Since-fired SF Apple employee used work iPhone to leak to press, suit alleges | Hacker News Reader

Since-fired SF Apple employee used work iPhone to leak to press, suit alleges

sfgate.com

24 pointsc42017 comments

For others that wonder: “details of an unannounced app; strategies for regulatory compliance; product hardware characteristics; research and development efforts in the spatial computing space; product development policies; and even corporate and department headcount.”. I first thought he leaked something small and the lawyers went overboard like they always do, but I was wrong.

How did they identify him? How did they get the information (such as the signal screenshot) from the phone?

"A forensic analysis of Mr. Aude’s Apple-issued work iPhone reveals that, between June and September 2023, Mr. Aude had over 1,400 connections with a single journalist via Signal."

I'm also interested in this forensic analysis.

They could because it’s his work phone get the push notifications stream and analyze that... that would leak the metadata needed to connect him to the reporter.

That's plausible, although it would be quite egregious of Signal to send plaintext push notifications (even of only the contact name) in my opinion.

It isn't difficult to contrive possibilities even in the case of using practices for an iDevice (such as for the screenshot: find incriminating picture [somewhere] -> search for picture hash -> find out that Aude has that same picture on his phone even though it is using iCloud Advanced Data Protection).

The real interest is in the explanation they give and if it is plausible or if it seems to be parallel construction to cover pushing out specialized signed software to employee phones to detect this.

Work phone? :-)

If you are going to mess-up, at least become a bit sophisticated

Use android

Is this the same person who discovered the Facebook Messenger payment feature? https://www.wsj.com/video/the-kid-who-tweeted-facebook-messe...

>an order directing Aude not to disclose confidential information about Apple and a payback of his bonuses and unvested stock units.

Surely they meant to say “vested” instead of “unvested” right?

It depends on the vesting requirements. Unvested stocks are given to employees and have requirements such as job performance and/or length of service. Once an employee reaches the requirements, the stock becomes vested. It seems that the leaker didn't reach the goals, so the stocks are still unvested.

Page 11 of the complaint makes it clear these are vested shares that had as part of the requirement for receiving them that he maintain confidentiality. So they are claiming breach of contract and want the money back.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24522887-apple-v-and...

I suppose the money is good but if you don’t like the company… why wallow in it and work there?

Go work somewhere you like…

How did you get “he didn’t like the company” from that story?

People routinely have feelings and opinions way more nuanced than this. And Apple is not a monolith. That’s certainly what happened here, as made apparent by the employee selectively leaking things that he wanted to kill.

It sounds like what he leaked was a wide range of things for all sorts of reasons including his own joy at “Can’t wait for chaos to break out before Apple corporate people even wake up.”

Sounds like he liked apple, but didn't like the decisions management was making.

I suspect having Steve Jobs as an absolute authority might have eliminated this kind of stuff back when he was around.

I'll bet after SJ there was a lot of infighting, like the apple chaos before he came back after next.

I have trouble believing he was putting up a principled fight over… a journal app.

I didn't mean to imply I supported what he did. I just wonder if having a "clear leader" reduces or eliminates second-guessing.

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