Hobgoblin - have you read the History of the Matrix preface that I wrote a whlie ago? It is exactly along the lines of what you just said.

-K.

[QUOTE=Cheops]Fine. Let me restate it. According to RAW, contained in the FAQ, all of this tiering stuff is irrelevant to any discussion. I can hack myself legitimate access on the remote worker's terminal and use that to spoof the communication into the corporate node with access = to the employee.

So I'll restate the cost of a remote worker as Csecurity programs. Now every single remote terminal is a possible point of entry for the hacker instead of just the main host, and each needs some measure of security. Possibly less than 4000 unless you are willing to have IC, agents, and/or spiders in which case the cost is higher. My argument is still valid.

I have however, proven that it doesn't cost the employee or the corporation anything to have all those mid-level workers come into the office so ANY cost beyond the basic salary of employees and bosses is wasted money.[/QUOTE]

Ah. I thought you were talking about software to check employee productivity. The two were getting a bit muddled up there. In that case, it's even easier. The terminals don't need IC on each of them. The terminals are just an interface to the node itself and don't contain any data. They're like monitors. SR4, under the definition of nodes describes a whole network as a node. The same IC will cover all terminals because they're all joined as one node. What you describe would be like running IC on each persona.[/QUOTE]

Originally that is what I was talking about. I restated it to security programs. You still haven't convinced me about the security of those terminals. Instead of protecting one office now you have to protect ALL of these terminals. I can buy your argument that the IC can protect them all but now you have the problem with physical security which is even more expensive.

[QUOTE]And I'm sorry, but you really haven't proved that it costs neither the employee or the corporation money to have employees driving in and out of work all day long. Obviously there is a cost there. Your quote:

[QUOTE=Cheops]The cost of commuting is entirely borne by the employee and the cost of maintaining the building in operation is negligible.[/QUOTE]

is false. Maintaing a building includes heating costs, lighting costs, ground rent, building rent or building purchase or building construction, cleaners, toilet facilities, parking areas, kitchen areas, health and safety, insurance. Plenty more, I'm sure. Don't neglect the savings in start up costs, either. Smaller office = smaller repayments.

And an employee's wages can be $X or in $x + Amount They Save, where x < X by the amount they save. Obviously if the amount they save doesn't come from you, then you've just made a saving on salaries whilst the employee gets the same gain.[/QUOTE]

You'll notice that I also said that the building already exists. Purchase and construction costs are sunk and therefore are irrelevant to the discussion. It has been paid and can't be recovered in the short term (~1-5 years). Toilet, parking, and kitchens/recreation areas/etc should already be included in the design of the building. Even if they aren't they can be rennovated which is a leashold improvement or else upgrades to a physical assets. In either case it is an Asset and not an expense. It'll affect cash flow but not Profit/Loss. The other expenses you listed can be a lot when taken as a lump sum, but if you break it down to how much it costs for each employee then it can be very small, especially when you are talking about skyscrapers or malls. You're talking on the magnitude of something like 50-100 per month (this is speaking from experience). I'll agree with you that it is too expensive for small (3-12 person) office buildings.

As for cost of commuting you obviously didn't fully read and/or understand my statement. I actually did say that it could cost the employee. It could also reward the employee. I came up with an equality that has to hold true for the job where cost of commuting (T+VCV-Diff(CoL)) has to equal the salary. Although I did discover a slight error in my statement. It should be R-CoL=T+VCV-Diff(CoL). Employees will move from job to job until they find one where the equality holds. If it is < then you will find a job closer to you until it is =. If it is > then someone else will be willing to take a salary cut as you have described to force the equality (in which case savings are captured by the corporation). There is an actual cost to the employee = T+VCV-Diff(CoL). However, employees seek a job where this cost is made up for by the fact that R is high enough. It is only when the equality doesn't hold that there is a problem. When that is the case resources aren't being properly allocated. The employee could find a job closer to home or the corporation could pay less and attract someone closer to them.

just to flog a dead horse some more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070525...mUhL8fgIpAjtBAF

now envision that embedded in ICE...

A system that locks you out when you are stressed. Great thing if your boss wants that report now.

BTW - IC has already decision making capabilities.

Just going to chime in here. The discussion about matrix security is very valid, but it takes a secondary role to physical security.

In any decently sized megacorp, they'll have coprorate enclaves, where the workers live in tower apartments, etc. The whole enclave has a security force, and you could argue security as a whole would allow telecommuting, since if a physical presence was required, you're a 5 minute trip from 'the office'. But working in an office is preferable, as that way you don't have to have security cameras in your house watching you work in your underwear.

In a smaller corp, the office is secured via wi-fi blocking paint, the landscaping's done with security in mind, and there's a guard checkpoint on every door. This keeps the whole place secure, as the employee should be paid commesurate to their importance, and so when they leave they drive straight home to their secure offsite home with local security guards. There's no telecommuting, as that compromises the security of the office. And the danger with letting your bleeding edge R&D guy work from home is that it makes it much easier for Runners to extract that asset to another company.

Remember, most corps would rather have the meat than the data. If they have the brains behind Project Failsafe, they can recreate that same Project. Data helps shorten that development time, but what's most important is that Corp A has the researcher that used to work for Corp B.

Letting any worker telecommute opens a huge hole in the matrix security, we seem to agree on that. At the very least, letting workers telecommute opens up more access points (as discussed) which means there's less security spread over more entry points. If there's four doors at the wi-fi blocked physical location, those four doors are the only way to that data or those employees. But the second the marketing department has a wireless node to access, then you have another way in to watch. What might work is a variant on what's been discussed, which is tiered systems inside a building. If I run SterlingCorp, I could have marketing and helpdesk on floor one, and allow that whole floor to be their isolated system. All it would have would be user accounts, marketing campaigns (so you could learn a new product was in the works, but not what it was exactly), etc. So if they do telecommute, the only data risked is basic user accounts, etc. The floor above would be the accounting and administrative offices, again wi-fi blocked to the outside AND the floor below, with a hardline to a terminal in the manager's office of each lower system. The hardline would lead to a physical dataterm, so if that manager wanted to release information to the less-secure cubefarm, he could, but there would be instant accountability. But for hackers to get to the 2nd floor, they either go to the second floor or into the manager's office on the first. The 3rd floors and above have your R&D, etc, which is blocked form outside signals, but does have wireless access to floor two (unless you replicate the manager hard-wired system for better security).

Other reasons for offices include reliable power (who wants Joe Wageslave to suddenly drop offline if some drunken idiot takes out a transformer with his car), accountability, and again, security. If Joe Wageslave works from home, any data he has could feasibly be leaked to his wife or kids.

combinations of isolated wireless "communities" and hardwire connections is how I envision moderate-security setups like small corps as well. The setup you (Sterling) outlined above can be used to create today's office park scenario, where office space owned by one entity is leased to multiple businesses, which then have to deal with the reality of all this wireless equipment literally leaking information to other tenants in their signal range. Connected by hardlines, each wireless community can talk to the building network and the matrix at large.