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Apple Implements Tougher Security Guidelines at Factories to Prevent Leaks
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So lets get this straight.....Apple said years ago it hurts the engineers and others who work on products when they get leaked. I wonder how they feel when products get discontinued? Mac Pro (trashcan model), HomePod, iMac Pro, etc etc.....or that Airpower that never shipped. How many millions are they wasting to avoid fragile egos getting frayed?
How about releasing software that doesn't piss off people constantly due to tons of bugs or features not working.
At least we have a 5nm chip and women with beards emoji to make up for it.
How about releasing software that doesn't piss off people constantly due to tons of bugs or features not working.
At least we have a 5nm chip and women with beards emoji to make up for it.
Outside of the incredible apple silicon I’d say apple certainly ain’t innovating in pretty much anything else
This is less about "leaks" of the sort we MacRumors readers are interested in, this is more about increasing security of IP against corporate espionage and theft: "The new rule is part of Apple’s updated factory security guidelines, which aims to better preserve its employees’ privacy while toughening the measures used by factory owners to prevent prototypes, designs and other intellectual property from being stolen or shared with outsiders."
Cutting down on rumor-type leaks might be a side benefit though.
Cutting down on rumor-type leaks might be a side benefit though.
How could Apple ban the publication of rumours? If they’re all “false and absurd” why do you bother reading a website dedicated to those rumours?
I do wish them luck with that. It would be nice to return to the days when Apple took the stage to reveal things that no one knew were coming. Of course that doesn't mix well with being the most profitable company in the world.
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In essence yes but I would submit that country of origin is a tiny little, back of the packaging statement that almost no one reads or even sees and I have yet to see a store display where I can buy the exact same product, from the exact same company, with a choice of county of origin.
We might see a different consumer response if we were truly given the option, for the exact same product, to buy the US made for $2000 or the China made for $1200. I realize that I will be in the minority on this but if I had that choice I would buy the US made (or UK made or EU made, or any other country I like better than China). Right now if I want an iPhone I am forced to support the Chinese Communist Party.
I fully understand that it is not really feasible for companies to offer the same product with country of origin options but I am saying that if consumers were able to have that choice I think a fair number would support the "home team".
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I see it in a more simple manner though. From a corporate governance stand point, Apple has a direct oversight towards their direct employees and it is much easier for them to keep track of their behavior/whether they are breaching their NDAs or not.
Given factory workers are not directly hired by Apple, the restrictions or direct control over them are actually limited when compared with their direct employees. Hence, when considering enhancing security, implementing these standards/requirements for manufacturers to follow would only be logical when they cannot control who they hire.
Because back in those days, corporate espionage wasn't quite at the level it is today. So yeah, back-in-the-day everything seemed sort of newish, except when maybe an iphone 4 was left in a bar....
edit:grammer
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Not really. This is the lie billionaires tell and far too many Americans believe.
Apple pays assemblers in china bout $3.15/hour. The iPhone 12 Pro costs Apple about $406 in manufacturing costs of which $10 is labour. Call it 3-4 hours per phone. If you pay American workers $15/hour it will raise Apple's cost on an iPhone by $40-50.
Apple should be easily Able to negotiate a tax credit that high with the government to build a factory making $10 billion/year of iPhones in the US, but even if they couldn't. They could raise the cost of the phone $50 in exchange for making in the US. If they can't get the tax credit and that price increase to keep $10 billion per year circulating in the US economy is a problem for most Americans then, frankly, they deserve all the problems their country has.
Another way to look at it. A front line McDonalds worker in the US gets $7.25/hour, no meaningful health care, vacation, sick leave, etc. A front line McDonalds worker in Denmark makes 22 Euro per hour, gets 6 weeks of vacation, free health care, a year of paid maternity leave and paid sick leave. A Big Mac costs 30 cents more in Denmark than the US....but the company margins are lower. Which system do you think is better for 99.99% of the population? So why screw over that 99.99% so the 0.01% can make billions instead of mere hundreds of millions?
Apple recently updated its security guidelines for its manufacturing partners, implementing tougher measures at factories to prevent leaks, according to an internal document obtained by The Information's Wayne Ma.
Among the changes mentioned in the report:
The Information's paywalled report goes into more detail about the changes, which appear to have been implemented earlier this year.
- Apple's manufacturing partners can no longer collect biometric data such as fingerprints or facial scans of Apple employees who visit their facilities. However, the new rule does not apply to factory workers, leading to accusations of a double standard.
- Apple's manufacturing partners must conduct criminal background checks on all assembly line workers who work on unreleased Apple products, rather than only certain employees, and those with criminal records are to be denied entry to areas where unreleased Apple products are being developed or assembled.
- Apple is upgrading its computer system installed at some factories to determine how long parts should remain at one production station before moving to another. If a sensitive component in transit takes an unusually long time to arrive at its destination, security alarms are to be triggered.
- Factory guards at checkpoints must keep detailed logs of the movement of workers carrying sensitive parts from one area to another.
- Factory visitors are now required to present a government-issued ID.
- Factory security cameras are now required to capture all four sides of transport vehicles when they are parked at the facilities.
- Video recordings that show the destruction of prototypes and defective parts are now required to be retained for at least 180 days.
Article Link: Apple Implements Tougher Security Guidelines at Factories to Prevent Leaks
craggy who’s in charge of apples head of security these are basic implementations that should’ve been there for over 10 years ago this is ridiculous give the security head at all those below him a good smack upside the head from missing us!
Yeah, it was a hyperbolic comparison, nobody's arguing with that.Seriously? @Herrpod made the absolutely ludicrous statement that the new security protocols at an Apple production facility were equivilent to the treatment of POWs and you think I was being smug and should attempt to present this person with supportive facts to change their opinion?
Ok....
Foxconn:
POW Camp:
* picture from ccmms.ca of the Sham Shui Po Prisoner of War camp
An excerpt from the article:
“I went into the first building I came to and it was very dark. There were about 40 men in there, Canadians, sitting at tables and so forth. I said, ‘Hi you guys, don’t you want to see a Canadian?’
Then they ran forward and saw my cap badge. Those men were really skeletons. You could see their bones through the skin.
Then they were crying and weren’t ashamed of crying. And finally I cried, too because they were telling me what they had suffered.”
Nuff said?
I am not claiming that factory life in China is all roses, I am simply stating that the comparision to POW life is criminally stupid.
I wonder how much is targeting press leaks of soon to be released products and how much is directed at keeping products and components, particularly prototypes, from competitors as the new AR/VR products are readied?
Correction to the post as I see it: Apple doesn't pay assemblers anything. Apple sub-contracts to Foxconn who pays assemblers the prevailing wage for the location they are at. The numbers about manufacturing costs are estimates, which could be off by large margin. So your conclusion about how much a phone might cost in the US is based on guesstimates, of which the error is not known.
Apple has a long history of using The Information as their controlled leaks. ( You can think of it more like Apple's PR )
