--- Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 10:59:01 +0530 From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh@private> Organization: -ENOENT To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> Subject: [Fwd: Re: [IP] Outsourced and Out of Control] here's what I told Lauren when this was posted on IP. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [IP] Outsourced and Out of Control Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:11:15 +0530 From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh@private> Organization: -ENOENT To: dave@private CC: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@private> References: <6.0.1.1.2.20040128083721.030e5ba0@private> Dave Farber [1/28/2004 7:08 PM] : >Inside Risks 164, CACM 47, 2, February 2004 Oh no. Not again. While yes, the outsourcing model does have a few flaws, a lot of the arguments Lauren raises are the same old straw men that have been raised, and beaten down again and again. The internet, and the telephone network isn't really something that is entirely restricted to the USA, and Dell isn't exactly a US company... I can go out and buy Dell desktops in India, the Phillipines and any other country that I randomly pick out of an atlas, I guess. [And where do the hard disks, the monitors, the RAM etc in Dell PCs come from, America?] Dollars will always trump humanitarian concerns, I'm afraid. And as for allegations about lack of privacy - well, [1] competition is cutthroat enough that any outsourcing companies with plum contracts like Dell would be utterly stupid to leak privacy data [2] laws about computer crime, theft etc are pretty much present, and quite stringent, in countries like India [3] most of these outfits do have an US office with more than one senior executive based there to liaise with the foreign clients ... and these could well wind up in the graybar hotel if any of the situations Lauren paints here actually do take place. >As more customer-support call centers move to non-domestic locations, >complaints from consumers about poor service rise. In many cases, >language-related barriers cause communications difficulties. Computer That is usually a situation where too much was done too fast, and relatively untrained people are used to do this. You mean first level tech support in the USA (which is what is typically outsourced as in the case of Dell) [1] Is handled by "highly skilled professionals" instead of the online equivalent of KFC burger flippers [2] Isn't handled the same way first tier support is handled in India (with interactive voice responses, pre-prepared scripts and boilerplate replies, and "escalate to second level tech support if it goes beyond your stock of boilerplates") [3] Doesn't have its own problem with accents, so that someone from Kentucky can understand someone from Harlem can understand a recent [asian|hispanic] american immigrant? >routed to offshore customer service representatives. (See ><http://callcenterinindia.blogspot.com>callcenterinindia.blogspot.com for >illuminating information about India-based call centers.) So very illuminating that every single link to call center points to http://www.telegenisys.com/services.html - which is an outsourced call center? :) Well yes, that is the opinion of at least one call center in India, and not that there isn't more than a grain or two of truth in there. >records, and medical information. Recently, a Pakistani subcontract worker >threatened to post U.S. patients' medical data on the Web if claimed back >pay was not forthcoming. For which he could, and would, have been arrested. Now don't tell me people don't post stuff like (say) the Diebold emails online, with or without the DMCA. >Software, sometimes of a critical nature, is now routinely subcontracted >to foreign outsourced environments, bringing risks of development >miscommunication or worse. The U.S. General Accounting Office noted the >possibility of malicious changes to code since significant U.S. air >traffic control system Y2K work had been subcontracted outside the U.S. >without mandated background checks. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If someone is jackass enough to outsource a supposedly mission critical program or operation to anybody - whether in India, the USA, the Phillipines or Mars for that matter ... what else do you expect? Blaming outsourcing for what seems to be short sightedness on the part of the outsourcer is yet another straw man. >There are even moves to outsource computer system administration to >foreign centers, often in countries with poor (if any) computer security >laws, creating the possibility of massive abuse of domestic systems by >distant persons who could be difficult or impossible to effectively >prosecute. Thanks to subcontracting, you might not even know that the >company managing your system is using such facilities and personnel. You mean anybody would be idiot enough to find the nearest bunch of script kiddies and say "here guys, here's the root password on my machines, ssh in and admin them for me?" Again, if you don't trust the party you outsource to, and if you don't set up a proper mechanism to handle / liaise with / get results from outsourcing, geographical location just doesn't matter. You are just as badly off if the contractor is 10 minutes away as you would be if he was 10 timezones away. >to say the least. Businesses and governments need to carefully consider >the manners in which outsourcing can be reasonably exploited, and how it >must be controlled. Fine with me. But if you hand your car keys over to J.Random Stranger and outsource your driving to him, just how much is the government supposed to hold your hand? No amount of regulation can replace a few things like good business practices and common sense. srs _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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