ICT company finds developer ‘Bob’ outsourced his own work to China

Here’s a funny story to accompany a more serious post about the future of outsourcing – which is where a firm hires the services of outside companies to perform a business process currently completed ‘in house’.Apparently one US worker hired people in China do his work. Having outsourced his job, 'Bob' would spend the day at work browsing sites on the internet. (If you believe it), the US-based software developer has been caught outsourcing his work to China for less than a fifth of his six figure salary - while he spent his time messing around on Facebook, LinkedIn, eBay and Reddit.

According to the Huffington Post, the employee - known as "Bob", was rumbled after the firm brought in its experts amid concerns its networks were being breached by Chinese hackers. The traffic logs for Bob - the firm's top programmer - saw regular logins to the firm's China server.

The company in question came up with this good bit of computerbabble: "The company's IT personnel were sure that the issue had to do with some kind of zero day malware that was able to initiate VPN connections from Bob's desktop workstation via external proxy and then route that VPN traffic to China, only to be routed back to their concentrator. Yes, it is a bit of a convoluted theory, and like most convoluted theories, an incorrect one."

Further examination of Bob's online activity revealed he had authorised a software consultancy firm in China to access his work IT account, paying Chinese staff to do his work for him (for a fraction of what he was being paid).

There are some funny bits in the article that you might want to check out. Not that you are time wasting or anything! A surprising amount of electronic monitoring of staff takes place, and not just for those who are working from home.