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Apple Security Chief Steps Down After iPhone Gaffe
Trailrunner7 writes "Apple's vice president of global security has reportedly stepped down, roughly two months after the surfacing of news reports that an iPhone prototype had gone missing for the second time in less than two years. John Theriault, who came to Apple from Pfizer and was a former FBI agent, has retired in the wake of controversy regarding the device's disappearance and the subsequent efforts to track it down. Apple did not return a request for comment. Nevertheless, Theriault's departure follows a public relations dustup that began when an Apple employee left the prototype at a bar in San Francisco."
Hardly his fault.
he should have used Find my iPhone.
Kudos to him for taking responsibility, but:
The one iPhone was lost at a bar.
Is he saying that he should have had 2 security men following each Apple employee around during work and outside of work?
I'm sure there was more than one person working on the next version of the iPhone at that point.
And security can promulgate all the edicts they want, but people who "have work to do" either have them overturned or find a way a around them.
Seriously, what more could he have done short of implementing a police state?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
resigned to spend more time with his lawyers
He left the phone in a bar! Big mistake.
... on "leaking" things to the world by leaving prototypes (or pre-release models) in bars and then stirring up an immense media circus.
See? This is why I went with PC and Windows 7.
So he went back to being an FBI agent?
Oh, this is rich. I think they mean, their head of MARKETING stepped down as a blatant MARKETING PLOY to sell more iPhones after his wildly successful STEALTH MARKETING campaign involving fake engineers accidentally-on-purpose forgetting their MARKETING iPhones in MARKETING bars. Well done, sir, well done.
To my knowledge, at least 4 of the 4S's were lost.
In addition, I know it took Apple security days to get back to the reporting person when they reported the phone lost immediately after the loss was noted.
Apple has also been pretty arbitrary on whether or not it fires someone who loses a prototype. My expectation is that there is the strong possibility that if one of the people who was fired for the same thing another employee wasn't fired over, and the only difference was how fast Apple security reacted, they'd have a good case for wrongful termination (yes, this is a hint; you know who you are). I'm afraid I'm a little more cynical than that, and I think that the other correlating factor, how close were the persons RSUs to vesting, probably played a factor in the firings I know about.
Ever since Steve's decline started, it's left all the former Sun middle managers they've hired driving the bus, and the likely destination is the same place Sun ended up in their bus. If their increasingly draconian employee policies don't cause their talent to flee, then Tim Cook's statement that they had "3 years worth of Steve's Ideas" should, since that clock started ticking about one and a half years ago.
-AC
I would love to have Dial-A-SWAT at my disposal for losing a single cell phone like Apple does.
Good joke
They let this guy "step down". They should have fired his ass -- out of a cannon if necessary -- the day the news broke of his illegal involvement.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
stop makeing them in china so bribing people will need more then just paying some one 10K-20K.
That is where some of apple leak have came from.
The cop union is going to be pissed.
Have gnu, will travel.
Nothing quite like allowing your employees to learn and grow, and to support them in the process. Thought, now that Jobs is finally gone, things might change.
Nope. Just another corporation.
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The real reason he resigned was that he let China steal 22 complete Apple "Stoers", including employees and no one noticed.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I would love to have Dial-A-SWAT at my disposal for losing a single cell phone like Apple does.
Yeah? Well, here's how you do it:
Okay, once you reach this point, you'll get the 'Dial-A-Swat' service from virtually any city your HQ is in. You're free to lose your phone, then. There are other ways, too, but they all involve that phone being worth millions of dollars.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
So fucking what? My phone is worth more to me then Apples phone is to 'it", because I am a PERSON, a human being. NOT some multinational corporation that has to catch their suicidal 'employees' in nets! But go ahead suck that rich ass, maybe they''ll let you eat at their trough.
So fucking what? My phone is worth more to me then Apples phone is to 'it"...
No, it is not.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
We only have the word of the guy who "found" the phone (and then denied any knowledge of it when that was obviously not the truth) that these guys claimed to be cops.
Certainly the Apple Recovery Team was aggressive and intimidating, but there is really no trustworthy evidence they broke the law.
On the other hand we have a guy who "found" an expensive iPhone at a bar, took it home, failed to do anything to find the owner, and then disposed of it when it looked like the authorities were closing in. Not really the actions of someone who's words I would take at face value.
You'll note that this guy did NOT "lawyer up" and sue Apple for whatever it is the Apple Thugs did. Why do you suppose that is?
And, by the way, where is the phone NOW?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I think this has more to do with the Lululemon murder verdict on wednesday than the iPhone 4.
Summary: Self-absorbed Apple store employees ignore screams from a neighboring store where a girl was being murdered: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/whats-scarier-the-slaying-or-the-bystanders-who-heard-and-did-nothing/2011/10/31/gIQA9y2tZM_story.html
There's probably a massive lawsuit coming Apple's way about this.
It's not like it would be all over TV or the papers (never mind that, someone's knocking on the door)
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
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Why don't we have it?
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
I know it's bad form to actually read TFA, but seriously folks... it's a link to a threatpost article that itself links to fucking apple insider, a rumor blog that is well known for outright making shit up.
the official reason for Theriault's departure is that he's retiring. maybe that's not true, maybe it's really because of the hoopla over the police officer thing, but either way quoting apple insider is like quoting the weekly world news. let's wait until somebody with actual information makes a statement.
oh wait, this is slashdot, where people jump on the "bash apple" and "bash ms" wagons at the drop of a hat. nevermind, proceed as usual.
Now I'm assuming ... they really thought the best way to do that was send hired goons to the dude's house.
That is an assumption, and it may be true or not true, we don't know. However, it is a _fact_ that you now make this assumption, which isn't favorable for Apple. And as the chief of Apple's security, you have to try to act in a way so that people don't make that kind of assumption.
Scott Forstall was the guy who convinced Jobs to let his engineers walk around with iPhone prototypes, and he just got a million-share carrot to stay with Apple until 2016.
Excellent. All we need to do is be really ridiculously rich (also become a nonhuman person) and our problems become much more important!
Excellent. All we need to do is be successful in making cell phones, thus our prototype phone becomes worth millions instead of a couple of hundred, then it's suddenly much more important!
FTFY. Seriously why does Apple hate have such a negative impact on IQs?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I am sure everyone at Apple knows what happens when devices are lost. (I know people who work or worked there and we do not hear about all the lost devices or the subsequent firings, its much more frequent than you see in the news). If I worked there and had one of these devices I would NEVER take it out of the office. Is it really worth risking your job to be able to use your cool new gadget that only a few hundred people can play with? Not to me. Their policies are crazy strict. Unless your specific job requires constant out of the office testing why would you risk your highly desirable job to give free extra testing? The risk/reward is just not there.