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Apple Factory Thefts: Secret Tunnels, Hidden Crawl Spaces

theinformation.com

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

#41

Post by _ps6d »

This is an aside, but I think it's interesting: The Information is a hard-paywalled site with a very expensive subscription ($39 USD monthly or $399 annually). Normally you can't read any articles on the site without a subscription.

However, the query string on this link bypasses the paywall for this specific article:

    ?pu=hackernews11vvpt&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock
If you remove the pu= variable, you'll hit the usual paywall.

The submitter's profile says "Director of Growth @ The Information". They've been submitting The Information articles to HN for the last couple of weeks with paywall bypasses to try to attract new subscribers.

It's good content, but it's also definitely advertising. Is that a problem? I'm not sure, this is a pretty unusual situation.

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

#42

Post by throwaway13000 »

metalchianti wrote: post #17
inlined wrote: post #8

> Apple’s suppliers are forbidden from referring to Apple by name or its project code names anywhere in buildings. In which buildings? Surely (at least vendor specific) codenames are necessary for basic communication. I was affected when a partner team was sidelined by an Apple contract. It was a fireable offense to say was Apple or leak it, but you could use internally to indicate that you had mandated commitments a…

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

"Fruit themed company" or "Company in Cupertino"

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

#43

Post by paulcole »

_ps6d wrote: post #41

This is an aside, but I think it's interesting: The Information is a hard-paywalled site with a very expensive subscription ($39 USD monthly or $399 annually). Normally you can't read any articles on the site without a subscription. However, the query string on this link bypasses the paywall for this specific article: ?pu=hackernews11vvpt&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock If you remove the pu= variable, you'll…

It seems to be acceptable for HN readers to share workarounds for paywalled content (although it's a practice I strongly disagree with) so I don't see why HN would have a problem with the content creator themselves providing a workaround.

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

#44

Post by wmf »

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…

Realistically people switch companies all the time and the knowledge distributes itself that way.

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

#45

Post by logfromblammo »

spiznnx wrote: post #15
panpanna wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Can you further substantiate your comment? I'm sure you have a lot more to say.

It probably has something to do with the Abrahamic religions' version of mind control known by various terms, including sin, guilt, souls, and forgiveness. You could at one time in history convince most Western workers to not steal from their employers by telling them that people who steal from and betray their social superiors will be judged by an all-seeing deity and then immolate forever after they die.

In contrast, Eastern religion ranged from "be more empathetic" to "never question the authority of the government", and never quite introduced the concept of a vindictive, all-knowing, untrickable deity. Sun Wukong is a trickster who escapes death and taxes by erasing his name from the celestial census rolls.

In one culture, you can never escape judgment for the wrongs you have done. In the other, you can get away with anything, if only you know how to work the system (such as by employing five different mechanisms for achieving immortality).

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

#46

Post by AceJohnny2 »

wmf wrote: post #44
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…

Realistically people switch companies all the time and the knowledge distributes itself that way.

which is why blanket noncompetes are terrible.

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

#47

Post by Scoundreller »

windowtoss wrote: post #3

Throwaway account to be safe. ———— While I did not deal with Apple specifically, I did however deal with another major mobile phone corporation — at that time — and i’m sure most of you have heard of them: Research In Motion, RIM, BlackBerry, etc. This was during a time, my guess is 2008-2010, when forums, unreleased product leaks, and blogs were a very big business and leaks were lucrative to everybody. As a BlackBe…

I felt swindled too when I found that BBM’s encryption was basically worthless unless you were an enterprise customer.

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

#48

Post by heymijo »

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?

Probably still going to need them. The person responsible for ripping and leaking nearly every big album of the aughts before their official releases was in the U.S.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-br...

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

#49

Post by frereubu »

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...

This is a great article all about the tunnels and how they were constructed: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/03/underworld-mon...

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

#50

Post by ergothus »

windowtoss wrote: post #3

Throwaway account to be safe. ———— While I did not deal with Apple specifically, I did however deal with another major mobile phone corporation — at that time — and i’m sure most of you have heard of them: Research In Motion, RIM, BlackBerry, etc. This was during a time, my guess is 2008-2010, when forums, unreleased product leaks, and blogs were a very big business and leaks were lucrative to everybody. As a BlackBe…

> Because a nice fella from the security team at RIM will give you a call on your personal cell phone one late night and tell you that they know what you’re doing and to stop it.

I don't know if anyone else has this reaction, but I find this to be a great alternative to the litigiousness that is normally reported.

> So I stopped that night.

...and good on you for allowing "not suing" to be a successful option. (I'm taking no position on the behavior BEFORE you got caught, but once you were, you didn't "force" them into more extreme options)

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