Anti Indian site hacked?
By Bala Shah

The US had set up the H-1B visa program to hire on a short term basis highly skilled workers not available in America.  The ground reality is that some tech firms have used every loophole in the H-1B system to bring in low cost workers.  The ongoing misuse of the visas is an open secret.  A few Americans had started anti H1B and anti Indian sites to campaign against the H1B Visa misuse.  The most caustic (with a tinge of humour) anti-Indian and anti-H1B site is ITGrunt.  ITGrunt was even interviewed by international magazine Businessweek.

Till recently, it was a familiar pattern.  The anonymous ITGrunt, in his clever venomous mocking ways, heaped scorn on we Indians and anything from our part of the world.  Indians sent equally biting emails labeling him crazy and worse.  Soon, the battle was notched up with ITGrunt banning Indians from commenting on his site, and later alleging that Indian techies were trying to hack his site to uncover his identity. By now it had become an ego battle.

Looks like things have ratcheted up another notch.  ITGrunt is claiming in his latest blog post that Indian techies tried to frame him by hacking into his internet account and using his email to send out threats.  The idea being that the American FBI and police would arrest ITGrunt for sending threats via his email.

“
Some of you may know that I recently had to take my site down after Operation Honey Pot, where I locked down the site and was working with the Feds to track down the feral creeps that had been trying to hack my server and use it to send phony death threats.  I've been working with them and some volunteers to cull through the logs and pursue criminal and civil charges against my enemies.  These things take forever, but I will keep you posted.  What I do know is that a lot of the suspicious traffic comes from the domains of some American universities and large companies -- the exact places that are flooded with slumdogs.

Without going into too much detail, one of the attacks involved a fake email that was traced back to me.  This email involved some sort of "threat" that was later deemed to not be a threat by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the same folks that dropped the ball on the Ft. Hood massacre. 
“
 

(Techgoss had published the following on Nov 10, 2009)

Indian blog pulls HR post
By Bala Shah

The US had set up the H-1B visa program to hire on a short term basis highly skilled workers not available in America.  The ground reality is that some tech firms have used every loophole in the H-1B system to bring in low cost workers.  The ongoing misuse of the visas is an open secret.  A few Americans had started anti H1B and anti Indian sites.  The most caustic (with a tinge of humour) anti-Indian and anti-H1B site is ITGrunt.  ITGrunt was even interviewed by international magazine Businessweek.

ITGrunt has a huge network of fans, sources and admirers who sent him facts and figures to feed his anti H1B and anti Indian blog posts.  Now ITGrunt has got hold of a blog post by an Indian techie Shilpa in America who blogs at shilpadesh.wordpress.com.

The Indian techie Shilpa had written about how some Indian (desi) HR consultants in USA try to rort the system.  Shilpa has removed the blog post but not before ITGrunt copied and published it on his own website.  Shilpa’s views would be an eye opener to many Indians who think we are winning huge contracts in USA based purely on our merit and cost competitiveness. Her blog post (which no longer exists on her site) reads as follows

“
When I had graduated from my grad school and was looking for jobs I would get calls from desi(Indian) ‘consultants’ who would call and tell me they found my number from monster or some other jobs portal. That made sense because I had my resumes floating all over the place. Having a masters’s degree and no job was something that did not sit very well with me and I took to finding a job like a fulltime job in itself! Most(all) of these ‘consultants’ would tell me to go to New Jersey to join them, and then get ‘trained’ in data warehousing/database management/.NET ASP/whatever is hot. The first time I heard this I was intrigued. I naively asked him if they would get me a job after the training and he said yes. I said wow that sounds great but if I really have not much background in these technologies and if I just get trained, which company would be willing to hire me?  He said you would have to modify the contents of your resume to highlight these skills. I said, but what if I have no skills? At this point what the person on the other end told me made me find a seat and sit down and gasp! We will help you buffer your resume with experience on these technologies from companies where we have contacts already, who will be willing to back up your claims! He said the market is such that you will have to ’show’ that you have 7-8 years’ experience(to get hired) and that entails that you remove your masters degree from the resume and bump up your age a few years. All this for a job and a few extra dollars? I told him no thanks but I will find a job with my ‘real’ resume. He tried to persuade me by saying that in this market there is no way I will find a job with my skills and experience level, and that everyone does this. He also told me doing this will ensure that I will enter the market at a higher salary level than what I would otherwise. I calmly said thanks and disconnected the call. After this I received numerous calls and the first question I asked each one of the callers was would you ask me to buffer my resume, and every single one of them would start stuttering, hamming and then say yeah you will have to do that market, rate, job, experience, technology blah blah blah. I would promptly cut the call. This I did for 3 months before I found a job with my ‘real’ resume. This was my first tryst with things Indians in the US do to earn more money.

shilpadesh.wordpress.com
“

(Techgoss had published the following on Oct 28, 2009)

ITGrunt: Hi Hindi Hitlers
By Bala Shah

The US had set up the H-1B visa program to hire on a short term basis highly skilled workers not available in America.  The ground reality is that some tech firms have used every loophole in the H-1B system to bring in low cost workers.  The ongoing misuse of the visas is an open secret.  A few Americans had started anti H1B and anti Indian sites.  The most caustic (with a tinge of humour) anti-Indian and anti-H1B site is ITGrunt.  ITGrunt was even interviewed by international magazine Businessweek.

IT Grunt is very vocal and has even called for metaphorically killing Indians.  ITGrunt uses the cover of anonymity to spew hate on Indians it calls ‘slumdogs’ and ‘American traitors’ who support the H1B Visa system.

But this hatred did not sit too well with many American companies indirectly associated with ITGrunt. As reported by Techgoss, in July 4 ITGrunt was evicted by its California-based web hosting company.  ITGrunt then moved his web hosting to Panama. He also stopped using Google mail as he feared Indians working at Google may not protect the anonymity of this American patriot.  He told his readers that he would dump Google and move elsewhere.

Where is ITGrunt now and what is he writing about Indians misusing the H1B Visa system? 

Firstly, ITGrunt was off the net for about 2 weeks. He has just come back online to explain his absence for so many days.  His ISP in Panama had suffered a Denial of Service attack allegedly at the hands of we ‘enemy slumdogs’. Apparently, the Panama ISP was a honey pot to track and record all threats from Indians bent on harming him and his website.

ITGrunt also lets his legion of admirers know that he has shifted his ISP from Panama back to GoDaddy in USA.  ITGrunts Tunnel Rat promises his American techie fans that he will never ‘go away and continue to be a beacon of inspiration for local techies’.

Whats an ITGrunt post which does not have some clever words mocking us?  ITGrunt says he will never let “Hindi Hitlers spoil his fun”

Welcome back ITGrunt’s Tunnel Rat.  You say you are ‘just a blogger’, but we slumdogs see you more than an American patriot, H1B activist and blogger.  This slumdog (Bala Shah) and writer learns clever turn of phrase and subtle sarcasm from each of your blog post. For this, I thank you. You say you hate Hindi Hitlers, and half of India agrees with you.

And ITGrunt, the next time you are looking for good reliable web hosting, consider India as well.

God bless America. God bless India.