But how much money did they save?

[mike808@users.sourceforge.net]

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4186130/

Imagine if this were your company's new product development or new web service?

Imagine if these outsource providers were in India or Bangladesh?

Who do you sue?

But think of all the money they saved.

I think the outsourcing bubble may soon burst. Maybe having a U.S. citizen in 
a cube in your offices really is a "value add" proposition worth paying extra 
for, no?

Mike/


Job outsourced three separate times

Just how the data ended up on the Internet is an alarming window into the use of
outside computer service providers by government agencies in the age of
increasing outsourcing of development work.

The data was ultimately leaked to the public when it was posted on
RentACoder.com, a Web site that helps computer programmers find temporary work.
Users looking to hire programmers post jobs to the site, and engineers from
around the world bid on the projects, often driving the price down sharply.
Programmers stuck with tricky problems also post individual questions, inviting
other programmers to supply answers, sometimes for as little as $15.

That's how personal details about hundreds of children ended up on the Internet.
A user named Mark Dennis, stuck with a tricky formatting issue, posted his
question to RentACoder -- and attached a zipped copy of the database he was
working on.

In November, Dennis posted a database front-end named "Respite," with components
named "Foster Care Unit," and "Intake Program Data." His listing asking for help
had been viewed 214 times by Feb. 4, according to RentACoder's Web site. It's
not likely all those visitors unzipped the attached database, but there's no way
to know how many did, according to RentACoder CEO Dan Ippolito.

In January, Dennis did the same thing, posting a similar question on Jan. 22
about an attached a zipped copy of a database named "DayCareData." The job offer
was viewed 127 times, according to RentACoder's site.

On Jan. 26, another programmer -- who requested anonymity -- sent a message to
Dennis, warning him of the possible privacy problems. He replied: "Thank you for
the note. That was my mistake and I will be more careful in the future,"
according to the programmer. The next day, Dennis posted the same database in a
different question.

County attorney David Morris said that programming work for the day-care center
had been outsourced to the locally-based Genesee Community College. The manager
of the college's program refused to speak to a reporter, but Morris said Dennis
was a third party consultant hired by Genesee. Dennis, in turn, used RentACoder
to once again subcontract the database work, which ultimately fell to a New
Jersey-based programmer.

From 


By that time, the programmer actually working on the day-care data was four
steps removed from the county's social services program.

Repeated attempts to contact Dennis were unsuccessful. The programmer who took
the job through RentACoder refused to comment on the incident.

Families unaware of data leak
Ippolito said his company can't review the details of every single advertisement
that is posted on the site, but it has complaint procedures in place if a user
has a problem with any ad. While copyright complaints are filed regularly, this
is the first privacy complaint the site has received, Ippolito said.

"We have pretty strict legal agreements in place. Buyers assume responsibility
for what they post," he said. "They certify that anything they put up there is
in full accordance with the law."

County officials have not yet determined if they will tell the families involved
about the incident.

"It's kind of a shock," said Morris, the county attorney. "Right now we are
consulting with the state office ... to find out what we’ve got to
do."

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