US programmer outsourced own work to China, played on Internet

A rather ingenious programmer, working for a critical infrastructure company in the US, outsourced his work to a Chinese contractor for a fraction of his salary. He then sat and played on Facebook, ebay and reddit and watched cat videos all day.

The unnamed programmer, dubbed "Bob" by the media, was earning a six-figure salary. He handed over his login information to a Chinese firm, giving them full access to do his work, then sat back and played, including watching cat videos, participating on Facebook and reddit.

His cover got blown by an audit, which revealed an active virtual private network (VPN) between "Bob's" workstation and the firm in Shenyang, China. Company executives, suspecting a breach in their security system, then requested an audit from Operations Verizon. 

Andrew Valentine, a spokesman for Verizon, said, "Evidence even suggested he had the same scam going across multiple companies in the area,” adding that “he earned several hundred thousand dollars a year, and only had to pay the Chinese consulting firm about $50,000 annually."

According to Verizon, the employee had sent his security credentials via Fedex to the Chinese firm, giving them access to log on with his username during working hours. 

Verizon also uncovered hundreds of PDF files and invoices exchanged between "Bob" and the contractor in Shenyang.

Valentine said that, "Authentication was no problem. He physically FedExed his RSA [security] token to China so that the third-party contractor could log-in under his credentials during the workday. It would appear that he was working an average nine-to-five work day.” 

Apparently the contractor in Shenyan had been working for "Bob" for several months and even had access to classified files of the “critical infrastructure company.” All this just begs the question, what did "Bob" actually do all day? The company had a look at his Internet browsing history, which revealed that he spent hours surfing reddit, updating Facebook and generally surfing the Web for cat videos.  

CNN has posted a typical working day in the life of "Bob": 

9:00 a.m. - Get to work, surf reddit, watch cat videos 

11:30 a.m. - Lunch 1:00 p.m. - ebay  

2:00 p.m or so - Facebook and LinkedIn

4:30 p.m. - Send end-of-day e-mail update to management 

5:00 p.m. - Go home 

The funny thing is, official performance figures for the company show that "Bob" was the most productive developer in the building. He was also described as “inoffensive, quiet” and talented, and is apparently fluent in several different programing languages. All sounds good, except, of course, he wasn't actually doing the work.

After the story broke in the media, there was a mixture of reactions, with some praising "Bob" for his ingenuity, and others, mainly in China, being more critical of his actions. 

Users of the Chinese Twitter-style social network Weibo, were particularly upset with one commenter writing, “Learn English and let’s find work in US. Why do we have to do the dirty work for such a cheap price in China?"

While "Bob's" real identity is still unknown, it has rather unsurprisingly been reported that he no longer works for the company, and it is pretty certain that the Chinese company has been fired too.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/341518

Book release: ‘Cypherpunks: Freedom & the Future of the Internet'

Earlier this year, Julian Assange interviewed three "Cypherpunks" on "The World Tomorrow", his controversial talk show. Now, in cooperation with his three co-authors, he is publishing a book. 

The 192-page book, written together with Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn and Jérémie Zimmermann, is based on the transcripts of the talk show, but also incorporates many ideas that remained behind the scenes.

The book covers what Cypherpunks believe to be the solution to the problems of privacy and freedom, especially on the Internet.

Assange told the New York Times, “In March 2012 I gathered together three of today’s leading cypherpunks to discuss the resistance,” referring to the 8th episode of The World Tomorrow talk show aired by RT. “Two of them, besides myself, have been targeted by law enforcement agencies as a result of their work to safeguard privacy and to keep governments accountable. Their words, and their stories, need to be heard.”

While discussing the problems of online communication, privacy and freedom on the Internet, the three Cypherpunks shared their stories of a movement which originated from the Cypherpunks’ Electronic Mailing List, set up by activists. The aim of the mailing list was to improve Internet privacy and security through the proactive use of cryptography. This movement has been active since the late 1980's, and WikiLeaks is one of many projects that have emanated from Cypherpunks.

OR Books

Details of the three co-authors are as follows: 

Andy Müller-Maguhn, a member of the German hacker association Chaos Computer Club.

Jérémie Zimmermann, a co-founder of the Paris-based group La Quadrature du Net, which advocates the free circulation of knowledge in the Internet. 

Jacob Appelbaum, a US independent computer security researcher and activist currently involved in the Tor Project designing an online anonymity system. 

The book will be published by OR Books and is scheduled for release on November 26 in both paperback and e-book format.
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Below are the uncut versions of both Part 1 and Part 2 of the Cypherpunks interview...

Read more and watch the Cypherpunk interviews: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/334490