<story><title>Ericsson workers were kidnapped when telco sent them to negotiate with ISIS</title><url>https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ericsson-workers-were-kidnapped-when-telco-sent-them-to-negotiate-with-isis/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>causi</author><text>&lt;i&gt;The company is also believed to have bribed the terrorist group to allow it to use a fast route through ISIS territory that avoided government checkpoints.&lt;p&gt;The telco used sham contracts, inflated invoices, and falsified financial statements to funnel millions to ISIS and local power brokers, with millions still unaccounted for.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Oh damn.  That&amp;#x27;s going beyond just trying to maintain your infrastructure for the sake of the populace.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ericsson workers were kidnapped when telco sent them to negotiate with ISIS</title><url>https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ericsson-workers-were-kidnapped-when-telco-sent-them-to-negotiate-with-isis/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>thr0wawayf00</author><text>This is another reason I have reservations about the expansion of contract labor in the modern workforce. Far too often, it creates a conflict of interest between the contract company and contract hire.&lt;p&gt;Tangentially related but much more banal, I have a relative that works in the payment processing industry, overseeing an engineering team. One of his best employees was an overseas contractor that spent many years with the company, brought his family to the states and laid down roots. After 7-8 years with the company, his contracting firm wanted him to move to another company in another state where he could earn more. He didn&amp;#x27;t want to go, but his contract stipulated that my relative&amp;#x27;s company could not hire him under any circumstance, so his firm wound down his contract to essentially force him and his family to move. This was in a smaller city without a lot of other IT jobs, so he didn&amp;#x27;t have many other options.&lt;p&gt;The fact that huge corporations have that kind of power over people makes me really uncomfortable and to see a huge telecom company use contractors to negotiate with terrorists doesn&amp;#x27;t surprise me in the least.</text></comment>