Posts by Cliffwilliams44

Architect of tech contractor tax fraud scheme jailed for at least five years

Re: Lesson to learn : beware of free

As a Yank, I find these arrangements quite odd. Here is the US there are 2 situations for an IT contractor.

1. You work for an employment service who farms you out to a business. You are effectively an employee of the employment service, and no, you do not have to pay them for this. They make their money from the client business. Charging X% above what they are paying you. Any employment service that asks you to pay them to find you work should be avoided at all cost as they are most likely quite unscrupulous.

2. You are hired on as what we call an "Independent Contractor" either through a service company or by yourself. In this scenario you, the contractor, are responsible for paying your own taxes and Social Security (payroll tax) which includes both the employee 7.5% + the employer 7.5%. It can be quite a burden so you have to make sure you are getting paid enough to cover these expenses. The one upside is that any expenses you encounter related to your work at tax deductible. Do contractors get into trouble for non-payment? For sure they do, but that falls solely on them.

When Facebook says you're not a good 'culture fit', it means you're not White or Asian enough – complaint

Re: Looking for ‘cultural fit' in recruitment process = discrimination-by-design

"Culture fit" and "peer review" are just more of this "woke" gobbledygook these progressive business professors who have never worked in the real work sell to these clueless corporate leaders. They use this corporate version on "new speak" to insulate themselves from actually doing anything productive. I and my group are very effective at what we do but if we had to be reviewed by our peers for our annual assessment I fear it would not be so good because we "do not suffer fools very well".

On the other hand, the real issue with minorities in tech is the fact than many, not all, but many do not fit into the "culture" of tech work. The long hours, the collaboration, etc. As a long term tech manager who once worked in the most predominantly black city in the US is was hard to find good fits for tech jobs that were minorities even when your applicants were 75% black. You can react to this however "woke" you want it is just facs.

When companies like Facebook are hiring tech workers they get White and Asian applicants who have been involved in tech since they were children competing with Black and Hispanic applicants whose first exposure to tech was in late high school or college.

Well, at least we've stopped using the term Oriental! That is more than likely to get you punched in the face!

Oracle sued by a shareholder who alleges its lack of progress in diversity amounts to 'dishonesty'

Show me the money!

Why do these ridiculous law suit happen? Because these low life lawyers know that they can drag them out and cost the company so much money they the will settle for millions of $$$ with some placating statement that won't change things at all. But the lawyers will get a nice fat payday!

'One rule for me, another for them' is all well and good until it sinks the entire company's ability to receive emails

Nothing is more amusing than watching an accountant total a column on numbers in an Excel spreadsheet on their tape calculator and plug the result into the spreadsheet!

IT services sector faces armageddon as COVID-19 lockdown forces project cancellations – analysts

Re: That's one point of view

Agreed, we are currently moving forward with several initiatives and have not scaled back scheduling. All the work is being done remotely as 95% of it would have been done if the lock down did not happen. As a company that spans the entire US, working remotely is just our daily routine.

And there may be an upside, if companies start looking at the downside of relying on IT support based in India as a potential problem in these situations they may want to move that back home just like many are now considering the folly of basing their critical supply chains in China.

Bad news for WannaCry slayer Marcus Hutchins: Judge rules being young, hungover, and in a strange land doesn't obviate evidence

Typical Rogue FBI tactics

As someone who lives in the US I can tell you exactly how this was played out.

The FBI had some vague account of how this young man "may" have been involved in Cyber crime.

When they learned he was going to be in the US they setup a plan to capture him

They danced around the warrant amd meranda rights knowing he was not a US citizen expecting him to do something stupid. it worked!

As far as a sign stating the phone was being recorded, don't count on it. You see, it is perfectly legal in the US for the police to lie to suspects. It is done all the time here.

And now they pull out their #1 "trump" card. Accuse the suspect of lying to the FBI about something not even the FBI can really state they know was a lie. They just "believe" it is a lie. That is all they need to so. The burden of proof on these type of charges is solely on the defendents part. The catch 22 of these situations is how do you prove that you did not lie to the FBI when all they have to say is "we believe he's lieing" Unless they have a recording of him "saying" "I wrote that code specifically for a banking malware" how does the FBI know what he said is not the truth as he remembers it.

The article has it right, if your ever arrested in the US, be polite and STFU and get a lawyer. Preferrably not a Public Defender.

If your ever requested to talk the the police about someone you know who has been arrested, get a lawyer and answer evey question with "I'm sorry I don't recall". Else they will charge you with lying and bankrupt you with legal costs until you tell them what they want to hear, even if that is a lie.