't entirely to blame. The country was plundered by the Mughal rulers first and the British later. This went on for 400 years. Take a look at history and tell us how many nations have even survived such looting. And then came the stupid politicians who took India towards their 'socialistic' heaven and set us back another 50 years.
China was actually a poorer country than India when both started out as newborn nations of sorts in 1950. China started its reforms in 1970s and India did so in the 1990s. And yet, I'd think India is well on its way up, don't you think?
So some of you lost money in Enron stock? Why is him being humiliated over the course of 5 years and being dead after that a poor punishment? There are other LIVING thieves who are stealing money and destroying lives of other people. Go after them. Stop digging graves.
Well, I've been using CDs for backup of important financial data for quite a long time now. I have CDs from the year 1998 that are perfectly readable. Ofcourse, I didn't take a chance with them. The data has already been duplicated to newer disks recently. But the fact is, the older CDs work perfectly.
It probably boils down to what quality CDs you use. There are several available. If you get cheap CDs, expect cheap results. Get good quality media and you will probably have CDs that last for atleast 7-8 years like mine have.
That is precisely the feeling I had. I wonder how many of the whiners who've posted here actually gave even 5% of their incomes for charity? The world over, there are hundreds of thousands of filthy rich bastards who squirrel their money away in many investments all over the world so that they are not taxed one way or the other. Many of them have become rich overnight thanks to IT. How many of them donate to charity other than for taxation purposes? Heck, some foundations are created for the specific purpose of actually evading estate tax.
I am willing to bet he has done more in a single announcement than all of slashdot will do for charity for the next few generations. As for the people who want him to donate to the EFF? What are you smoking? I am sure malnourished starving children have things other than open source software on their minds. What a bunch of zealots. Ever heard of fundamentalism? Yeah, thats the stuff so many of us decry in Islam. Well perhaps we are all fundamentalists too. A bunch of zealots who believe nothing except OSS is the right way. Start thinking before posting.
Frankly, I abhor that estate tax the US has. It just isn't right. If someone has toiled all his life to generate vast reserves of wealth, I think he or she has a right to give it to whoever he or she wants. People work hard so that their children can live a better life. Why should the government interfere? This is graverobbery, in my opinion. The law deserves to be repealed. People like Buffet would still give their money away.
Ahhh, yes. Another great economist. Here we go:
> India has been in a horrible financial condition.
> It's got large amounts of debt and it's trying to
> work it's way out of them.
Foreign Exchange reserves in India currently stand over 160 Billion dollars and growing. Ofcourse, that is lesser than the 800 Billion dollars or so that China has. But it is nothing to laugh at.
> This comes with financial assistance from the
> international community. You have many of these
> poorer nations not able to afford the subsidies
> anymore for farmers , which means more people
> migrating to the cities for the promises of
> these fantastic tech jobs.
Yeah, right. A poor farmer turning a software genius overnight. Sure. And as far as subsidies are concerned, it is the subsidies that the US and Europe happily give their farmers that have caused Indian farmers to stay poor in part.
> Problem is the cities aren't ready to handle
> all these people, and the government isn't ready
> to handle all this displaced workforce. Result?
> SLUM TOWN!
No. Slums come up because real estate prices go beyond the reach of people with low incomes. That happens because corrupt thugs in the government have neglected town planning for decades. That is changing. And fast.
> India has to rely for a good deal on it's own
> people to solve this problem for themselves
> because they don't have the money to.
The way to do that is to open the economy. That is what has been done. And obviously it must be benefiting the Indians because you are all fuming about seeing Indians earn more than perhaps they are worth in your opinion.
> If they want to they have to start taxing
> these companies more, which means.... costs
> go up. On an individual level?
Another approach is at work. Widening the tax base. With a booming economy, more people are able to pay taxes - which means more money to spend on several things - which means work on infrastructure, therefore more jobs and more money. Thats how the cycle works. IT companies are virtually free of major taxation.
I am sure that the industry will grow as every part of technology grows cheaper and use becomes widespread. This will not only ensure further impetus in creating newer technologies but will mean more jobs - both for the US and India.
So what you are really saying is that one must buy the most expensive services or goods and ignore the cheap ones, right? It is really funny how well that works, eh? Why not start by subscribing to a internet service that charges you more while providing less bandwidth? How about subscribing to low value high cost cellphone plans? After all, in doing so, they will probably be paying their (white, american/european) employees well?
In fact, I do hope you are using Windows XP and not Linux and no open source software. This is because MS pays its employees while Linux is free. So no one gets paid at all. Talk about exploitation!
Screw the market economy. It doesn't seem to work at all. We want expensive stuff!
It isn't infrastructure. It was simply a matter of cost v/s benefit. The new centre simply wasn't large enough to make a major savings. Infrastructure is a problem but only slightly. Most large companies have huge gensets to take care of power blackouts. Power shortages in most cities in India will be eliminated within the next 2-4 years with the number of power plants being invested in. Around 20,000 megawatts within the next two years are expected to come onto the grid.
Costs in India are still extremely low. While salaries are on the rise, rest of the infrastructure is still dirt cheap. Land is almost free thanks to state governments. Building on the land is also dirt cheap. Different states are falling over each other in providing incentives to IT companies to set up shop. There are tax incentives, assured supplies of power, etc. You have to understand that infrastructure is a problem - only for other industries. IT is getting the cream of it all.
What caused Apple to move out? The amount of work they were going to do in Bangalore wasn't worth it.
Right. Now let me know when everyone here stops buying CDs and DVDs affiliated with RIAA and MPAA. Let me know when everyone stops buying Saudi Oil here - from the American Oil companies. After all, the oil money has been funding terrorism. Do let me know when you stop buying goods from Walmart or others who source Chinese goods.
Mmmmm.... we are all so really hot about privacy. Lets just see what privacy we have: Your electricity and telephone utility has complete details on your location. Did you refuse to give them your address?
Your cellphone operator and telco operator has details of what calls you made and to whom PLUS your address, age, name, sex, birthdate, a rogh guesstimate of how much you earn (depending on your phone bills, perhaps) and your internet usage? What of this did you refuse them? And weren't they charging you for this despite keeping all this data?
Your Bank and Credit Card company has complete details of your financial transactions. And these days, all that stuff resides on computer networks - whose security is only guranteed till the next time someone manages to break in. Do you not deal with banks?
Does your employer not maintain records about you too? And how far away from someone's hands are those records?
Now, you say that you refuse to allow Google to store your financial data. Really? I hope you plan to stop doing business with banks soon. With Internet banking, ATMs, your financial data is not far from someone else's hands.
So they aggregate the data and show ads to you. How exactly do those ads hurt as opposed to paying for Microsoft Office? Or do you not value the offering simply because it is free? Do you really think Googlenet has the time or inclination to look up your specific data, find out how much you earn....and do what? It is not as if the data is searchable by Google.com users!
I am not saying we shouldn't guard our privacy. But come on! How far do you really want to go?
Hmmm.... so when MGM makes movies in Hollywood and shows them in India, am I to insist that all the actors are to be replaced with Indian ones? Should be interesting to see Aamir Khan in that tripe Da Vinci Code instead of Tom Hanks. Maybe Indian actors in all the US and UK TV shows we get here? CNN and BBC also should replace its newsreaders and other staff with Indian ones, eh?
Or perhaps we should insist that the CKD or SKD kits of cars that are imported should be made by Indians in the US? Boeing passenger and fighter planes ought to be manufactured by them in India by Indian workers only?
You can see how far things can be pushed with the same rationale. Besides, businesses create costs in the US - but they pay taxes there too and not in India. With the costs they save on labour, they pay out increased dividends. Did you happen to forget that?
I know it is really fashionable on Slashdot to say that quality of software from India is poor but that wasn't the reason according to a friend who got laid off. I also get the feeling that a lot of Slashdotters must be experiencing orgasms finding out about this. However, many many other companies are still coming in. The outsourcing revenue growth this year is to be around 30%. Total revenue last year was about 25 billion.
;-).
In any case, if you are naive enough to think that those who got laid off from Apple are now going to be destitute, think again. I am betting they got hired the day Apple laid them off. My brother gets 10 calls a day from HR managers offering him jobs.
Now, I understand that it causes pain when a job moved to India causes pain in the US or elsewhere. But we understand it is a global phenomena. We've experienced it too. There is a huge debate in India about opening up the retail merchandising sector to foreign investment (read Walmart) or buying hundreds of planes from Boeing. We will end up exporting Billions of dollars to the US that way. So it isn't actually an 'You give, I take' situation that Slashdot is so fond of thinking. Remember that corporations, no matter how evil, have shareholders and those shareholders get dividends from profits and they spend money. It ultimately trickles down to the lowest rungs.
It is amazing than a crowd of people (definitely with above average intelligence) like Slashdot can delude themselves into thinking in ways that keep them in their comfort zones. It isn't a cakewalk here in India, you know. We jump through 10 times as many hoops as you people do, only to end up getting 10 times lesser money than you people do.
Sorry for the blabbering guys. Now I will go plot the eventual takeover of the US of A