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.'"

Comments

Why Nick and not the informant?

[Gr33nNight]

What Apple should be doing is finding out who is suppling Nick with this information. He isnt just pulling this stuff out of his ass.

Re:Why Nick and not the informant?

[grahamsz]

This of course assumes that he has that information.

There are ways to not keep records on that kind of thing.. and i'd hope he's set up that way.

Re:Why Nick and not the informant?

[slashnutt]

Apple's lawsuit alleges that Think Secret is illegally soliciting Apple employees to violate confidentiality agreements and disclosing that information online without Apple's permission.

The core problem is that any information your employee tells me is free for me to use. Social engineering has to be thwarted by educating Apple's employees just like some government employees. If you divulge secret information owned by the government you go to jail; you divulge company secrets you get fired or if you have an agreement to work for the company it could have a damages clause forcing you to pay compensations. Case closed

"I employ the same legal newsgathering practices used by any other journalist," he wrote. "I talk to sources of information, investigate tips, follow up on leads, and corroborate details. I believe these practices are reflected in Think Secret's track record."

Based on the little evidence I have been given, I see no legal stance from Apple that will hold up in court.

Re:Why Nick and not the informant?

[Dorsai42]

Actually what Apple is doing is making this guy famous, useful stuff when looking for a job after college.

Re:Why Nick and not the informant?

[lpret]

What if he never knows the identity of his submitters? He cannot be held liable for not knowing his sources.

Re:Why Nick and not the informant?

[thogard]

The problem is unreleased stuff isn't a "Trade Secret". A trade secret is something that is patentable but the company chooses not to patent it because they think they can hide it from their competitors. New products that are going to be released a few weeks don't fit into that.

Apple spent the money on the 1st round of this suit because it may lead to the insider who released the info. I expect that it might have been released by someone in marketing that knows that a trade show is a nasty place to release new stuff because the only ones watching are your loyal customers. Preaching to the choir doesn't bring in converts and their new products purpose is just that. This leak got many more people to watch the announcements and that will help Apples Sales.

Re:Why Nick and not the informant?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

There are ways to not keep records on that kind of thing.. and i'd hope he's set up that way.

That's his choice, just as a number of currently imprisoned investigative journalists chose to go to prison rather than reveal their sources. But they still went to prison.

Apple evil?

[Monkelectric]

So how much love do we have to give apple before we can admit they are dicks to?

Re:Apple evil?

[JaxWeb]

I got to say, I find Apple to be much worse than Microsoft as a company.

In terms of products, they're probably just about the same. Microsoft have some good products, Apple have too. There's no reason to be religious about either products though, much less be religious about a company which exists merely to screw you over. In light of that, I think most people can admit that Apple are indeed being dicks.

Of course, there are lots of examples of other companies being dicks, too.

Evil, big monopoly Apple

[Stanistani]

Great public relations coup, Mr. Jobs.

Remember when you and the Woz were just kids in a garage?

Apparently not...

Re:Evil, big monopoly Apple

[LnxAddct]

Yea, instead they based it on selling devices to get free long distance calls, esentially stealing from the phone companies. At least the Think Secret guy isn't stealing anything.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Is Apple Serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing wrong with this. He isn't the one violating any laws. He never signed an NDA. Matt Drudge does this exact same thing, if you look at the news submission box in the lower right of drudgereport.com.

Advantages in nanoseconds?

[numbski]

Tell me, Apple (or rather article author even). You're worried about market advantage 'being measured in nanoseconds'.

I can see no case where disclosing information a week early would do irreperable harm to the company.

Sure, you could argue customers will hold off buying products if they know the next generation is around the corner, but I tell ya....you're an idiot to buy ANY Apple products directly before a MacWorld expo.

If you're going to buy, you buy directly after an upgrade. Or at least wait until the next expo comes around.

So far as the competition...sure, I suppose a Dell or an HP could counter the MacMini, or the iPod Shuffle or whatnot, but really.

I can't help but think Apple is suing over an issue of pride. They want to know who the leak is, so they're going after the person posting the information from the leak(s).

That being said: I hate lawsuits. Period. :(

Re:Advantages in nanoseconds?

[rtm1]

I can see no case where disclosing information a week early would do irreperable harm to the company.

It's about their stock price, not so much about lost sales or competition or anything. Apple's stock price is driven as much by company performance as it is by people's expectations. If Jobs goes on stage and introduces a couple of unexpected products that are really cool then people get all excited, lots of good press and buzz comes up, Apple's share price goes up, and Apple gets lots of free marketing from people talking about this new and totally unexpected thing. If people know in advance what Jobs is going to say, and Jobs delivers exactly what people expect then the reaction is more muted. Apple gets less buzz and less press, people don't talk as much, don't pay as much attention, and Apple's share price doesn't go up (or even goes down, sometimes).

I can think of a few Expos where Jobs didn't meet people's expectations, or where people were expecting more than what was delivered, and people come out of it feeling negative - even when the announcements are pretty great. But do you remember when Jobs brought out the iMac? "Oh yeah, one more thing" got just as much ink as the actual product. So it's all about delivering against peoples expectations - if people have no expectations then Apple appears to be over-delivering when they announce new products, and people talk and are happy and positive - if people have really high expectations then Apple is perceived to be under-performing when the actual announcements are made, and people talk about what Apple 'should do' and about how Apple is 'missing the target' and about how it 'could be much better' and everybody is kind of down and negative. All of this affects Apple's stock price - it affects analyst perceptions (and ratings), it affects journalists who write about tech, etc.

I hate lawsuits too, and don't necessarily agree with Apple in this instance, but so much at Apple rides on how Jobs is seen to perform at these expos - taking the wind out of his sails does materially affect the company.

Re:Advantages in nanoseconds?

[Anonymous Coward]

All of what you say may be exactly true, but its still fucking ridiculous that we live in a country that has LAWS to prevent someone's SPEECH in order to support this.
If a corporation can lose a few points because it exists in a country where people can speak freely, the too fucking bad for that poor corporation.

"Induced"?!?

[StevenHenderson]

Apple claims that Ciarelli and his company, The dePlume Organization, broke the law when soliciting insider tips online from anonymous sources, "inducing" Apple employees to break their confidentiality agreements with the company.

How did he induce these people to provide tips? It is not like a college undergrad is going to pay people off. Apple really contradicts themselves when later they blame the ability of people to place "anonymous" tips on his website. Doesn't sound like they are being "induced" but rather lured by the option to remain anonymous.

True, I think it is wrong that employees are violating their C.A.'s, but it is not Ciarelli's fault. Find the employees that do it, and fire them. Don't go after a kid that discovers where you leak...

Re:"Induced"?!?

[2nd Post!]

But if you read any of the linked articles you'll see:

The suit, filed on Tuesday in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California, aims to identify who is leaking the information and to get an injunction preventing further release of trade secrets. However, in filing the suit, Apple identifies specific articles that contain trade secrets, indicating that at least parts of those reports are on the mark.

They go after the kid that discovers where you leak because the kid knows where you leak.

Isn't that obvious? How else do you find the employees you want to fire, here?

Re:Clever name...

[dynamo_mikey]

FYI - "nom de plume" is a french term, it's mean "pen name" or pseudonym for an author.

cute.

-dynamo

Re:Widely known

[BWJones]

Daringfireball also has a nice little article covering this lawsuit and Nicks identity.

I hate Jobs

[Sheepdot]

has run the site, thinksecret.com, since age 13

No offense, but this is the kind of kid/guy that you'd think Jobs would be hiring, not suing.

Why again does everyone see Jobs as some sort of geek pariah that *earned* his way to fame? He just rode on Wozniak's coattails!

Re:Is Apple Serious?

[TheViffer]

Pretty much what I think it is also. But its not like Nick will have too much of a problem finding a lawyer or two that will do this pro bono. I would think there is one or two .. or huge boat loads of lawyers or soon to be lawyers running around Harvard. Great second semester assignment if you ask me. Would be fun to walk into a court room with 50+ lawyers.

Re:Anyone Remember Mike Rowe?

[stratjakt]

No, not familiar at all, not even close.

"Microsoft" is a trademark. You are required to vigorously defend trademarks, or else you lose the right to use them. MSFT had no choice but to go after him.

Of course, slashdot stopped covering it when it settled. MSFT paid the kid for the domain name, and agreed to redirect all the traffic to the old site to his new one (MikeRoweForums.com IIRC).

In the end, everyone was happy, and MSFT weren't such a bunch of assholes after all (which of course, is not a happy ending for slashdot, which is why it wasn't covered).

All this kid did was run a website on which someone else supplied information about an Apple product. Apple will sue and win, and help set a new precedent in which forum moderators are responsible for what their users say. That won't be covered on slashdot either.

But, if a little birdy ever tells me about an upcoming Apple product, I'll be sure to crapflood slashdot with it, so Malda can feel the mighty cock of his beloved Apple shoved straight up his ass. I wonder if that will stop the constant iPod astroturfing?

Re:I'm a little stunned, but here's the "other" fa

[j.bellone]

Yeah; because everything on that website is wrong. It seems that even if his information is negative that it still turned out to be true. Doesn't that mean something? Oh; that's right; Apple Zealots - my bad.

Seriously though; if someone is going to feed you information you have the right to do what you wish to it. If Microsoft was in this position this website would be all over it; screaming about how a they are going after the little guy. But when Apple comes into the picture, they get some kind of negative force-field aura that dispells all the bad (and true) information about them.

Re:Dear Apple...

[2nd Post!]

Get your priorities straight QuantumG.

If you want to complain about what Apple is doing, restricting free speech is the wrong target. Apple is protecting itself, legally, forthrightly, and up front, according to the law.

Someone violated an NDA to tell Nick DePlume these 'trade secrets'.

Apple is trying to get out of Nick DePlume the identities of those who violated those NDAs.

To put it abstractly, Apple and a third party signed a contract. Said third party violated the contract without Apple's knowledge. Apple finds out about the violation from Nick DePlume. Apple then tries to find out from Nick DePlume who violated the contract.

If there is anything scummy in what Apple is doing, it's in not being gentler and more friendly towards 19 year old Nick, but that's not what you're complaining about.

Re:NDA - Bzzzt

[gl4ss]

so wait a second..
i'll post my OWN trade secret to some guys mailing list and then I can sue him in the states? wtf you need patents for when you have such more powerful tool in your portfolio then, why bother patenting anything when you can just say that it's your trade secret and forbid anyone from talking about it?

someone 'published' the information to him - or are all the websites that reported on this quilty? would slashdot be quilty if i posted my own trade secrets on slashdot?

or maybe he'll just say that he pulled it out of his ass and say that "look, i've made so many predictions that at least once in 10 years i'm going to be right about something".

Re:If it wasn't for this kid...

[stratjakt]

If you order a mini mac then that's you, voting with your wallet, to support Apple and this lawsuit.

For a long while I always said I'd look to get a mac if they were marketed at an affordable price. Now that they have one, I won't even waste the time to look at it.

People leak news about Longhorn and other in-development MSFT products all the time, why aren't they suing webmasters? They're supposed to be the big litigation assholes, after all.

Reading financial news sites gives me perspective

[amichalo]

There are many financial news websites posting articles about Mac mini and iPod Shuffle. After reading them, I can better understand just WHY Apple took the action it did against Think Secret.

In summary, the articles stated that the stock price of Apple ran up more than 7% in the days preceeding Mac World in anticipation of the leaked rumors of a $500 Mac and a flash iPod. Further, the stock dropped about 6% during the key note primarily because Apple sold "only" 4.5 million iPods. More than the 4 million many analysts predicted, but less than the 4.6 and 4.8 million other analysts had.

Now, if the share price of Apple can drop 6% because the wildly sucessful iPod "only" clobbered-the-shit (technical term) out of the competition versus some analysts estimating it would clobber-the-ever-lovin-shit, imagine what would have happened if Apple had NOT released the said rumored products.

Further, imagine how big the POSITIVE impact would have been if the Mac mini had remained a secret until Jobs' announcement.

Re:NDA - Bzzzt

[ivan256]

would slashdot be [g]uilty if i posted my own trade secrets on slashdot?

If you divulge your own trade secret it is no longer a trade secret. If you divulge somebody else's trade secret you've broken the law. This entire situation is dependant on the assumption that the informant who sent the trade secret to Think Secret was not authorized to divulge the information. If that isn't the case, neither the informant nor Think Secret has done anything wrong. It would be pretty hard to prove either way...

Uh...

[solios]

he's soliciting Apple employees to break their NDAs.

Apple employees specifically.

Apple has a case, imo. :P

Blind admission regardless, Harvard tuition ain't Community College tuition.

Re:NDA - Bzzzt

[thogard]

Your talking about "secrets", not "Trade Secrets" which are different. An IP lawyer is going to ask what "Trade Secret" was published and won't find any.

Re:Dear Apple...

[NormalVisual]

And the idea that a journalist can be ordered to reveal his source of information is against the first ammendment.

Is it now? Where specifically in the First Amendment does it mention anything about journalists protecting sources? The First Amendment proscribes government interference with the freedom of the press - it does not give the press a magic pass to avoid any and all consequences of something they may report. According to your reasoning, if I publish your entire credit and medical history online, I should be able to do so without any fear of repercussions, and furthermore it would be your fault for not protecting your information better. Give me a break.

News: Slashdot Crowd Endorses Stock Manipulation

[zippthorne]

Wait wait.. Everyone here seems to be supporting the notion that Jobs manipulates the timing of events to get up to a 10% or more boost in stock price surrounding Mac World. Once the truth is out, it will be priced into the stock, regardless of whatever blips occur on the day of. So who cares when it comes out except the people who want to make profit on pre-existing knowledge of said truth? Certainly not Apple (unless they're planning a new issue of stock to raise more capital). This is the definition of insider trading

Re:Is Apple Serious?

[ucblockhead]

Saying "Hey, can you tell me what Apple's working on!" to an Apple employee is not "industrial espionage" just because he decides to tell you.

Re:Waitaminute...

[FireBreathingDog]

Let me get this straight... Microsoft prematurely releases details of their products and grabs marketshare as a result. Apple sues everyone who talks about their products before the official unveiling. I've been a Machead for over ten years, but I think Apple could learn something from the boys in Redmond on this one.

Whether pre-announcing a product is to a company's advantage largely depends on that company's position in the marketplace. Microsoft now pre-announces products because doing so tends to "freeze the market", because companies will often hold off on buying an existing third-party product that Microsoft will be shipping "real soon now". Microsoft often uses pre-announcements as a form of FUD to solidify their market position.

A company in Apple's position has a different calculation to make. Certain pre-announcements are just going to tell companies with greater resources (like Microsoft) what innovations they should start copying.

Companies that aren't the market leader will often play their cards close to the vest, just so their bigger competitors don't figure out a strategy to beat their hand. When Microsoft was a small shop, they weren't crowing from the rooftops about Windows 1.0 months before it was released. It wouldn't have been to their advantage, because they didn't have the dominance they do now. Things have changed.