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APRIL 07, 2005 < (IDG NEWS SERVICE) BANGALORE, India -- Former employees of a call center in Pune, India, were arrested this week on charges of defrauding four Citibank account holders in New York, to the tune of $300,000, a police official said.
The three former employees of Mphasis BPO, the business process outsourcing operation of Bangalore software and services company Mphasis BFL Group, are charged with collecting and misusing account information from customers they dealt with as part of their work at the call center, according to Sanjay Jadhav, chief of the cybercrime cell of the Pune police.
"Either in goodwill or on false pretenses, they also obtained the [personal identification numbers] from these account holders in the course of their work," Jadhav said. The three former employees and their accomplices then used the services of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) to transfer funds from these accounts to their own accounts and fake accounts that were created for this purpose in Pune, he added.
Mphasis officials declined to comment on the matter. The Pune operation of the company runs a call center for New York-based Citibank N.A., a subsidiary of Citigroup Inc.
The police acted on a complaint from Citibank, which was alerted when account holders noticed suspicious transactions in their accounts, Jadhav said. Citibank officials weren't immediately available for comment.
Police arrested 12 people, three of whom were employees of Mphasis BPO in Pune until December last year. When they quit their jobs, the three employees carried with them the details of the four accounts and used a number of subterfuges, including false e-mail accounts and account details to transfer funds into accounts in Pune, Jadhav said. "We caught one of them on Monday when he came to a bank in Pune to inquire about one of the accounts," Jadhav said. "After that, we were able to arrest the others."
The outsourcing of call center and other business processes from the U.S. and the U.K. to Indian companies has been criticized by many organizations, including U.S and U.K. workers' unions, which complain that members are losing jobs as a result of offshore outsourcing. One of the key issues that has been raised is the danger of data theft and misuse.
The threat of data theft and misuse is no higher in India than in other countries, including the U.S., according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies in Delhi. The organization maintains that Indian outsourcing companies have adequate security systems in place.
Media
The BRICs: The Path to 2050."
According to that report, over the next 50 years, Brazil, Russia, India and China-the BRIC economies-could become a much larger force in the world economy. In 2003, the Chinese economy grew at an annual rate of 9% and the Indian economy grew at a rate of 8%, compared with 3% to 4% growth in the Western world.
"BRIC nations represent future markets for just about any company in the West," Rajvanshi says.
"And businesses that have the foresight and vision to perceive this--and have ongoing and existing relationships with the BRIC nations--will be in the best position to reap the rewards."
Electronic Books - A Bad Idea (Alertbox July 1998) -- Even when electronic books gain the same reading speed as print, they will still be a bad idea. Electronic text should not mimic the old medium and its linear ways. Electronic text should be based on interaction, hypertext linking, navigation, search, and connections to online services and continuous updates. These new-media capabilities allow for much more powerful user experiences than a linear flow of text. Linear text may have ruled the world since the Egyptians learned to produce arbitrarily long scrolls of papyrus, but it's time to end this tradition. Nobody has time to read long reports any more: information must be dynamic and under direct control of the reader, not the author. Two types of electronic books do make sense:
In both cases, the key point is that the "electronic books" are not intended to be read on a screen: they are traditional paper books and linear audio readings, respectively, and are simply manufactured and distributed in a more efficient manner by using the Internet.
Todd's Humor Archive Computer Center Humor
Computing Center [n] In a University, that organization whose functions are 1) To impede wherever possible the development and usefulness of computing on the campus, 2) To gain the lion's share of funding, spend it largely on obsolete and otherwise inappropriate Solutions, and convince the campuse(s) wherever possible to expend their meager funds on the same, and 3) to oppose vigorously any new, useful and popular technology for ten years or more until nearly everyone on the campus(es) and elsewhere in the world is using it, then to adopt that technology and immediately attempt to gain complete and sole control of it [see MS-DOS, UNIX, ETHERNET, INTERNET].
The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:0, Offtopic)
by negativekarmanow tm on Wednesday January 16, @05:29PM (#2850660)
(User #518080 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday January 16, @08:29PM)The last few months I have been doing some research into the trolling phenomenon on slashdot.org. In order to do this as thoroughly as possible, I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results:
- More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up. Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post [slashdot.org]. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4.
- Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards. Presumably these Nazi Moderators think it's more important to burn a user's existing karma, to silence that individual for the future, than to use the moderation system for what it's meant for : identifying "good" and "bad" posts (Notice how nearly all oppressive governments in the past and present do the same thing : marking individuals as bad and untrustworthy because they have conflicting opinions, instead of engaging in a public discussion about these opinions)
- Once you have a karma of -4 or -5, your posts have a score of -1 by default. When this is the case, no-one bothers to mod you down anymore. This means a logged in user can keep on trolling as much as he (or she) likes, without risking a ban to post on slashdot. When trolling as an anonymous user, every post starts at score 0, and you will be modded down to -1 ON EVERY POST. When you are modded down a certain number of times in 24 hour, you cannot post anymore from your current IP for a day or so. So, for successful trolling, ALWAYS log in.
- A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever [slashdot.org], funny [slashdot.org], etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic. Now, on a news site like slashdot, where the number of different topics of discussion can be counted on 1 hand, I must say I quite like the distraction these posts offer. But no, when the topic is yet another minor version change of the Linux kernel [slashdot.org], they only expect ooohs and aaahs about this great feat of engineering. Look at the moderation done in this thread [slashdot.org] to see what I mean.
- Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll [slashdot.org], which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.
Feel free to use this information to your advantage. I thank you for your time.
Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by AnalogBoy on Wednesday January 16, @05:36PM (#2850723)
(User #51094 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 17, @11:17PM)I just want to say.. Thank you.
I'm sure you'll be modded down as a troll, as /. doesn't like dissenters in the population. They try to keep you silent and impotent.I firmly believe once a community reaches a certain size, it has certain duties to perform, to the truth, the absence of sensationalism, and most of all, equality.
Moderators: I have posted without my +1 bonus. This post is admittedly offtopic. Don't waste your moderation points on a reply. I suggest you use moderation points on parent posts. Its more economical. And remember - mod UP intelligent posts, mod DOWN klerckisms.
--Just because you disagree with me does not make me a Troll, nor does it make my post Flamebait.
Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by Fitascious on Thursday January 17, @01:17AM (#2852776)
(User #127984 Info | http://slashzero.com/)This whole -1 thing is screwed. I worked at Andover.net (now OSDN) back in January and Feburary of 2000. I was a contractor brough on board to help build the Slashdot cage at Exodus, in fact I wrote my name with a magic marker on the bottom of the Quad Zeon VALinux box that probably still runs the main Mysql DB. At the time I thought it was pretty cool to be involved with the whole open source scene...
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You know what I learned? I learned that most of the "Famous" and "Big Names" in the linux scene are attention starved name dropping weenies.
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It after my assigment at Andover.net ended that I realized the whole Open Source movement is over. Done with. There are way to many people with way to much ego. All of the linux people in charge of the project were too busy stroking their ego's and counting their stock options.
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I thank CmdrTaco and all the rest for a good 2 or 3 years of entertaining reading, but times have changed, there is no energy left here. Time to move on, Open source has been assimilated by Corporate Practices. I sincerely feel that all that was good about Slashdot, and to an extent the Linux fenomenon is over. This Thread just ended any hope I had left. Time to bring on the next fad.
Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by AnalogBoy on Thursday January 17, @09:18AM (#2853749)
(User #51094 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 17, @11:17PM)I do agree with you on the ego thing. I've met -so many- linux zealots who can't back their claims of superiority with one fact, yet, they hate windows.. for no reason except the stereotypical "It crashes all the time!" and "Microsoft is a Facist Monopoly bent on world domination!". I forgot who said it, but i like him or her: "Open Source; Closed Minds". It was a good idea. The problem was the application - Stallmanism ruined the OpenSores image, in my mind. I will never recommend a linux solution where a "Established" solution could take its place. Partially because of technical reasons ; but mostly because i wouldn't want to risk having someone adminning them who's too busy keeping their thumb up their arse to care about the company.
Slashdot is flawed, fundimentally. Unfortunately, its kind of fun. Screaming 14 year olds, as is said, having pissing contests over l33tness when they wouldnt know the difference between ATDT and ATH0, or SysV and BSD if it got up and shoved a clue by four up their output port. Hey, its better than sitting at work staring at the birds frying in the satellite transmitters on a slow day!
--Just because you disagree with me does not make me a Troll, nor does it make my post Flamebait.
Media
