Slumdog Millionaire may get techie fired
By Bala Shah

'Slumdog Millionaire' made millions for talented Indian writer and diplomat Vikas Swarup. And is tipped to win an Oscar for Rahman. It has won a swag of awards and made more than $55 million dollars by last week.  While ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is taking the world in its stride, for a Software Engineer in Trivandrum, it has become a sword hanging in front of his head.

According to a recent mail to all employees of  highly regarded UST Global, a leading Software Services Company in Technopark, Kerala, “There has been a recent high impact security violation at UST Global in which a movie distributed by a global production company was downloaded reportedly using UST Global infrastructure. This was shared using peer-to-peer software (Torrent) from a desktop in our network. An investigation by a Law Enforcement Agency is in process and this incident is being treated with utmost severity, as it is an IPR (Intellectual Property Right) violation and misuse of resources. The investigation is to be completed shortly and appropriate action, which may include recourse to legal action, will be taken soon. Stringent disciplinary action will be taken against the offenders found guilty. Pleading ignorance to the facts cannot be considered as an excuse in a work environment where security and conforming to regulations is central to the pursuance of our business.”

Independent enquiries by Techgoss revealed that the movie downloaded somewhere in mid December 2008 was ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. This Techie used a VPN connection provided by the client to access the movie sharing website. A Senior Official in respected UST Global told Techgoss that UST Global has provided Internet access to every employee of the organisation (unless explicitly refused by the client) to discharge professional responsibilities and facilitate business. But the fact is that most websites including Techgoss, are blocked in UST. A Software Engineer who has been with UST for over three years said on conditions of anonymity that using VPN to access Internet, especially social and professional networking websites and to see movies, is a regular practice, “when there are too many restrictions, you find some way out!”.