Hard-to-ignore "rumours" about the upcoming MBPs from stolen Apple Supplier documents

Hardware
23

Yeah, I hear you. I actually hesitated to start this thread, but ultimately reasoned that it’s a fair (and important) discussion for MPU. I pulled the pertinent bits out of the article because of what you’re talking about.

I don’t think the ethics are as ideal as you’re making them out to be, however.

If MacRumors sponsored the espionage, I’d agree. Otherwise I would think it’s their responsibility as journalists to validate (or at least qualify) and then report on this kind of news, especially since one of the major value propositions of MacRumors is to help buyers make informed choices.

A provocation: we can’t pick and choose which leaks we enjoy. Any audience for leakers incentivizes this kind of behaviour. If we patronize Guilherme Rambo’s leaks, we’re showing that we’d probably patronize REvil’s leaks, too.

To explore this a little further, the differences between this espionage, a “little bird” at Apple sending info to Gruber, and Rambo finding data in a beta are:

  1. who made the “mistake” (Apple’s suppliers or Apple staff);
  2. the nature of the “mistake” (security vulnerabilities, sneaking info out, or publishing data by accident); and
  3. the intent of the leak (intentional-internal, intentional-external, accident).

Ultimately, though, we’re just moving actors around on a chain between “what they don’t want us to know” and “what we manage to find out.” No matter what, someone finds out information Apple doesn’t want to share, and they intentionally share it with the public. That’s “wrong.”

Except… the ultimate purpose of Apple’s secrecy is to make the most money possible. Sometimes that means keeping info from consumers. Pure conjecture, here, but I imagine that if we knew Apple’s entire roadmap, we’d probably buy fewer devices, because we’d be able to make more conservative decisions about what we needed when. So, is it “right” for consumers to seek this info out?

FWIW, I’m not arguing for the sake of arguing. I think this is an important and nuanced debate, and I’m not sure exactly where I fall on the ethics of leak-patronage after reading the discussion here so far!

PS: It’s also worth noting that MacRumors isn’t the problem here. The Verge, 9to5Mac, and iMore also covered the leaks, and those are just sites that I checked. I would be surprised if Stephen and David don’t discuss the implications of these leaks at some point in the future, too.

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25

Maybe, but this is not a criminal law matter (the ones that send you in jail, to be clear, English is not my first language and criminal law not my specialisation :smiley:), it’s a contract breaking matter between Apple and it’s employees or contractors.

As far as there is no criminal acting form the news reporter (and there is public interest in the news itself) it is covered by the principles of the free press.

It must be said that this is a field with a lot of… gray zones.

26

That book on how Peter Thiel took down Gawker because they outed him as a homosexual is an interesting read in a related if not totally similar matter! I consumed it in a weekend!

https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Peter-Gawker-Anatomy-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B07637TDJJ

27

Right. The leaker did something illegal, but the media didn’t. A potential exception might be if something like a prototype were physically received by the media outlet and was known to be stolen Apple property. Apple could likely demand its return, and its receipt might be illegal itself - but they couldn’t necessarily demand the surrender of something like photos taken of the prototype or articles written about it. IP is weird. :grinning:

29

I think that argument walks a pretty thin line though, as verifying the story would require you to have some idea what was actually stolen…wouldn’t it? If REvil dumped everything they have and MacRumors linked to a torrent where you could download it, I think that would be over the line.

I agree that the leaks fueling these sites almost certainly involve illegal or fire-able behavior, but I think that the leaks work in Apple’s favor at least as much as they work against. I think we pretty much know that Apple “leaks” things on purpose occasionally, and fueling speculation about new products keeps Apple in the news cycle.

And unfortunately, if one site were to take a principled stand against publishing leaks I think they’d get crushed in terms of lost traffic, which impacts their ad revenue, which impacts their ability to exist and continue to take principled stands.

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