Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#21

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #5

nitrogen wrote: post #2

It's fascinating the lengths people will go to both when protecting and leaking unreleased products and manufacturing techniques. While I would do the same in Apple and Samsung's position, I am worried about the effects of durable secrecy on the sustainability of our society and markets. Markets need competition, and societies need public domain knowledge. If somehow a critical supplier is eliminated there would be n…

That knowledge is created by the company. Why should everyone have access to it? Can’t competitors create their own processes? The formula to Coca Cola is still practically a state secret, but that didn’t stop Pepsi et al from competing. Secrets of iPhone manufacturing isn’t something that should be considered worthy of the public domain. Nothing is stopping a competitor from developing their own knowledge and proces…

A few points in response:

1. The knowledge is created by people working for the company. Both the people and the company are part of a broader society, and all (people, company, society) have an interest in keeping the ability to manufacture alive.

2. Reinventing everything from scratch while risking submarine patents is wasteful, especially for processes that are obsolete from the view of the original company.

3. The same secrets that go into making an iPhone go into making everything else. I'm not interested in exact dimensions and features being public before release, but I am interested in the general know-how of precision design and assembly being preserved in a way that can outlive the original company.

4. We have lost significant manufacturing capability before. Nobody knows how to recreate the Saturn V rocket. SpaceX, NASA, and others have to recreate that knowledge at high cost. Society at large has a greater interest in preventing this kind of technological regress than in preserving the secrets of one company indefinitely.

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#22

Post by toiletfuneral » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

benologist wrote: post #13

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if Apple manufactured their devices in the US or Europe? Unless I wildly misunderstand something, I'm pretty sure Apple could not produce X amount of devices at Y quality + rate for Z dollars in the US or Europe.

They couldn't hoard a quarter trillion dollars while doing it. It would be a nightmare if they only had a hundred and fifty billion to tide them over until their next big thing.

This is 100% true, but I would blame stockholders/capital over management. If Tim Cook attempted anything altruistic at the cost of margin, he'd be replaced in a heartbeat

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#23

Post by Vrondi » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

panpanna wrote: post #9

jandrese wrote: post #4

I wonder how many of these extraordinary leak prevention measures would be necessary if Apple manufactured their devices in the US or Europe? The temptations for the workers would be the same (big payoffs are a universal temptation), but there might be more of a cultural barrier to overcome. Also I'm fully willing to believe that US authorities would prosecute the crap out of someone stealing from Apple, whereas in C…

> cultural barrier to overcome What?? > in China the penalty seems to be that you lose your crappy sweatshop job What?? Have you been to China lately?

Are you claiming that Chinese assembly-line workers suddenly being paid really high wages?

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#24

Post by inlined » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 8:03 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #18

metalchianti wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is Apple was the worst kept secret at my last company. Even our contractors knew who it was.

When you're ordering in Apple like volumes it has to be very difficult to hide.

Yes. the volume narrowed the potential customer list greatly. I wonder if I would have guessed correctly had I not been on the need to know list.

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#25

Post by Operyl » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 8:10 PM UTC

sverige wrote: post #20

module0000 wrote: post #16

I was hoping for pictures of the secret tunnels and hidden crawl spaces :(

Here's a tunnel built by El Chapo's people instead. Hope it helps scratch that itch. https://viceland-assets-cdn.vice.com/viceblog/64645854tunnel...

Wow. That’s a lot more professional looking than I expected it to be.

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#26

Post by fortran77 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 8:13 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #4

I wonder how many of these extraordinary leak prevention measures would be necessary if Apple manufactured their devices in the US or Europe? The temptations for the workers would be the same (big payoffs are a universal temptation), but there might be more of a cultural barrier to overcome. Also I'm fully willing to believe that US authorities would prosecute the crap out of someone stealing from Apple, whereas in C…

When I was at Apple, I noticed it was employees at HQ who did most of the "electronic" / photo leaking, usually just to get street cred with zealous users / fanboys on Apple forums.

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#27

Post by jandrese » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #6

jandrese wrote: post #4

I wonder how many of these extraordinary leak prevention measures would be necessary if Apple manufactured their devices in the US or Europe? The temptations for the workers would be the same (big payoffs are a universal temptation), but there might be more of a cultural barrier to overcome. Also I'm fully willing to believe that US authorities would prosecute the crap out of someone stealing from Apple, whereas in C…

> if Apple manufactured their devices in the US or Europe? Unless I wildly misunderstand something, I'm pretty sure Apple could not produce X amount of devices at Y quality + rate for Z dollars in the US or Europe.

They couldn't move the entire production to the US today no. It would have to be a gradual ramp up with suppliers coming online in tandem with the increase in production. There's no supply here because there is no market here, but if you build it they will come. It's not like it's impossible for an existing company to start up a specialized screw line, or for some startup to appear to fill the demand. It's a slow and painful process, but it's not like the Chinese manufacturing industry sprang up overnight either.

The real question is if the pain of switching over is worth it. Do these extraordinary costs in security and shipping outweigh the increased labor costs and potential for unionization in the US? Trump's tariffs might actually affect this calculation as well, but their long term stability is questionable, especially if you're looking 10 years out past the end of his term.

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#28

Post by jandrese » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

panpanna wrote: post #9

jandrese wrote: post #4

I wonder how many of these extraordinary leak prevention measures would be necessary if Apple manufactured their devices in the US or Europe? The temptations for the workers would be the same (big payoffs are a universal temptation), but there might be more of a cultural barrier to overcome. Also I'm fully willing to believe that US authorities would prosecute the crap out of someone stealing from Apple, whereas in C…

> cultural barrier to overcome What?? > in China the penalty seems to be that you lose your crappy sweatshop job What?? Have you been to China lately?

The cultural barriers being that the phone case manufacturers and a presumably US staffed domestic factory wouldn't speak the same language, hang out in the same places, and have the innate fear of "the foreigner" to make them more reluctant to steal from their employer.

I was being slightly glib with the sweatshop comment, but the point was that if the only penalty is having to go to a different factory in the same town for a similar wage if you are caught, then that's not much of a deterrent.

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#29

Post by ryanmercer » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 8:21 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #12

jandrese wrote: post #4

I wonder how many of these extraordinary leak prevention measures would be necessary if Apple manufactured their devices in the US or Europe? The temptations for the workers would be the same (big payoffs are a universal temptation), but there might be more of a cultural barrier to overcome. Also I'm fully willing to believe that US authorities would prosecute the crap out of someone stealing from Apple, whereas in C…

> I wonder how many of these extraordinary leak prevention measures would be necessary if Apple manufactured their devices in the US or Europe? One of the huge economic benefits of standardized, lockable, shipping containers is that rates of products "walking away" on the dock dropped dramatically. Shipping companies used to just expect a certain % loss from outright theft from dockworkers. Indeed it was considered t…

>Assuming the person gets caught,

You've never worked at a FedEx or UPS hub. Everything gets x-ray going in and out, you go through metal detector in and out, no open containers/phones/electronics/watches etc you can have a wedding band and only a wedding band. When stuff does go missing from a hub/sort facility, the carrier often finds the thief very quickly because everything is constantly being scanned and you know exactly where it last was and where it should have gone next and exactly what people are in that area so you can go right to the appropriate cameras with a known, relatively narrow, time frame.

Doing similar in a factory is trivial and there's going to be a lot less risk of the middle/upper management/security being corruptable. No offense to a random Chinese citizen but, the pay is garbage - a quick google query shows the average factory worker salary equates to $255 to $283. If you can walk out with a prototype of something, I bet you could have it sold within an hour for $1000 with minimal effort and if you were remotely organized could probably fetch several times that within a day. You may have just made several years salary to divide among 2-5 people.

In the United States, someone is going to have a hard time getting it in the hands of competition and at best they might get a grand or two from a less-than-reputable website/media company which isn't worth being fired for and/or facing criminal prosecution.

Re: Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

#30

Post by evmar » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 8:21 PM UTC

It's interesting that Apple is policing this. Wouldn't it make more sense for Apple to have some sort of "if you leak you are liable for $X" clause in their contract with the factories, so that the factories themselves have an incentive to prevent this?