Programmer outsourced his job to China

A US computer programmer has been allegedly caught outsourcing his own job to a company in China.

He is said to have paid the firm a fifth of his six-figure salary to do his job for him, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The software developer, who is in his 40s, reportedly spent his working days surfing the internet.

The tale emerged via a blog by an computer forensic investigator at Verizon Business, a US-based communications firm.

Andrew Valentine claimed his company had been contacted by another firm who feared their system was being hacked after noticing it was being accessed from Shenyang, China.

An investigation revealed one of the company's employees had outsourced his own job, paying a Chinese firm more than £30,000 to write computer programmes.

The employee would then spend his day browsing sites such as YouTube, Reddit, eBay and Facebook, before sending his superiors a daily status report and going home.

"He physically FedExed his RSA token to China so the third-party contractor could login under his credentials during the workday. It would appear that he was working an average nine-to-five work day," Mr Valentine added.

"The best part? Investigators had the opportunity to read through his performance reviews while working alongside HR. For the last several years in a row he received excellent remarks."