Integration
With all the events going on nowadays, Romanians have a very hard time integrating into the western society. It is not only the bad image, but the perception of eastern Europe, ex-communist country.
With all the beggars, thieves and gypsies on the streets and the IT ’specialists’ in the office, also the corruption going on in the country, remnance of a sick communist system, Romanians are only known for bad things.
But we cannot judge a country by the actions of a few, can we?
What if there’s good people who are as hard working and punctual as the western, who are only looking for a better life, start a career, create a family and live normally. What if the assumption of bad is actually wrong, and among these people there are true characters, who are only waiting for a chance to prove themselves.
Now if western society has problems with Romanians, i can say that Romanians have bigger problems with our own than the western. Just imagine what we have to go through to get past the bad image already created. And the only mistake is t be born in the same country.
I am not trying to make an excuse, but my point is : are all Romanians bad?
Hackers
| Romanian hackers top European Internet fraud list |
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In the second half of 2007 Romania housed the most phishing attacks in Europe. In the world’s top Romania comes third, after the US and China. 98% of the attacks were proceded to by means of social networks, the MoneyChannel announces.
5% of the total number of phishing sites at a global level were detected in Romania, which is why Romania is no 3. in the world and no. 1 in Europe. According to the US Justice Department, the Internet fraud concept generally refers to any means of fraud that uses one or several Internet components – emails, chat forums, chats or websites – in order to recruit potential victims to complete fraud transactions or send the profiles obtained by fraud to financial institutions or other persons involved in fraud.
But such words are not enough to describe the real state of things. In the last years the Internet fraud has become an instrument used for organized crime and the romantic profile of a hacker is already old-fashioned. (…) The Romanian hackers scared the IT securities companies after starting several phising attacks. They stole the identities of 2,000 Americans, more precisely company managers, and then they empties their bank accounts. 20 such attacks took place in 2007 and the fraud reaches millions of dollars, according to estimations made by the Symantec security company. The last of the kind used the email addresses of 20,000 company managers from the US. According to Washington Post, they were summoned to go to the courthouse for matters related to their companies and, in order to see the summons, they were asked to access a website constructed by pirates. 10% of the fished ones took the bait and provided the criminals with information about their bank accounts. The procedure used in such cases is typical of a virus, but only 8 out of the 25 virus products detected it. Romanian hackers were also wanted because of the criminal network built in Dragasani, a gang of persons initiated in IT at the EU expense. 500 of the 21,000 city inhabitants specialized in eBay fraud, a website they used to sell fictitious objects: a yacht, a MiG aircraft and even the City Hall. (N.M.)
The Romanian IT Outsourcing Industry: A Stable Stable of Freelancers for the Online Marketplaces
IT freelancers and small businesses from over 130 nations compete for IT jobs at Rent A Coder, an online marketplace for professional services that facilitates over 12,000 IT projects per month. With over a dozen bids per project, buyers at Rent A Coder enjoy a wide selection of low-cost, high-quality suppliers; currently nearly 130,000 freelancers and companies are registered to bid for IT projects. Surprisingly, the largest proportion of these projects ends up not in the hands of Indians or Americans, but rather with IT professionals from Romania, an Eastern European nation.
One such buyer is Athens Development, Inc., a small company from Tennessee that specializes in software applications for marketing. The company uses the marketplace to outsource 100 percent of its software development and support as well as some marketing-related services such as Web design.
“For a small company like ours, it might be difficult to get adequate treatment from a typical Indian outsourcing provider as we do not generate enough work,” says Tracy A. Childers, the Founder of Athens Development. “A marketplace like Rent a Coder that provides access to talent from all over the world, along with value-added services such as escrow accounts, document storage, and arbitration, is an excellent solution for us. My business heavily relies on Rent a Coder. If something happens to Rent a Coder, it would be hard for me to switch to a different outsourcing channel,” he adds.
For years, Romanians have been among the top three most active nations at this lively international bazaar, according to Rent a Coder Founder and CEO Ian Ippolito. In November 2005 Romanians accounted for 18 percent of the marketplace transaction volume, followed by Indians and Americans with 17 percent and 16 percent respectively.
Why Romania?
Athens Development, which has been using Rent a Coder for 18 months and runs several small outsourcing projects on a monthly basis, has developed a special preference for coders from Romania. According to Childers, Romanians always deliver high quality and are very committed to results. This type of attitude is supported by Ippolito. “Some buyers have told me that they prefer Romanian coders because their experience was that Romanians were harder working, more reliable with deadlines, and didn’t pester them with requests for payment before the job was completed.”
However, even if Romanian freelancers are as hard working and cheap as it gets, this alone hardly explains why the country, with a population of just 22 million, is performing so well compared to offshore outsourcing giants such as India or Russia.
Struggling to seize a portion of the offshore IT outsourcing pie, post-communist nations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are trying to capitalize on a variety of strengths. Poland and the Czech Republic put forth their newly-acquired EU membership and attractive business climate; Russia builds on a vast scientific and technological heritage of the Soviet era; the Ukraine tries to exploit its new democratic image. In this race, Romania, the birth-place of the infamous Count Dracula, is primarily relying on its talents.
With over 100 universities, the country annually produces 30,000 engineering graduates; 8,000 earn degrees in IT. Romanian student teams won first place at the International Olympiad of Informatics in 2003 in the US and were third in the world at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Mexico in 2005.
However, mathematical and programming skills are typically strong in all CEE countries. What really makes Romanians stand out is their language skills. The Romanian language belongs to the Romance language group, making it easy for Romanians to pick up French, Italian, or Spanish. In addition, they held first place in the Certificate of Proficiency in English exam at Cambridge University, according to a 2003 Pierre Audoin Consulting report.
Add to this the fact the country’s struggling economy was not offering a great deal of jobs after the collapse of the central planning system, and you will have a good picture of the forces driving skilled and foreign language-savvy Romanians to online marketplaces like Rent a Coder, Elance Online, or eWork.
How Outsourcing is Affecting the Romanian Economy
The shadow of the 1989 revolution that climaxed in the execution of Romania’s communist leader Ceauºescu and his wife, and a prolonged economic recession through the most of 1990s, did not contribute to immediately turning the country into an investor’s hot spot. Romania still remains one of the least well-off CEE countries. What makes a difference, though, is that today Romania is a NATO member and a candidate to join the European Union in 2007; its economy is showing considerable growth (8.3 percent of GDP in 2004 and 4.1 percent in 2005) and the country’s image is changing.
Big names such as Siemens, Alcatel, and Motorola have set up research and development, software development, or manufacturing facilities here. Siemens is the leading foreign employer with over 2,000 in the local workforce. Oracle maintains its European development and call centers there; its call center in Bucharest provides support in 13 European languages.
IT export became an important part of the economy, currently involving nearly 17,000 people. In 2005 the export of software and IT services reached $250-280 million, estimates Florin Vrejoiu, Executive VP of the Romanian Association for Electronic and Software Industries.
On the export side, Romania is especially strong in three areas: R&D outsourcing, security and embedded software development, and mechanical engineering outsourcing. A good example is Softwin, a 500-person Bucharest-based company known for its anti-virus tool BitDefender. Microsoft acquired intellectual property rights for RAV AntiVirus from GeCad, another successful maker of anti-virus software, in 2003, which reflects the increasing interest of foreigners in local companies and their products. In 2005 the volume of acquisition deals in the IT industry reached 250 million, says John Mennel, a US consultant working for USAID Enterprise Development and Strengthening Program in Romania.
IT outsourcing companies include s Akela, Intrarom, IP Devel, andTotalsoft. Mennel estimates that around one third of approximately. 40,000 IT industry employees work for companies with 15 or less people. This estimation, however, uses official statistics and does not take into account hundreds or even thousands of freelancers who do not report their earnings to tax and statistical authorities.
Even the government, a stakeholder which is usually slow to give a hand to the IT industry in other countries of the region, has contributed to the progress by granting a 100 percent income tax exemption for IT workers. What remains to be seen is whether the thousands of freelancers and small businesses who are successful at IT marketplaces will be seduced by corporations (which will inevitably start exploring this lucrative pool of resources) and eventually give up their independence in exchange for handsome salary packages.
This perspective may seem questionable to some, considering Romanians’ love of being their own masters. “In Romania people like to own themselves. They do not like to be managed,” says Bodgan Castaliu, the 26-year-old executive manager of XcellenceIT, a 15-person Web development company. “As a matter of fact, every Romanian dreams about having a company of his own.” Considering that online IT markets still grow at a high rate (over 60 percent in 2005 in the case of Rent A Coder), it looks like big companies may have a tough time taking Romanian freelancers and small businesses under their wings.
Lessons from the Outsourcing Journal:
- Romania attracts Western clients due to the high level of technical and language skills of IT workers, its well-developed (albeit fragmented) IT industry, and availability of a vast IT labor pool, largely untapped by IT outsourcing companies.
- The Romanian IT outsourcing industry is growing ahead of the rest of the economy. IT attracts foreign investors and is experiencing a wave of acquisitions of local companies by foreign investors. Evolutionary transformations, such as further growth and acquisitions as well as a reduction in the level of industry’s fragmentation, can be expected.
- Online marketplaces are becoming increasingly popular with small and medium businesses that outsource their IT tasks. These marketplaces enable access to a wide range of offshore suppliers, provide mechanisms for competitive supplier selections, safeguard transactions, and provide a number of other value-added services. Small companies and IT freelancers from Romania are very active at these marketplaces.
Black raven
The party unveiled a campaign poster showing three black ravens pecking at Switzerland.
“The ravens are aggressive, cunning and devious,” Schwander explained.
In 2007 the People’s Party mounted a large-scale poster campaign showing a black sheep being kicked out of Switzerland.
That campaign, which sought to force a nationwide vote on the expulsion of criminal foreigners and coincided with parliamentary elections, drew criticism over its alleged racism.
The party said the raven posters will be widely distributed in the last two weeks ahead of the vote. It also said that more party committees, including one with the controversial former justice minister, Christoph Blocher, will be active to promote the no vote.
Insecurity
For its part the government says that the rejection of the labour treaty would increase insecurity for Switzerland’s key export industry and blunt the competitive edge of Swiss companies.
It points out that experience to date with free access to the labour markets has paid off for businesses and employers.
The government argues that the continuation of the accord and its extension to Bulgaria and Romania are linked.
“It is in essence a vote on the first set of bilateral treaties,” the government says.
The Swiss Business Federation, economiesuisse, says the bilateral agreements are vital to the economy and helped reduce the rate of unemployment among foreigners in Switzerland.
It is not in the interest of Switzerland to beg Brussels for new negotiations in case of a no vote, according to the federation.
In the same vein, trade unions say rejection of the labour treaty would put jobs at risk especially with a recession looming.
They also warn that a deal aimed at preventing employers from undercutting salaries would become null and void if the accord was thrown out.
Divisons
The People’s Party initially refused to back a referendum on the labour treaty.
But the party leadership later changed its stance after its youth chapter, together with two small far-right parties, collected enough signatures for a nationwide ballot.
But several prominent party members have refused to support the referendum.
Observers say newly-elected Defence Minister Ueli Maurer is facing a first test as cabinet minister.
The former People’s Party president pledged he would abide by the rules of the cabinet, which oblige him to toe the official government line.
swissinfo, Urs Geiser
Statements
« More people will plunder our welfare system and the level of protection against foreign criminals will be dangerously reduced. »
Toni Brunner
The so-called ravens from Romania and Bulgaria are only collateral damages, the result of five decades of communism.
The Swiss people have all the rights to defend their country against the pressures coming from EU. But it is not fair to do it by offending other nations.
Do not forget that East-Europe was sold to Stalin so that West could be spared. I do not say that Swiss owns something to East-Europe because of this but they are in no position to judge or despise the people from East.
Defend your country, is your right but do it fairly.
Ah, don’t you just love the SVP. What black thing will they come up with next ? Maybe I’ll send this ad to Obama & see what he thinks about it. If the Swiss EVER want to join Europe properly, then they will have to get rid of this blatantly racist propaganda.
Campaign against Romanians in Switzerland
The right wing Swiss People’s Party says the labor treaty with the European Union will undermine the country’s independence and lead to more unemployment.
In February voters will have the final say on a parliamentary decision to prolong an accord aimed at easing access to the labor market and extend it to Romania and Bulgaria.
The government, business community, trade unions and most political parties argue the labor accord – also known as the free movement of people agreement – is crucial for the economy and relations between Switzerland and its most important trading partner.
However, People’s Party President Toni Brunner warned of dire consequences if the labour treaty were to win a majority at the ballot box on February 8.
“Salaries will drop, joblessness will increase, more people will take advantage of and plunder our welfare system and the level of protection against foreign criminals will be dangerously reduced,” he said on Tuesday.
Brunner lambasted parliament for lumping together two issues in one vote: the continuation of the labour deal with 25 EU member states, gradually introduced since 2002, and the extension to newest members Bulgaria and Romania.
“Our democratic rights are being undermined,” he told a news conference 40 days ahead of the ballot.
The People’s Party warned of the huge gap in living conditions and wealth between Switzerland and the two southeastern countries.
Bulgaria and Romania are the “third world in the midst of Europe” and their governments are known as corrupt, the party claimed.
Parliamentarian Pirmin Schwander called on the government to renegotiate a better accord with Bulgaria and Romania and find a way to prevent travelling people from entering Switzerland.
The bad part
The Friday night scene in the bar at Bucharest’s Polytechnic University is a lot like any other college bar scene. Some students knock back a few beers. Others enjoy a game of pool. In another corner of the bar sit a dozen high-end desktop computers, complete with high-speed internet connections. This is where the real action or maybe the virtual action is.
Students sit three-deep waiting to get on a machine. For less than a dollar an hour, they can check e-mail, chat online, and listen to music. Most of them, however, are playing violent video games. Gaming aside, the youths who study computer science here are very good. In fact, Romania’s a global powerhouse when it comes to computing and programming.
Those skills have got Romanians noticed in Europe and the US. Many Romanian programmers have been lured away to work at software companies outside of their homeland. Romania’s stagnant economy has meant that those who stay behind find it hard to make an honest living in computers. Economic hardship is causing some of those talented youths in Bucharest’s net cafes to turn to hacking and other forms of internet crime.
Romania’s reputation as a haven for internet crime is growing, thanks to a number of recent, high-profile cases. In one instance, Romanians hacked into a server at the South Pole Research Center and stole sensitive information. They then blackmailed the center, threatening to share that research data with other countries if they did not get their money.
Romanians seem to be truly coming into their own as cyber-criminals in online auction scams, with the country ranking high in eBay’s table of estimated fraud risk. Julia Mickey Wilson, a specialist with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, a joint initiative between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, says some Romanians set up fake internet auction sites and accounts. They then get unsuspecting Americans to send them money for products that do not actually exist.
Internet in Romania
As a developing country, Romania has turned towards the internet as a primary source of communication with the rest of the world, but also as a source of information.
In Romania there are 5.8 million connections to the Internet, out of which 3.2 million are broadband.
Estimated number of Internet users: 7 million.
Country code (Top level domain): .ro
The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.
There were approximately 250 000 domains registered under .ro at the end of 2007. This number had rose to over 340,000 in November 2008.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
Total number of active providers : 1338
- Dial-up Access (fixed and cellular): 64 providers,
- Coaxial Cable (cable modem) Access: 72 providers,
- Optical Fiber Access: 343 providers,
- Wireless Access: 355 providers,
- xDSL Access: 52 providers,
- Twisted pair Ethernet, satellite, other: 1125 providers
Introduction
Since the Romanian Revolution of 1989, European Union (EU) membership has been the main goal of every Romanian Government and practically every political party in Romania. Romania signed its Europe Agreement in 1993 and submitted its official application for membership in the EU in 1995, the third of the post-Cold War Eastern European countries to do so after Hungary and Poland. Along with its official EU application, Romania submitted the “Snagov Declaration”, signed by all fourteen major political parties declaring their full support for EU membership.
During the 2000s, Romania implemented a number of reforms in order to prepare for EU accession, including the consolidation of its democratic systems, the institution of the rule of law, the acknowledgment of respect for human rights, the commitment to personal freedom of expression, and the implementation of a functioning free-market economy.
Wikipedia
The European Union’s legal harmonization requirements and the EU membership incentive have
guided, expedited, and sometimes directed Romania’s choice of transition laws and policies. EU
membership has been the focus of reform efforts and an issue encouraging domestic political
cooperation.
In its steps toward European integration, the Romanian government developed
extensive high-level institutions and positions for coordinating integration efforts and ensuring
the harmonization of laws. The Ministry-level Department for European Integration has been in
place since 1993, and other institutions followed as the possibility of EU membership became
stronger.
The European Union has affected Romanian legislation in a variety of fields and in a number of
ways. Those who draft the laws usually use EU law as a model and are assisted by EU funding
and advice. The “Europe factor” is ever present in Parliamentary debates on new legislation and
is at times offered as a reason for the automatic adoption of EU-mandated laws.
Local Media
Integration of the Eastern Europeans into the Western society
Communication between cultures
Integration of Romanian people into the western society
Ever since Romania became a presidential democracy in ’89, the Romanians have struggled to into the western society. They carefully analyzed life standards, behavior and other aspects of everyday life into this society.
In the early years, everybody was seeking the freedom that came with the fall of the Communist regime. People tried to start their own business, others left for a better life in foreign countries and some just enjoyed the benefits of being a free country.
Before ’89, communication with foreigners was basically inexistent as very few were able to leave the country, and the government had very poor connection with the European society.
The transition period from a non communicative country to a presidential democracy willing to start a ‘new life’ within the European community is the main problem the thesis will analyze.
The main objectives of the thesis will be:
- A thorough analysis of the past situation in the communist regime where communication was scarce
- A present research of the transition period that followed and the struggle to integrate into the modern society
- Present day analysis
a) European integration
b) Research on the Romanians view
c) Questionnaire about EU in Romania
d) Communication with western society
- Future solutions to the communications problem
Methodology and tools :
- History books research
- Present day articles (newspapers, internet, etc) analysis
- Questionnaires, polls within Romania to get a people’s view
- Direct interviews with people involved in the situation
- Mostly written
- Will involve research, analysis and solutions to the problem
Coming from Romania, it is a perfect situation for me to analyze. I can get direct access to info and opinions from local sources, and authorities.
All in all it is a very interesting subject that concerns the Romanian people but also the western society. I am looking forward to learning more about communication and for ways to improve it.
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