Hackers Hit Apple Supplier Foxconn

wiredmikey writes "Protests against Apple and Foxconn due to furor over reports about working conditions have gone digital. A group known as SwaggSec has successfully hacked computers at Foxconn, and posted the stolen data to The Pirate Bay website. News of the hack comes as protesters paid a visit today to Apple stores around the world to deliver petitions demanding the improvement of working conditions at factories run by Apple suppliers in China and other countries. In response to the attack, Foxconn reportedly took down a website that explains the services it offers to some of its partners, including Apple, Cisco and Acer."

Comments

Re:Apple and Foxconn

[QuasiSteve]

You sound an awful lot like David Pogue.

Which means that for karmawhoring, people should just copy/paste the comments to his blog at the NY Times, explaining why people target Apple.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/the-dilemma-of-cheap-electronics/

In summary: Because Apple has the most exposure. It's kind of like if John Doe, Jane Smith and Lady Gaga shopped at a clothing store whose clothes come from sweatshops, and complaining that everybody is focusing on Lady Gaga. Whether or not that is actually more productive than if they treated all of the players equally in these matters is another discussion, albeit a predictable one.

That didn't take long

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering how long it would take the Apptards to come out and defend Apple from being held to reasonable workplace standards. The answer: the first post.

Congrats, bonch, you're king Apptard. Wait, I recognize that name. You really are an Apptard. You really should get your head out of Job's ass, there's no way that's healthy.

But you already know why Apple gets targeted:

They're the largest Foxconn customer, and therefore have the most power to improve things. And they constantly refuse to, instead saying that the ability to wake workers up in the middle of the night to send them to the production lines is one of the "main benefits" of working with China.

But, go ahead, claim that it's just mindless Apple hate, not the very really fact that Apple is the largest customer and the fact that they constantly refuse to do anything to improve their worker's lives.

Re:Apple and Foxconn

[causality]

Labor Activist Li Qiang wants you to know that the iPhone 4 in his pocket is not an endorsement of Apple’s policies, just an acknowledgement that the company is doing a better job of monitoring factory conditions than its peers.

It is absolutely an endorsement. These issues are so much easier if we can get past this kind of "not really my fault!" double-talk.

I'll give a probably terrible analogy. Maybe you didn't intend to stub your toe. If anyone had asked, you would have said that your intend was to avoid the obstacle on the floor and not to stub your toe on it. You meant well; good enough. But you did stub your toe and you can try arguing with your toe that it wasn't your intention, but it's not going to instantly remove the pain.

Folks, whether you really intend it, or whether your ability to understand cause-and-effect ends only with "I want this thing so I'm buying it" and your vision extends no further, I can tell you one truth: anytime you patronize a business, you are implicitly endorsing and approving of its products, business practices, policies, and staff. Buying their products and/or services is your way of telling them that what they're doing is great and that they deserve to be rewarded for it. It's a more powerful statement than any letter you could write or phone call you could make.

Of course most people don't care and can't be bothered to care. This labor activist, however, is placing himself in the group who do care. That's why he's contradicting himself (or not being fully honest) by saying "it's not an endorsement". The whole "everyone else is doing it" or "others are worse" is the kind of excuse grade-schoolers are told is not valid. If you really had a problem with the business practices of all smartphone manufacturers, you would get a feature phone. Li Qiang's statement there is simply lip service designed to be as inoffensive as possible.

Re:Apple and Foxconn

[stephanruby]

That's dangerous. Why do better if you're going to be taking heat for it anyway ?

Bribing an activist with an iPhone 4, or beating up a worker to control the news, is hardly what I'd call "do[ing] better".

Re:Apple gets singled out

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I remember. I had a friend in high school whose favorite phrase was "really? It just works on a Mac!" We all wanted to flick him on the back of the head. That might have happened, too, if he hadn't gone and gotten a hot girlfriend while we were busy trying to figure out how not to be Bud Bundy.

I don't give a shit about the bashing. I'm just sick of the posing. "Oh, well, Apple should be the ones to fix this because some guy with a fashionable haircut scoffed at my phone."

Meanwhile there was a story about how Foxconn workers that assemble XBOX 360's threatened a mass suicide if conditions didn't improve. This story did not make it to Slashdot. If it had, then not only would the problem there get more air-time, but hey we could give Microsoft a black eye too, right? Nah, smartphone OS's are fashionable right now.

Apple fans are obnoxious people, that doesn't excuse Foxconn or even China for things working that way.