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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: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 11 2018, @04:34PM (7 children)
No, you should look it up again. And, this time, avoid using some corporate approved alternative dictionary. If something is stolen from you, then you no longer have it, and you cannot make use of it. Apple still has the code which was copied and redistributed. We are talking about a COPYRIGHT violation, not a theft. Try to keep up with the conversation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Sunday February 11 2018, @06:05PM
AC above humorously pointed out a better way to look at it. The dev didn't steal the code. They stole Apple's ability to "secure" it's phones. My guess is this isn't permanent. In a week or so we'll see an iOS update that plugs the holes and status quo is restored.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Sunday February 11 2018, @11:01PM (3 children)
I disagree that this is about Copyright, which typically is about control of something that is made available to the public (a work of art or play). Apple never intended for its source code to be made public, so in effect they have lost something here - the secrecy of the code.
Now, we may disagree on whether the code should ever be secret in the first place, but the fact is that this secrecy is something that they used to have but no longer do. They have lost something as a result of this action.
I happen to agree that "steal" is the wrong word, but I think copyright infringement is the wrong word too. Not sure what the right word for this is.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fishybell on Monday February 12 2018, @12:06AM
Copyright is applied automatically to effectively all items that are written down or recorded in any way, even unpublished items [archivists.org]. Copyright law does apply.
At the end of the day though, this is about sharing trade secrets, which is covered by trade [wikipedia.org] secret [wikipedia.org] laws [wikipedia.org] and whatever non-disclosure contract Apple had with the intern.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Monday February 12 2018, @01:50AM (1 child)
Agree, I understand what is meant by stolen. Maybe it comes from too many Hogan’s Heros episondes where the German’s secrets were stolen.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Monday February 12 2018, @02:26AM
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=merchantvenice&Scope=entire&pleasewait=1&msg=pl [opensourceshakespeare.org], around line 525.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Monday February 12 2018, @07:26AM (1 child)
Was it yours?
No.
Did you take it without permission?
Yes.
It is stolen.
But all I took was a copy!
Was it yours to copy?
No.
You stole that copy!
It's simple!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 12 2018, @10:28AM
Not quite. There is no physical evidence, is there? You can't steal an IP, or imaginary property. Please stop trying to conflate theft with what is happening out here in the real world. Theft involves some kind of physical asset. If I steal your lunch, you can't eat it. If I steal your car, you can't drive it. You've been deprived of some real asset, and you're unable to make use of it. If I copy your playlist from your MP3 player, you can still listen to your music. If I copy your installation of $OS into a virtual machine, you can still operate your computer, because your OS remains intact. I MIGHT use the copy of your OS to learn your login credentials for email, banking, stock trades, etc, so that I can steal your money. (That is the goal of most phishing and other scams, of course.) But, unless and until I actually steal some of your money, there hasn't been a theft - I've only copied something of yours.
There is a reason we have words like "copyright infringement" and other abstract things, like plagiarism. These things are similar to theft, in that I benefit from them in an illegal, immoral, or unethical fashion. But, unlike theft, you are not deprived of anything. It's all imaginary property.