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Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

runtimewire.com

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Re: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

#21

Post by wmf »

Tyrubias wrote: post #18
wmf wrote: post #6

This guy is going to lose. If a company is violating no laws and your manager tells you to drop it, you can either drop it or quit. You don't get to choose how to interpret company policy.

I agree this engineer will probably lose the case because Apple has better lawyers, but I believe your underlying argument to be incorrect. If your manager asks you to violate company policy, then the correct response is to not violate company policy and instead contact HR/legal. Otherwise, saying “my manager made me do it” will not save you if heads start to roll. This applies to both policies that are strictly inte…

The article says he did contact legal and I guess they declined to intervene.

Re: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

#22

Post by BLKNSLVR »

exac wrote: post #17
m3kw9 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Think Different™ now means selling out you.

We have patented Think Different™ to mean "think the same as every other money grubber in the business".

They're not words anymore, they're newspeak SEO soundbytes.

Re: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

#23

Post by hilbert42 »

There are two laws missing that allow such privacy violations to occur.

First is strong and enforceable law that makes it unlawful to violate one's privacy. The second is to prosecute violators directly—that is, employees cannot hide behind corporate walls and allow the corporate entity to take the blame.

Irrespective of what employers demand, employees have a responsibility to obey the law. Risk of individual employees being chucked in the slammer would change corporate culture overnight.

Fining corporations alone is a waste of time, they see such fines as the cost of doing business, losing one's freedom for an individual is another matter altogether. Employees must be frightened of the consequences of violating the law or the practice will continue.

Re: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

#24

Post by rileymat2 »

hilbert42 wrote: post #23

There are two laws missing that allow such privacy violations to occur. First is strong and enforceable law that makes it unlawful to violate one's privacy. The second is to prosecute violators directly—that is, employees cannot hide behind corporate walls and allow the corporate entity to take the blame. Irrespective of what employers demand, employees have a responsibility to obey the law. Risk of individual employ…

The main federal laws that are missing is a formal definition of what data you own and expect privacy and what data on you the company owns. In this case it is specified by contract which may or may not have been breached not law.

Re: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

#26

Post by nissa-seru »

I do not have enough pangram credits (free) to check the whole article, but running significant parts of it through, I am getting 100% AI generated.

This is not an indictment - it is merely an observation. (to mimic gpt-style for a moment)

Re: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

#27

Post by otterley »

mike_d wrote: post #16
wmf wrote: post #6

This guy is going to lose. If a company is violating no laws and your manager tells you to drop it, you can either drop it or quit. You don't get to choose how to interpret company policy.

At any large employer you sign an agreement to follow the employee handbook and internal policies. They all say the same thing: don't violate the policies even if directed to by your manager. In this case Apple's legal department had identified the serials and IMEIs as PII. This is why the case is in civil court and not criminal (because Apple didn't violate any "laws" as you claim). It is a contract dispute.

Boardman notified Apple’s legal team. At that point it was their decision to make. If they had told him to stop, that’d be one thing. But they didn’t, and it wasn’t up to Boardman to interpret the policy differently.

Re: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

#29

Post by noman-land »

codedokode wrote: post #13

This is why you should use open-source firmware where there is no registration and customer IDs. Also, the software should allow overwrite IMEI to a random value daily. > Boardman believed the meeting would finally address both issues. > Apple fired him the next day. This is a reminder that being honest with a company doesn't benefit you.

Any recs for such firmware (that randomizes IMEI)?

Re: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T

#30

Post by scheme271 »

codedokode wrote: post #13

This is why you should use open-source firmware where there is no registration and customer IDs. Also, the software should allow overwrite IMEI to a random value daily. > Boardman believed the meeting would finally address both issues. > Apple fired him the next day. This is a reminder that being honest with a company doesn't benefit you.

How would that work? Wouldn't changing the IMEI regularly either get your phone blacklisted or it may not even get service due to the IMEI not being in your cell provider's system?
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