Without having any details, here is something to ponder on. If a hacker broke into a large corporation database, why would their help themselves to a piece of software that is available for free to the public (XCode, etc) or public videos (WWDC). Maybe paid software was downloaded, in this case either Apple is a fool for not segregating its various App Stores, iCloud, etc. Companies do not put everything in ones database for security reasons. No details as to what database was compromised.
I understand you are providing an example, however Apple has not provided a lot of details. If someone hacked into a large corporations website and changed a few things around as a joke to demonstrate that the company does not have very good security, is it a crime (its a grey area). However if I downloaded 90GB of promotion videos from Apple’s website that is already available to the public, is it a crime (it is a grey area). Many people on a daily basis download and share things from various sites such as YouTube, some of it is a blatant crime. Does that mean we should waste the courts time and tax payers money on persecuting all these users.
At the end of the day this is a white collar crime, to the lowest possible degree. When corporate bankers stole millions if not billions during the home equity bubble of a decade ago and prior instances, those white collar crimes are on a grander scale compared to someone taking some data. EquiFax did not protect people’s sensitive data that was entrusted to them, what ever happened to that? It seems the law is going after small fish and ignoring the large ones that have done more damage.
Reminds me of the saying, “too big to fail, small enough to jail.”
Give the teenager probation, restrict usage of the internet. Go after the real criminals, the one who lost their homes, life, job, family when all their life’s savings were stolen by lying to them to their face.
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Apple is certainly know for its transparency (Butterfly mechanism MB/P keyboard, Battery performance, Meltdown/Spectre, etc). People should be sceptical of large corporations or governments and hold them to the highest scrutiny. There are other companies worse, however Apple’s track records is not great either.