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Apple Lawyering Up On "Fake Steve Jobs"
An anonymous reader sends us to The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs for a developing situation. Daniel Lyons, a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs, made a post earlier today revealing that Apple was offering him some money (in the wake of the ThinkSecret shutdown) to close down his blog. He said he was interested in taking it. A few hours later, Lyons posted again revealing that Apple's lawyers had contacted him angrily, saying the details of the deal were supposed to remain private. Fake Steve replied 'we either deal out in the open, completely transparently, or we don't deal.' A third post gives details of Apple's lawyers' next response, going totally medieval on him. Since then the situation has calmed down a bit.
Aren't US Banks and financial institutions legally obligated to protect your private information such as the terms of your mortgage and the details of your bank and investment accounts?
I agree. Apple sells popular products. The idea that they're somehow a better corporate citizen than any other, simply because they're popular, is sort of naive. That Apple has attack lawyers on staff, and is more than willing to use them, is readily apparent.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
It's well known that all mail to sjobs@apple.com is handled by a team of secretaries and few messages sent there are ever read by Steve. I have written one or two emails there myself expressing my opinion on certain Apple policies at times and have gotten responses as well. The responses are signed Steve but they are most likely not from him.
Apparently, the guy tried to contact EFF and was turned down (see bottom of the link) because the EFF didn't like some of his posts.
Assuming that this is true, this doesn't shed too good a light on the EFF. Isn't the EFF supposed to help bloggers that are being attacked by large corporations, regardless of what is posted on the blog and, in particular, of whether the person likes the EFF? At least, isn't that what people who donate to the EFF expect it to do?
It's well known that all mail to sjobs@apple.com is handled by a team of secretaries and few messages sent there are ever read by Steve.
You are mistaken. Steve reads his mail, and has been known to rebuke Apple VPs who don't. It's Bill Gates who has the team of flacks to filter his mail for him.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I've written to him on several occasions over the years, before, during, and after the time that I worked at Apple. To date, I've gotten replies from him on four occasions, including his message tonight regarding this joke by FSJ.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Relatively recently?
I remember back in the System 7/8 days when in a 0.0.x update they modified the CD-ROM driver to no longer work with non-apple CD ROM drives. All you had to do to "fix" it was go open the driver in ResEdit and change two bytes, but still.
Apple has always been about proprietary, closed in, locked down platforms. They've generally wanted to be Microsoft, but control the hardware too. None of this is new---nor should it be surprising.
Fake Steve Jobs? That's not the only thing he's faked being...
How about fake journalist? Fake analyst? Fake intellectual?
The guy is firmly attached to the corporate teat, and things like
Linux scare him to death, because he can't figure out how to make
money on it. When Fake SCO came along, he started spouting anti-Linux
vitriol at every turn; here's just a sample;
"In other words, like many religious folk, the Linux-loving crunchies
in the open-source movement are a) convinced of their own
righteousness, and b) sure the whole world, including judges, will
agree."
http://www.forbes.com/2003/06/18/cz_dl_0618linux_print.html
Of course, when it turned out we Linux supporters had it right all
along, Dan jumped off of the SCO bandwagon while it was hurtling
downhill at warp speed, and he nearly broke both of his ankles in the
process. His "apology" basically blamed Darl McBride, saying all Dan
did was repeat what Darl and company told him. Excuse me? You're
trying to pawn yourself off as a journalist, yet you take the word of
a litigious, all hat, no cattle wannabe cowboy, and then fail to
research the whole story?
If anything, Dan Lyons is an even worse shill than Rob Enderle - at
least Rob has the decency to reply to people directly, as he has done
with me on several occasions; Dan is too chickenshit to admit he was
wrong, on his own accord.
(I'd bring up the poor quality of his "blook" here, but that would
mean I'd have to detail all of the material he blatantly stole from
the regulars of the Yahoo SCOX message board, which I don't have the
time for right now; I will say that when you read the material there,
you've gotten exactly what you paid for; I don't see how Dan can live
with himself for trying to *charge* for it in print!) -saltydogmn on
Yahoo SCOX
P.S. Dan, if you're reading this, make sure to have Darl send me my $699/cpu invoice for running Linux on my computers; I have 3 of them, including this IBM laptop; 2 running Kubuntu, and 1 Xubuntu. Where should I send the check, and, more importantly, WHY? kthxbye
It was all fun and games until he started flat-out lying about Apple and the EFF (just like he'd already flat-out lied about SCO and Linux). I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find either of them really suing them now, say for libel and defamation of character. Way to go, dumbass.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?