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3 Foxconn Employees Charged For Leaking iPad 2 Design
syngularyx writes "Three employees from Taiwan-based Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China, have been charged with leaking the iPad 2's design to outside accessory companies in China, according to a Chinese-language sznews.com report. Several online shopping retailers in China were able to sell iPad 2 protective case products before the iPad 2 was even launched, leading Foxconn to suspect that there might have been some employees leaking the design of iPad 2, which it reported to the local police."
there was a foxconn employee who lost a prototype or something .
he told several people that he was tortured.
he later committed suicide.
of course, if he had been on facebook and 'bullied', his case would be on Oprah and celebrities would be filming bizarre public service ads about 'how to stop bullying'.
but since he was just another replacable chinese worker, instead his case gets shouted down by mac fanboys who try to minimize what Steve Jobs and Foxconn are complicit in - Dickensian working conditions in a repressive police state.
'Leaking' is a bullshit phrase used to invent 'spies' when most 'leaked' information is either leaked by accident, incompetence, or higher up managers who are being payed. Every fucking case of espionage it works like this, from Aldrich Ames (ten+ years of spying, but he was a high up official so nobody got him until some old ladies at CIA decided to go after him) to Wen Ho Lee ( a low level nuclear weapons simulation programmer who was accused of 'espionage' for backing up his programs to tape... his persecution turned out to be entirely motivated by politics and the media cycle in washington, and had nothing to do with him ever leaking anything)
its all fucking PR, bullshit, and lies. do not fucking drink the fucking koolaid.
you are a free human being, and you have natural rights. one of them is to talk. another is to be free from inane prosecutions by incompetent bureaucrats and clueless officials. by drumming this idea into your head that 'leaking' is a 'crime', they are trying to destroy free speech by brainwashing you into thinking it doesnt really exist. it does exist. its as free as the air and as free as the mind god gave you.
A few months ago, China threw a girl in a labor camp for being sarcastic on twitter. BEfore that, they threw a guy in prison because he ran a website about the poisoned baby-milk scandal. Recently they have thrown artists and others in prison for similar bullshit reasons.
This is the system that is trying to make you believe that 'leaking' is a 'serious crime'.
the only thing criminal here are the systems themselves, and the nooses they keep tightening around the necks of humanity.
...three new financiers will be receiving heart transplants!
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I think that we now know where Steve's next donor organ will be coming from...
Sony sued Geohot - one of the claims was that he clicked 'accept' to a PSN user agreement. somehow they claim that is a contract. its total nonsense becasue 1, he claimed he never clicked it and 2. EULAs are not contracts nor should they be considered when they are 100 pages long and nobody can understand them.
again, they are trying to brainwash humanity into thinking that ordinary human behavior is a crime.
and if you think the law is fair on this, try going after some gigantic company that breaks its contract with you.
oh wait, AT&T just got a supreme court ruling that says that .... class action lawsuits can't occur anymore if you 'agree' to the 'contract' where it says you have to accept binding arbitration.
congratulations, your legal rights are being stripped away one by one by megacorporations. pretty soon you wont be able to eat, drink, or shit without signing a fucking 100 page contract where you agree that you have no rights anymore.
Dear /.
Is there a way to report fucktards who want to turn /. into a nanny-state, thin skinned, politically correct retard bin?
I find the goatse stuff as distasteful as the next... and a lot more than some I'm sure. But I would rather have those moderated below my threshold than see a nanny site.
maybe leaks are occuring at the same rate they always have.
maybe what has changed is that government and corporations are trying to criminalize more behavior.
evidence: Obama has prosecuted more non-spy 'espionage' cases than the last dozen or so presidents put together.
Obama: Drake, Kim, Sterling, Leibowitz, and Manning
BushII: Ford, Franklin, Rosen, Weissman
Clinton: Lee
Bush I: none???
Reagan: Morison
Carter: none???
Ford: none?
Nixon: Russo / Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) ...
I'm not as knowledgable about corporations. Im sure someone can fill us in. From DvdJon to George Hotz
China has a history of putting people on the block for pissing off foreigners. They'll give the death sentence to corporation heads or government officials who are involved with safety issues (tainted milk, tainted toys) for doing what everyone else is doing. So, did they actually find the three people responsible? Did they force or coerce confessions for the purpose of demonstrating that they always get their man in order to keep Apple happy?
Not that I'm sure they didn't get the right people, but the story had no details, and there's been nothing showing any details, which is how they would handle it if they didn't know who did what, but wanted to serve up some patsies.
Learn to love Alaska
I'm not sure that the basement of the police station is "public"; but I suspect that at least one of the electrodes clipped to their genitalia is, in fact, positive...
Failure to adhere up to the terms of a contract can be a crime in certain jurisdictions.
Economic crimes should not be tolerated just because no one gets physically hurt.
Welcome to Asia, where economic crimes aren't just tolerated, they're encouraged.
My money is on nothing of note happening to this guy. He might get fired, in which case he'll just get a new job at the factory down the street. Police wont charge him because he's go no money (for "tea money").
The true economic crimes such as the harsh conditions products are made in are also ignored.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It may be far better for the governments to put more state funding into finding rare earth alternatives to break the Chinese monopoly on manufacturing/production. Cheap labour can be had even from India and other countries, where at least government is not itself on the IP theft scam.
That's so Apple. A case designer needs some basic info about the outside dimensions, like height, width, thickness, and corner radius. Maybe a bit of info about areas that need to to be uncovered for connector or button access. Only Apple would consider those to be significant trade secrets. Especially since this is Model #2 of the product, which is probably going to be a lot like Model #1.
So, what is your solution for Apple's dilemma? They're trying to release their product, and not be ripped to pieces by cheap chinese knockoffs from companies who never had to eat the costs of design and R&D. Should the government subsidise them for their losses? Should they just refrain from releasing hardware in the future? Should we allow people to voluntarily enter into contracts to not talk about certain aspects of their working life? Without some actual solution to the problems that arose to present this situation, you might as well argue that time travel is a moral imperitive; you may make a pursuasive argument, but the argument itself will produce no positive change, and the argument is practically worthless.
Also, on a more personal note, I find arguments like this leave a very unpleasant taste in my mouth. It seems that the source of pursuasion comes not from demonstration that your position is right (or that their position is wrong), but from making people feel uncomfortable for believing the opposing side. If I believe that leaking private secrets is immoral, you are trying to implant the idea that this is because I have been brainwashed by companies, thus making me feel stupid or used for that belief, instead of convincing me that the belief is wrong. Who knows? Perhaps this idea that companies are implanting in our minds is 100% correct? Nothing in your argument addresses this, rather it preys off the ad hominem fallacy: that if someone as bad as corporations want us to believe it to be true, then it must be false.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Aren't the conditions less harsh then the employees' alternatives? Would you rather them go do something else?
That's a very bad and obvious strawman, even for an AC.
It frames the argument by presenting a binary choice that is not explained. You _must_ choose between something bad or something unknown that is _worse_.
What this ignores is that there are more options, such as fair pay and conditions. However this would cause prices to rise which is why people dont like it and dismiss it as an option. A binary choice is bad as it deflects attention away from choices you find uncomfortable but may actually be better as well as alternatives you haven't thought of.
I once was asked this by a Philipina girl.
"why are Kano [American] rich and Pinoy [Philipino] poor?"
The best answer I could think of was education. I responded.
ME "how many years of school did you finish?"
HER "I didn't go to school, too expensive"
ME "who taught you to read and write"
HER "My Uncle"
Education in general is not as bad as this in the Philipines, this girl was from Samar, the poorest province of Luzon but it's nowhere near the 12 years we get at practically no cost in the west. BTW, I'm Australian not American, Kano (Americano) has just evolved into a name for all us whities.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
What this ignores is that there are more options, such as fair pay and conditions. However this would cause prices to rise which is why people dont like it and dismiss it as an option.
You know what is a REALLY bad strawman? To put up an alternate reality that is not possible and claim it is a "choice" that is being ignored.
Lets say magically you convinced a company to pay workers at a chinese assembly plant the same wages they would get in the U.S. Who would hire that plant? You have all of the downsides of interacting with people very far away, and for the same cost you could just build the thing at home.
So you mythical company with full pay has no customers, and goes out of business. The people with supposedly "fair pay and conditions" instead find there is no job at all.
From there you have to start sliding backwards away from "fair pay and conditions" to meet reality. The reality that you ignore that for China, the amount people working at places like Foxconn get IS "fair pay and conditions", because in fact the other choices they have are far worse. By trying to raise either side of that equation you drive companies to other parts of the world and instead of helping, you are putting people out of work. Other people have noted elsewhere that the supposed suicide factory of Foxconn has a lower percentage rate of suicide than the U.S., something which should be making you re-think assumptions about what is fair, what is a good rate of pay, and how exactly you help people without screwing them over.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're using the same logical fallacy as the AC. Except it's even less thought out.
You're preventing other options from existing in your example by means of using loaded language. What happens if China begins a push towards workers rights. Europe as a whole did this in about 50 years. China wont even need a revolution, all they need is for the idea to be popular in government. In fact they've already planned for it, why do you think the Chines have such an interest in East African politics?
You're using the same argument that there can only be one outcome and all other options must be blanked out.
Now this is just a justification to help yourself with the decision you've already made.
This is a fallacious argument designed to alleviate yourself of guilt. Bad things are justified because a potential alternative is worse, the problem with this thinking is that you've had to deny the possibility of other options in order to accomplish this.
There are alternatives, you simply don't want to accept them because it would require you giving up or admitting something you don't want to..
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have all got a modicum of labour rights with the ability to produce cheap stuff. Taiwan and Japan will actually hold a company to account over serious problems.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Nice elitest attitude. In effect, what you've said is, "It's alright to ship away laborer's jobs, and give them to Chinese who work cheaply. But, I can't believe that our companies are giving away the stuff that us intellectual snobs have slaved over! It's unfair, I tell you!"
You, who have no compassion for the average working Joe on the street, deserve to lose your precious Intellectual Property. I'll dance with glee when the day comes that you can't make a mortgage payment, and the bank decides to make you homeless.
"Intellectual property" my ass.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Property ownership is a social construction, ownership of fiat money doubly so.
He has all that money because society has granted him the privilege as reward for whatever he is supposed to have done to benefit society. If society considers the reward excessive, it will take some of it away - or simply stop protecting him.
If you don't like this, you can live in an alternative reality where humans are slaves who have no choice but to live by your principles - principles which seem to be based on the childish notion that any man who objects to the super-rich, especially the super-rich who got their break selling to government, is simply "an envious whiner". Until then, stop preaching and start accepting a world where society reflects the will of a sufficiently numerous and powerful group, and the best we can do is stop any single subset of special interests getting too powerful.
Well for one it is about as retarded as it gets to expect to beat trolling. The trollers will troll you with reports. For another, exactly what is the ISP supposed to do? "Oh, you bothered some people on the internet, better disconnect you!" that's stupid and censorship and really fucking stupid. To the max.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
The reward isn't given by society at large, its given by individuals within society, then others in society come swooping in that had nothing to do with the reward and have no way to know why such an amount was given, and take some as their own. You can live in your fantasy world where the work of others and deals between two people are subject to review by others based on how much one party gave another, but the rest of us will continue to be decent people, unenvious of those who have more because we realize money isn't everything. Oh, by the way we all got together and decided your wife was too hot for you, so we gang banged her.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
I've never really got that. Wouldn't it be better for them if they made shit for themselves?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Exactly. Moderation works to remove the goatse trolls while making it at least somewhat difficult (through meta moderation) to silence people you want to say are "trolling" because they have differing views.
A report function would also require a human being to examine a post and see if it's worth removing which, again, would lead to situations where someone simply expressing an unpopular belief could be silenced.
If people want a forum where there are some rules of conduct enforced from on high, there are plenty of them. For all the flaws in the /, mod system, I'd much rather trust in the community than some underpaid, overworked misanthrope who comes to hate humanity because his or her entire job is wading through toxic posts and determining their relative merits.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
You arbitrarily say that she can have sex with whoever she likes,
I didn't say that at all. Re-read to find out what I actually said.
I say rape is bad even if society condones it.
That's fine, but it's society's general opinion on rape which counts. And you're onto a winner with this one.
I also think that deciding a trade of one resource (money) for another (a good or service) is a right,
But with this one you're pretty much in a minority. Very few societies regard unrestricted trade as a "right". More fundamentally, few societies agree with the assumption you're making: that you have a right to exclusive control of the money / the good / the service in first place. Society gave you so much to allow you to get to the point of making the trade and is offering you protection while you perform the trade; it will protect your enjoyment after the trade. You will be allowed some benefit from the trade if you trade well because your actions benefit society, but any "right" is reserved to society for its own good.
you can not defend looking at somebody's reward, deciding it is too much, and taking the rest. That line of thinking is dangerously stupid and selfish and smacks of jealousy.
If society decided that it made a mistake then it is able to correct its mistakes and should do so. It would be dangerously stupid to not correct its mistakes out of some pathological stubbornness.
Also, please look up "envy" and "jealousy". The libertarian idiots who like to argue along your lines rarely know the meaning of the words they employ.
Hordes of stupid people of a specific school of thought (such as creationists, racists, birthers, and fascists) do not become right when they have enough numbers.
We're not discussing disputes over facts which can be determined by some scientific method. We're discussing how rights, being temporary privileges protected through force, are defined. You think that you get to define them. I think that society defines them.
Your fundamental argument of society knows best is complete bullshit and you know it.
"And you know it"? Your rhetorical style is poor and you should stick to presenting your argument.
All progress is based on reversing failures of society at large by a minority of brilliant people.
It sounds like you secretly dream to be a world-renowned titan. A precondition of your fantasy is that you convince yourself of the myth that our progress depends on a few shining lights in an ocean of obscurity. Grow up. All progress by some man depends on the sum of man's achievements before and alongside him, the right environment, and a certain amount of pot luck. Understanding the importance of context (vs quasi-religious superheroes who achieve something out of nothing) is a fundamental principle of any historical analysis.
You're advocating pillaging the brilliant for the benefit of society because society knows best.
Any man who stands out only continues to exist because society allows him to, whether that man stands out because he is particularly talented or because, like you, he goes around impotently condemning everyone as a stupid failure. The fact that you continue to exist while speaking as you do serves to destroy your own argument. And even if you're a coward who only argues like this behind a computer screen, the fact that society has created a system which allows you to express yourself so obnoxiously so anonymously counters your argument.
I bet more than 50% of the people you see are the same people you wouldn't want to be making decisions for you.
They do make decisions which affect me all the time. Even if I didn't want them to, they still would. Same applies to you. What are you trying to say?