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from the so-I-guess-he-will-never-work-there dept.
A former Apple intern has been blamed for a leak of iOS source code. The intern reportedly distributed it to five friends in the iOS jailbreaking community, and the code eventually spread out of this group:
Earlier this week, a portion of iOS source code was posted online to GitHub, and in an interesting twist, a new report from Motherboard reveals that the code was originally leaked by a former Apple intern.
According to Motherboard, the intern who stole the code took it and distributed it to a small group of five friends in the iOS jailbreaking community in order to help them with their ongoing efforts to circumvent Apple's locked down mobile operating system. The former employee apparently took "all sorts of Apple internal tools and whatnot," according to one of the individuals who had originally received the code, including additional source code that was apparently not included in the initial leak.
The DMCA notice GitHub received from Apple that resulted in the takedown of the ZioShiba/iBoot repository.
Related:
Leak of iBoot Code to GitHub Could Potentially Help iPhone Jailbreakers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 11 2018, @08:31PM (9 children)
Proprietary software is wrong. Digital restriction management is wrong. Copying (not stealing) source code so that others can defeat your anti-user restrictions is not wrong. Of course, making use of this requires buying something from Apple, and you should not give your money to a company that violates users' freedoms. The fact that Apple and Microsoft don't just disappear from this world is nothing short of a tragedy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 11 2018, @09:24PM (5 children)
Taking a copy of the software he did not own is theft.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 11 2018, @09:56PM
But MAKING a copy is not.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday February 12 2018, @12:50AM (3 children)
But he did own that copy. He made it himself.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Monday February 12 2018, @03:11AM (2 children)
Yes, he made it himself, but we don't know for sure that he used his own media to do so... Let's for a moment imagine that when the staffer allegedly copied something that apple had some rights to under patent, trademark, and/or coypright law, that that staffer used a usb stick that they found there in the office, and took it--stole it--from the office, as the medium to hold that copied material.
Even if that were the case--and I see no evidence supporting it--here is the reason that we do not focus on the hypothetical stealing of a usb stick, but rather the unauthorized copying of the apple code.
The USB stick probably cost about $50. (it's a $5 usb stick, but this is apple, so $50.) That makes the theft a misdemeanor, and frankly, one likely to fall through the cracks of selective enforcement.
The rights to the apple program code, on the other hand, have a value more than the average person's net worth. It is arguably more wrong to violate those rights to the tune of incalculable value, than to violate the property rights by fifty bucks.
The stealing of the relatively worthless usb stick, even if it happened, is inconsequential in comparison to the unauthorized copying of the valuable program code.
Here is the payoff, for the "It's totally stealing" people: Now, the reason you were able to follow the previous sentence is that "stealing" means one thing and "unauthorized copying" means something else, and you know it, and were able to keep up with which is which. If they were synonyms (and they still aren't), you would not have been able to parse any sense out of it.
A possible source of your confusion is that many news outlets see charges filed against people in the fields of trademark law, patent law, or copyright law, which are dense, complex fields, and they hear "blah blah blah" because they believe (perhaps rightly) that the intricacies of these laws are over the head of the average reader/listener/viewer--so they "dumb down" the situation by making a comparison to something that the less-intelligent can probably understand (stealing). Until today, I thought that this was pretentious nonsense, but now I understand that it's over the heads of a lot more people--even here on this site--than I would have imagined. I have been giving some of you people more credit than you are due, it seems.
I hope this helps (but seriously have my doubts).
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Monday February 12 2018, @07:44AM (1 child)
In their opening argument, lawyers for Waymo claimed that Uber stole the trade secrets because it was worried that it was going to get beaten in the race to develop self-driving cars
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday February 12 2018, @04:06PM
In a civil suit, lawyers can and do claim just about anything, but no one was criminally charged with a crime involving stealing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Demena on Sunday February 11 2018, @11:22PM (2 children)
No, proprietary software is not wrong. If I spend time building something it will be proprietary because it is my property. You have no right to demand the benefits of my work, period. If I choose to distribute it, well that is another thing. If you come demanding rights to what I have written - be armed.
This petty fool you support has threatened the security of every owner and user of an Apple device. Perhaps he is some Android nitwit who resents other players having relatively secure operating systems. Nevertheless, he (or she) chose to try and damage a huge company and deprive all its users of what they paid for. As such, maybe he should be deprived of the benefits of such services - ALL such services. No phone, no computer, no electronic banking, no entertainment centre - nix. That might be just. Instead, he will probably be dead in a few years, I mean, who would hire him?
This person knowingly performed an act designed to reduce, minimise or obviate my security. To actively damage me.
Either he nor his supporters understand what 'moral' or 'ethical' mean.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @01:13AM
You're being hysterical.
The party that was harmed was Apple. If Apple's users were depending on Apple's iSecurity through obscurity, they were harmed when they decided to buy the iThingie.
Apple's iSecurity through obscurity certainly does not deprive Apple's customers of the product they purchased. They still have their iThingies! From this hysterical line of reasoning, you go into further hysterics saying that the intern should have her or his (you did consider that it might be a her, right?) access to an entire spectrum of technologies, many of which have nothing to do with Apple, revoked.
I think you're the one who struggles with what moral and ethical mean.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @08:05AM
Proprietary software is wrong because it denies users the four freedoms. [gnu.org] Maybe you didn't know that definition, or maybe you are the type of person who would disregard others' freedoms and the implications your actions have on society simply so you can make more money. I cannot fathom why someone would hold the position that it is somehow okay for a society to rely on black boxes and never be able to educate themselves as to what those computing devices actually do and how they do it. If you care about freedom, education, and independence, then that is not a position you should hold.
Android also includes non-free proprietary user-subjugating software, so it's marginally better at best.
Your speculation about this person is baseless, in any case.
They were deprived of nothing.
Apple--not this "petty fool"--threatens user security and freedoms with digital restrictions management, walled gardens and non-free proprietary user-subjugating software.