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Think Secret's Nick dePlume Revealed

Nick dePlume has a name, after all. Apple filed a lawsuit against the pseudonymous founder and editor of Think Secret, who correctly predicted two just-announced Apple products and has been the subject of several cease-and-desist letters from Apple in the past; dePlume's identity has now been revealed. Reader willibeast writes "The Harvard Crimson reports that 'Apple Computer, Inc. is suing a Harvard undergraduate who runs a popular Mac information website for disclosing details about unreleased Apple products, including two unveiled at this week's Macworld conference. Nineteen-year-old Nicholas M. Ciarelli '08, known on the internet as Nick dePlume, has run the site, thinksecret.com, since age 13.'"

14 of 621 comments (clear)

  1. Is Apple Serious? by fembots · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, Nick dePlume will have to find out via his website contact page, which offers tipsters "complete anonymity," and urges visitors to submit "news tips" and "insider information".

    Who knows? Maybe he'll get another insider tip reassuring him that Jobs was quoted as saying "Just pull a lawsuit stunt to scare the shit of this kid, bwahahaha."

  2. NDA by MrBlackBand · · Score: 4, Funny
    So did he sign an NDA with Apple? If not, then he has nothing to worry about. Except the massive legal fees of course.

    Oh wait.

    --
    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
  3. The apple path to success by Safety+Cap · · Score: 3, Funny
    1. Insert several new products in the pipe, but release no substantial information about them.
    2. Stomp the hell out of people who really like your products when they release "premature" info even though they are really, really interested in your new products.
    3. ???
    4. Profit!!!
    --
    Yeah, right.
  4. Suing your own fans by atlantis191 · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the article:
    "Usually you would want to sue your enemies and not your friends," said Gary Fine, a Northwestern professor of sociology and expert on rumors. "I can't think of an instance in which a corporation would sue its own fans. I haven't heard anything like this."

    Hasn't this guy heard of the RIAA?

  5. In Today's news by Solr_Flare · · Score: 5, Funny

    A man who has been predicting the end of world was issued a cease and desist order today. The world rejoiced at the threat to humanity being ended. In other news, the government has begun issuing cease and desist orders to individuals predicting war, famine, plague, and other such sundries as part of their "early prevention system"

    --
    You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
  6. "Apple Computer": A Ridiculous LIberal Myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    For years, liberals and pinkos have rattled on and on about supposedly "superior" computers produced by the California lefties at Apple Computer. I will explain why this company is nothing more than a front for the International Communist Conspiracy, aided and abetted by their liberal fellow-travelers in the American computer community.

    This so-called "company" was founded by a pair of dope-smoking phone service thieves from Berkeley, a hotbed of Communist activity even today. "Apple Computer" supposedly went on to pioneer a graphical interface - actually developed by the good American patriots at Xerox - and develop its own hardware monopoly, just as its Communist creators would impose a state monopoly on all computer-using Americans.

    For a short time, this Red front tried to infiltrate the American business community by facetiously engaging in free trade practices, but this only served to disillusion its enthralled socialist followers who complained about a supposed drop in quality. What they really couldn't stand, like all liberals, was choice and capitalism. They only returned to "Apple" when it returned to its old crypto-Stalinist practices.

    "Apple Computer" is nothing more than a liberal-backed fifth column intended to subvert the American computer industry, and ultimately bankrupt good capitalist companies such as Microsoft and Intel. "Apple" isn't the only front group run by the International Communist Conspiracy. "Sun Microsystems" engages in similar monopolistic practices, trying to enforce a single hardware and software standard on all users, instead of the choices offered by Microsoft. Worst of all are the smaller Red fronts using the communist Linux operating system, with names like "Mandrake" (a French front, of course), and even really obvious ones like Red Hat! Linux is distributed under a Commie license that forces developers to give away the fruits of their labour, just as Marx ordered all good Communists to work as much as they could for a pittance in return in an illusory equal society.

    All of these so-called companies are just fronts for Communists and liberal fellow-travellers. Remember, when you buy Apple or download Linux, you're supporting Communism. Good Americans support real freedom-loving businesses like Microsoft, SCO, and AMD.

    Laugh at me now, remember me later when you're all forced to used slow computers with horrid, fruity interfaces foisted upon an enslaved public by the commissars who used to fester in American business under the liberal myth that they were an independent company that loved capitalism called Apple Computer.

  7. Re:Bad timing by dcarey · · Score: 2, Funny

    [sarcasm]Dang, if only that had sued him 2 years earlier he'd still be a minor and wouldn't be responsible....[/sarcasm]

    Never stopped the RIAA.

    Unless that's what you're implying by sarcasm.

    --

    -- (Score:i , Imaginary)

  8. Big Brother Apple by nharmon · · Score: 4, Funny

    I envision a commercial where a Linux pengiun is running from a bunch of long-hair hippies in business suits. The pengiun escapes into a building and throws a sledgehammer at a screen showing a big Apple logo.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Re:Widely known by stupidfoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, information that is over a year old and has been publically shown, is "revealed". Sounds like a perfect Slashdot article.

  11. Re:NDA - Bzzzt by DrInequality · · Score: 2, Funny
    are all the websites that reported on this quilty? would slashdot be quilty if i posted my own trade secrets on slashdot?

    Please explain your usage of the word "quilty". Does it have something to do with quilts?

    It's like blanketty but a bit thicker and possibly warmer.

  12. Re:Mac the knife by MatthewRothenberg · · Score: 2, Funny
    >>Rothenberg? Is that how Apple users pronounce Rosenberg?

    LOL -- That's the first time I've seen my surname used as a punchline for Mac gay-bashing, but I have to admit that it's kind of pungent and snappy. (Like a sweaty jockstrap.)

    Mulling T-shirt Possibilities,

    Matthew Rothenberg
    Executive editor
    Ziff Davis Internet

  13. It's all fun and games... by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...until somebody looses an i.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  14. Re:Clever name... by Pseudonym · · Score: 2, Funny

    Unfortunately for Nick, I already have a patent on self-referential false names.

    Step 3, here I come!

    --
    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});