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'They'll Squash You Like a Bug': How Silicon Valley Keeps a Lid on Leakers (theguardian.com)

The public image of Silicon Valley's tech giants is all colourful bicycles, ping-pong tables, beanbags and free food, but behind the cartoonish facade is a ruthless code of secrecy. From a report: They rely on a combination of Kool-Aid, digital and physical surveillance, legal threats and restricted stock units to prevent and detect intellectual property theft and other criminal activity. However, those same tools are also used to catch employees and contractors who talk publicly, even if it's about their working conditions, misconduct or cultural challenges within the company. While Apple's culture of secrecy, which includes making employees sign project-specific NDAs and covering unlaunched products with black cloths, has been widely reported, companies such as Google and Facebook have long put the emphasis on internal transparency.

Zuckerberg hosts weekly meetings where he shares details of unreleased new products and strategies in front of thousands of employees. Even junior staff members and contractors can see what other teams are working on by looking at one of many of the groups on the company's internal version of Facebook. "When you first get to Facebook you are shocked at the level of transparency. You are trusted with a lot of stuff you don't need access to," said Evans, adding that during his induction he was warned not to look at ex-partners' Facebook accounts.

13 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Don't $hit where you eat by known_coward_69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your employer is paying you for a service. Don't help the competition and screw up their business. Don't blab about your employer on social media or anywhere else.

    If you're too stupid to realize that, you'll have a hard time at life

    1. Re:Don't $hit where you eat by Rakarra · · Score: 4, Informative

      Your employer is paying you for a service. Don't help the competition and screw up their business. Don't blab about your employer on social media or anywhere else.

      I learned pretty quickly: I like my job. I want my company to do well, and I want to do well as well. I have no social need to appear 'cool' on the Internet; I'm not that weak. Others do not need to know what products my company is launching. They don't.

  2. Yes, it's called "professionalism" by enjar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am privy to new features, bugs, big initiatives/deliverables, ship dates, financial data, methodologies, long term vision, etc at my company. Management is very clear this kind of stuff is confidential until the official software is released, or should never be released since it is considered proprietary, confidential, or may slip a release if the project doesn't work out for some reason. It happens. We do share certain information with partners, big customers, etc, but all under NDA and with similar disclaimers (e.g. "this is planned for this release but it is never guaranteed").

    If I decided to blab this stuff somehow I would 100% expect to be fired if I was found out. I can read and comprehend the "CONFIDENTIAL -- DO NOT RELEASE" thing that's on all documents and presentations like this.

    1. Re:Yes, it's called "professionalism" by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

      Although this is obviously the way the world works, I would point out it both a) leaves us open to insider trading and b) distorts the free market via incomplete information among consumers.

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    2. Re:Yes, it's called "professionalism" by known_coward_69 · · Score: 2

      I work for a financial company. We're not allowed to trade without getting permission and we have to specify the stock I'm buying. Company shares I can't buy except for special periods during the year, only with permission and I have to hold them a minimum of 6 months or something similar.

      My employer has access to my broker account and knows about any trade within a day or less so it's not like I can buy a stock and keep it secret. If I don't report a broker account, my employer will find out anyway because all the brokers report to the same system for this stuff.

  3. Re:And the thug see her getting her gun... by Aighearach · · Score: 2

    If it was a CDC study, you'd link to the CDC. It says right in your link that what actually happened was that the CDC contributed funding to study problems related to gun violence, and the thing you're linking to is a policy paper that outlines objectives of the people who received that funding.

    Notice the bait-and-switch?

    Yes, the CDC has spent money to study gun violence. Yes, the people who wrote that policy paper received some of that money. No, that does not mean that the CDC supports their agenda, and no it does not imply that the things those people hope to prove were already proved by the CDC. LOL

  4. Fecebook is full of feces... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

    At the end of the day, Facebook is an ad-supported self-publishing platform, nothing more or less in the end. Whether news about a new feature comes out today or in two weeks isn't going to make or break their business model. The witch-hunting smells of inflated senses of self-importance.

    Random car and personal searches? Access to personal email and phone calls written into contracts? We're not talking about Los Alamos in the 1940s, where they designed weapons capable of killing millions, yet security is on that level. Why? Inflated egos of management of a company that thinks it's more important to the world than it actually is.

    Remember MySpace? AOL? No? Good. That's where FB will be in 15 years.

  5. Re:SJWs are the Worst by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    CA where they let illegals off for murdering citizens.

  6. Re:SJWs are the Worst by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You know what happens to people who carry knives?

    They get shot.

  7. Re:And the thug see her getting her gun... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The NAP is the National Academies Press, and is the US Government official publication arm for things like the CDC, the National Academy of Sciences, Medicine, and the like. The study presented stems from President Obama's 2013 executive order that the CDC and related Government agencies study causes for gun violence and devise strategies to minimize it. The research shows that for every violent use of a firearm, there are approximately 5+ uses for defensive purposes.

    --
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  8. Re:SJWs are the Worst by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

    If she used a gun to defend against a fist fight, that's called murder and she'll go to prison.

    Probably not, as long as she can show she had definite fear of loss of her life. After all, a single punch can kill. If she's 110 pounds, and up against someone much larger than her, then use of a firearm will NOT be murder at all, but a reasonable means of self-defense.

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  9. Re:As opposed to companies outside of SV? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And what if the leak -- as has so often happened -- involves some kind of malpractice or malfeasance or blatant discrimination or other prohibited practice?

    This discussion seems to be omitting those cases, but as we have learned, they are all too common.

    In fact, there is a lot of information coming out now suggesting that corruption in silicon valley and social media has become what one might call "rampant".

  10. No not really by aepervius · · Score: 2

    All of it is mostly based on self reporting and anecdote.The problem is that there is no clear definition and evidence for DGU - depending on how you count them (some guy in the street speak to you, you show your concealed firearm, they go away, was it because it was a banger and he wanted to rob you or was it a fine citizen shocked and afraid you showed your weapon so freely ? Some study count this as DGU because they rely on the gun owner chosing option 1. Other do not as it can clearly be option 2). All in all if you limit to what is evidenceable you get around 80K DGU per year. And comapred to gun murder alone this may be a bit bigger, but comapred to gun violence (which include being threatened with a gun to get robbed) this is a DROP in the sea. And while DGU do indeed exists , it is pretty clear they are a side effect of having so much firearm, the same proxy with murder. Lower the firearm reach ability, this lower the DGU and lower the incident and murder. There is a reason dis-arming worked in some countries and it showed to be effective.

    Now you may have a Philosophical reason to have gun so readily available, that is fine, but DGU is not a good reason, you are only contributing to the problem. The solution is to lower availability and lower frequency of shooting versus reload for civilian weapon. I have hunted, and even for boar hunting we never had a 15 or even 30 rounds magazine - it was all manually reloaded either 2 sided chevrotine riffle (think shotgun) or bolt loaded. Semi auto and machine gun are for war, not for hunt. IMO basically all civilian weapon should be manual type and have at most 2 or 3 for riffle, and at most 6 for guns, no semi auto allowed. If you need more than that for *normal* usage you are doing it wrong - as a society.

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