Internal Investigation on Fake Apple Email

[MacRumors]

In the wake of the fake iPhone and Leopard delay rumor that hit the web on May 16th, there's been a number of stories and claims regarding the events.

Engadget posted their sequence of events, which involved the fake email sent through an internal Apple distribution list to employees indicating that the iPhone and Leopard would be delayed. A couple of hours later, Apple sent out a followup memo stating that the previous memo was fake.

From what we've heard, the sequence of events described is accurate. A fake email was indeed sent to an internal email Apple distribution list as described. The source of the fake email is unknown, but an internal investigation has been launched at Apple to seek out this individual. There is speculation that the author of the email was an ex-Apple employee.

[Peace]

If an ex employee did indeed do that.That person can wind up in jail I believe.

[FX120]

Originally Posted by Peace

If an ex employee did indeed do that.That person can wind up in jail I believe.

Probably not unless they used the price drop to their benifit...

[yzp]

Originally Posted by Peace

If an ex employee did indeed do that.That person can wind up in jail I believe.

I hope for his/her to be an ex's........

[jk8311]

Personally, when this happened I was PSYCHED! I don't think I was the only one who thought "Wow - this sounds fake to me...". So I went ahead and simply bought more options when it tanked for those 15 minutes until Apple clarified the story.

Forget Apple stock - it's the options you want. :-)

[mcarnes]

That Steve Ballmer, always playing jokes.

[kwood]

Originally Posted by mcarnes

That Steve Ballmer, always playing jokes.

Something tells me that if that were true Jobs would not be very happy at all.

[twoodcc]

Originally Posted by Peace

If an ex employee did indeed do that.That person can wind up in jail I believe.

and that person probably should....that is just not cool

[HawaiiMacAddict]

Aloha everyone,

Here's yet another spin on this story. I was listening to the "This Week in Tech" or TWiT podcast, and their take is that the fake memo was INTENTIONALLY released, internally, by Apple to expose a leaker. Apparently, Apple is just a bit peeved when information leaks out, and it is the impression of Leo Laporte that Apple wanted to catch the leaker in the act. To that end, Apple apparently sent out the erroneous information, and will use the external email trail, if any, to determine the identity of the leaker, who will then become an ex-Apple employee.

That sound much more plausible than someone out to spike the stock price, but that's just me

HawaiiMacAddict

[EagerDragon]

Originally Posted by HawaiiMacAddict

Aloha everyone,

Here's yet another spin on this story. I was listening to the "This Week in Tech" or TWiT podcast, and their take is that the fake memo was INTENTIONALLY released, internally, by Apple to expose a leaker. Apparently, Apple is just a bit peeved when information leaks out, and it is the impression of Leo Laporte that Apple wanted to catch the leaker in the act. To that end, Apple apparently sent out the erroneous information, and will use the external email trail, if any, to determine the identity of the leaker, who will then become an ex-Apple employee.

That sound much more plausible than someone out to spike the stock price, but that's just me

HawaiiMacAddict

If this were true, then Apple is facing another stockholder law suit.

[The Monkey]

Originally Posted by Peace

If an ex employee did indeed do that.That person can wind up in jail I believe.

For what?

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by The Monkey

For what?

Lets say there are some people with lots of money who lost significant amounts because of this stunt, and one of them might take him to court, which won't end up with anything less than bankruptcy until the end of his or her life.

Apart from that, if you receive an internal e-mail that contains very bad news about your company, and you want the world to know, what do you do? A) Call your friends at a rumor site, or B) call your collegues working in PR to make sure they send the news to that rumor site as well? (B) is the option that doesn't get you fired.

[Peace]

Originally Posted by The Monkey

For what?

Manipulating the stock market for improper gains.

[EagerDragon]

Originally Posted by Peace

If an ex employee did indeed do that.That person can wind up in jail I believe.

And maybe the person who forgot to terminate the ex-employee account, may also become an ex-employee.

[pjarvi]

Pardon my ignorance,

[Analog Kid]

Originally Posted by Peace

If an ex employee did indeed do that.That person can wind up in jail I believe.

I don't see anything criminal here, really... Fraud maybe, if you can stretch the definition that far.

This has nothing to do with stock manipulation-- it was all internal to Apple. Maybe, if you can find a pattern of doing this at other companies, you could argue that the sender anticipated this getting leaked to the press-- but more likely he anticipated an instantaneous response from the Executives and was doing this to goose an ex-boss.

The people who should get asked the questions are the IT folks that let an outsider (or un-authorized insider) trigger a corporate wide broadcast. It sounds to me like there was just a magic email address that forwarded along and it may have been open to the outside. These should have all required human approval.

[Edit: changed the severity of the penalty suggested for IT.]

And I'm guessing this wasn't ITs fault either-- whatever mechanism was in place had probably been around for 20 years.

This has all been blown out of proportion. Apple got their noses tweaked-- whatever...

[EagerDragon]

Originally Posted by Analog Kid

I don't see anything criminal here, really... Fraud maybe, if you can stretch the definition that far.

This has nothing to do with stock manipulation-- it was all internal to Apple. Maybe, if you can find a pattern of doing this at other companies, you could argue that the sender anticipated this getting leaked to the press-- but more likely he anticipated an instantaneous response from the Executives and was doing this to goose an ex-boss.

The people who should get hung are the IT folks that let an outsider (or un-authorized insider) trigger a corporate wide broadcast. It sounds to me like there was just a magic email address that forwarded along and it may have been open to the outside. These should have all required human approval.

And I'm guessing this wasn't ITs fault either-- whatever mechanism was in place had probably been around for 20 years.

The email did not write itself, it did not sent itself, and the email did not disabled/bypass controls in order to spread itself. A person or group did, so yes there are people to blame.

There is probably a large number of people that could take the blame.

Also if it were to come out that this was a way to detect a leak as some people have argued, then lawyers for stock holders could argue that if Apple suspected a leak, that it was gross negligence in their part to do the test to begin with and cause stockholders to lose money.

[SMM]

Originally Posted by Analog Kid

I don't see anything criminal here, really... Fraud maybe, if you can stretch the definition that far.

This has nothing to do with stock manipulation-- it was all internal to Apple. Maybe, if you can find a pattern of doing this at other companies, you could argue that the sender anticipated this getting leaked to the press-- but more likely he anticipated an instantaneous response from the Executives and was doing this to goose an ex-boss.

The people who should get asked the questions are the IT folks that let an outsider (or un-authorized insider) trigger a corporate wide broadcast. It sounds to me like there was just a magic email address that forwarded along and it may have been open to the outside. These should have all required human approval.

[Edit: changed the severity of the penalty suggested for IT.]

And I'm guessing this wasn't ITs fault either-- whatever mechanism was in place had probably been around for 20 years.

This has all been blown out of proportion. Apple got their noses tweaked-- whatever...

No offense, but I think you are assuming facts not in evidence. In most investigations, the culprit is stupid and leaves an obvious trail to themselves. When that does not happen, investigators first look to see who benefits. In this case, two obvious groups come to the forefront; monkey-wrenchers - internal/external (aided) provocateur, and those who might gain financially. Other possibilities exist, but at a lower possibility.

Most companies, with more than ~50 employees, have mail distribution groups. All someone needs is an unsecured group password to perform an internal spam. It is also not unusual to have an internal, limited access user/password for some specialized usage. It is not a good security practice to do so, but it happens.

[GanleyBurger]

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No

New

Hardware



Does this mean Apple was hacked???

[DMann]

Surely, the individual used an untraceable e-mail (re-mailer) service to propogate this fabrication.....

[notsofatjames]

Originally Posted by DMann

Surely, the individual used an untraceable e-mail (re-mailer) service to propogate this fabrication.....

theyd be silly not to!

[psychofreak]

On the positive side, I don't have any AAPL stock with a $104 auto-sell, but on the negative side, I don't have any AAPL stock

[Clive At Five]

As an non-share-holder, I find this ordeal somewhat amusing.

-Clive

[SC68Cal]

Why isn't an internal investigation launched at EDIT:Engadget (sorry Gizmodo) and also MR, as to why chicken little was allowed to post these unsubstantiated claims with no verification. Hmm?

[ibook30]

Originally Posted by SC68Cal

Why isn't an internal investigation launched at Gizmodo and also MR, as to why chicken little was allowed to post these unsubstantiated claims with no verification. Hmm?

MR is a rumor site, so some things on the site, might be rumors,,, I know you spent a lot of time complaining about unsubstantiated claims,, but I find them to be unsubstantiated complaints.

Interesting way for Apple to find a security leak, and probably lower morale at the same time. If I were an employee - I think I'd feel a bit put out.