There is no lack of crooked businessmen but the problem really is that our legal infrastructure doesn’t make it easy to pursue offendors which is why such people and practices continue to thrive.

Too bad Pakistan doesn’t have a small claims court for such cases. The case of stealing software in the article is a very real threat. Not only can these people steal source code, but they can also steal private information as was the case with the Indian call centres selling customer information. The former can be mitigated by use source control tree with lockdown and partitioning (although the determined hacker will still get around it). Logging should also be implemented so that evidence can be produced in court should the guilty ever be brought to court.

How much intellectual property can they possibly produce in one paycheck period? If there is consistent deferral and eventual termination, the employees should be smart enough to bail early on or they are truly lacking intellect. The blog mentioned 28 employees being hired and fired in unison which sounds a bit hyped although something like this might have happened on a smaller scale.

It not how much intellectiual property produced that matters at times, its the effort put into. Don’t just look from teh employers perspective, observe it with the developers perspective.

28 employees that got fired, its true. The company doesnt even send the pay checks to the bank, it hands out cash just to protect their interests. They dont want any proof of their existance.

Why cant they bail on them early? There are so many developers lurking around these days. If you throw a stone in a crowd, it will hit a developer thats for sure. Companies prefer to hire fresh graduates for wages as low as $100 a month equivalents. Experianced people are not preferred for most jobs unless they are really needed. Reason is that they would demand more wage for their work.

Its hard to find a job.

There is no lack of crooked businessmen but the problem really is that our legal infrastructure doesn’t make it easy to pursue offendors which is why such people and practices continue to thrive.

True. They only are thriving because people have no jobs. They have to work for a low wage.

Too bad Pakistan doesn’t have a small claims court for such cases. The case of stealing software in the article is a very real threat. Not only can these people steal source code, but they can also steal private information as was the case with the Indian call centres selling customer information. The former can be mitigated by use source control tree with lockdown and partitioning (although the determined hacker will still get around it). Logging should also be implemented so that evidence can be produced in court should the guilty ever be brought to court.

They werent hackers who stole the code. They were people who got into the organization by getting jobs as network admin and developer. Uploaded the source onto the server and left.

They are the ones who recompiled that software and now selling it to various customers telling that its their product. And their base is in Pakistan. Where they abuse developers and move ahead. They change their work locations frequently so as not to be identified.

I find it very hard to believe there are that many developers out there, or I’m very misinformed (and by developers I don’t mean someone who can hack up some html which even our gov sites seem to get wrong).

One of the advantages of being a developed in an under-developed country is that when you work in the global economy you can earn by their standards and live by yours.

If you make $200 for a contract you won on elance.com (or any of the 1000s of other freelance sites) and work on the project for a month, that amounts to Rs.12,000 / month which is a decent salary. These 28 people could easily earn a lot more, depending on the technical prowess. Frankly, I haven’t seen too many Pakistanis on elance but every second developer there is an Indian.