While I absolutly agree that this is of dubious news value in the YRO category, there is one point. The choice of laws that they are going to prosecute him under.
from the article:
Serebryany was charged under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, a law so powerful that until March 2002 only the most senior Justice Department officials in Washington could authorize prosecutors to wield it. Only about 35 criminal cases have been filed under the law.
It prohibits anyone from disclosing trade secrets for economic benefit, and carries penalties in this case up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Although investigators acknowledge that Serebryany apparently didn't profit from the disclosures, the law bars giving away secrets for anyone else's economic benefit.
It depends on who he gave it to. Some Canadian vendors sold kits for the old H cards. If I remember correctly these went for about $150US each. There had to be some profit in that. I've also heard that those same systems could be used with the HU cards. Hence DirecTV distributes the P4 cards.
Good grief, it says right in the article that he worked for a lawfirm that handled DirectTV legal issues. He had access to these documents because of his job.
The only issue is which law he was arrested for breaking. It is the toughest of such laws and is meant for people that take these actions with the intention of monetary benefit. He didn't benefit monetarily. However, the law apparently also says that you can't give trade secrets to anyone else that will benefit from them monetarily either. So there is the assumption that he gave it to people that will use it for monetary benefit.
He broke a law and deserves to be arrested. Did they choose the right law? That's for a jury to decide.
Very true. I didn't mention those things simply because this was the closest I could find and left the rest up to the reader. The PowerBook really is top of the line and best of the barrel if you look at all of the features they pack into that tight little bundle.
There are quite a few laptops offering the Mobility Radeon 9000 now. ATI has list of systems that use it. You can get a Dell Inspirion 8200 etc. Of course you are going to be getting a bigger, heavier laptop if you go with one of the PC vendors.
Also of note, and I pointed this out in another comment. The Alienware Area51-M doesn't use a mobile processor which is of debateable value in a laptop.
Oh, I forgot to link to the P4 3.6Ghz benchmarks done at Toms hardware. This shows a decent example of differances between processors at various Mhz ratings.
By and large, as long as you're comparing similar CPUs, it _is_ that simple. Of course, since PCs have been more than fast enough for 95% of users for a good couple of years now, and the people who really care about performance are smart enough to use applicable benchmarks and not marketing brochures, it's largely irrelevant.
Actually it isn't simple even then. Compare the differances between the AMD K7 series and the Intel P4 series. While they are both X86 they are vastly differant, and MHZ means dick. Sure the Athlon 2600 (2.133Ghz) isn't as fast as the P4 3.6Ghz, but in certain situations the K7 chip does almost as well with a 1.5Ghz differance in speed. This speaks to design being more important than MHZ. You can get more performance out of a chip by boosting the clock, but you can also get more performance out of a chip with better design.
Too bad the Area51-M has a desktop CPU in it and not a mobile P-4.
If you start configuring the systems comparably there is little to no differance in price between the PowerBook G4 and any PC laptops. I've been looking at them over the last several months. The PowerBook also has a few things going for it that are hard to find in other laptops. The Superdrive. I've only found a couple of laptops with DVD-R capabilities, and the one from Sony which was most closly matched to the PowerBook was more expensive at the time. It was also the only laptop other than the PowerBook that at the time took up to 1GB of RAM.
If you are looking for a desktop replacment you have few choices. The powerbook G4 is one, and something like the Sony GRX 600 is another.
What I find more important is size and weight. The powerbook is very slim at 1" thick and weighs in under 6lbs. The sony GRX 600 starts at 8lbs with one battery and is 1.6-1.8" thick.
There are other little differances like 10/100/1000 ethernet rather than 10/100 however that's not that important to most people. There is also the DVI output on the Powerbook and the VGA output on the pc laptops. Again, that won't matter to most people, but there are a growing number of digital displays becoming available so it may matter more in the future.
Re:http://www.linksys.com/splash/wap54g_splash.asp
on
802.11g Hardware Arrives
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The very bottom of any of the Linksys 802.11G pages say in large bold letters.
Available End of December:
You can also see that amazon.com has the Linksys 802.11G products listed with a status of "Not yet released"
Actually, there was a big fuss here in Nevada about the potential to lose federal funds for highway maintenance etc when they raised the speed limits about 7 years ago. As far as I know there are only a very few roads with speed limits at 75mph, there are quite a few at 70mph now though.
When you stated you didn't see what he leaked I believed you meant what type of info, which lead me to believe you hadn't read the article. Sorry bout that.
With many Mac users you could take a piece of crap and put an apple logo on it and they would buy it. That's not the case with most products. When companies have detailed specs, rollout plans, etc; and someone lets slip some of that information you have uninformed customers. Uninformed customers can be bad news for the Company as they make decisions or assumptions about what the release product will be like. This is bad for thier business. In the case of designs it allows competitors to see what is being done. While Apple may not have a huge amount of market share they are a competitor with any PC manufacturer. They aren't the PC manufacturers biggest concern, but they are still competition.
You are correct that we won't have a definate answer on if this person violated a contract or not until the end of the trial, but at this point it certainly appears that way.
I've read the forums and I see posts going both ways. He broke the contract and the court should rule against him, or he shouldn't have been asked to sign such a horrible contract in the first place.
Why shouldn't he be asked to sign a contract like this? Since he did sign the contract why shouldn't Apple enforce it? If we were talking about a non compete that stipulated the individual couldn't work in his field of choice for 6 months or more I think that would be unacceptable, but that isn't what we are talking about. We are talking about a non disclosure. It is reasonable to expect to have to sign a non disclosure agreement when working for any company. I see non disclosures all the time. Any time a piece of pre release hardware comes out and we get to play with it I have to sign a non disclosure agreement. Any time I go visit one of our clients locations I have to sign a non disclosure agreement. The agreement protects the company from any damages that may occur from information getting out before the company is ready for it to. To protect intellectual property until the product is ready for market. This is perfectly reasonable. This person violated whatever contract it is he signed (according to Apple), if Apple doesn't go after him in some way they set an example that it is ok to leak information. It is similar to trademark law. If you don't go after trademark violaters you lose the ability to do so later.
I think companies abuse thier power a lot, and I think they buy laws when it's convenient for them. I don't like it, but I believe it to be true. However, I also believe that companies have a right to protect thier business. If that means attempting to settle with an contract breaker than so be it. That happens all the time. If a settlment can't be reached then I would fully expect to see the company take the issue to court. There is too little information available to know if Apple tried to settle this or not, but at this point I have to believe that takeing the matter to court is the proper way to proceed. The individual broke the rules he agreed to and now he faces the consequences. If he didn't want to abide by the rules he shouldn't have signed the contract. If you don't think companies should ask thier employees to sign these types of contracts then you should stop purchasing just about everything because MOST (not all) companies have NDAs as standard paperwork for all new employees.
It doesn't matter if the information will become public, and commenting without reading the article makes you the ass. He "posted schematics and other details of a new model G4 PowerMac." Now, that information will be public, but releasing that information early can potentially damage sales because your competitors know what you are going to be doing, your customers get partial info etc.
Even if the public will know about it at some point, this was a trade secret and he violated a contract. End of story. Apple aren't being asses, they are protecting themselves as any company would.
This has nothing to do with collaboration or corporate culture, nor should it scare any of Apples employees. If you go to work for any company and you then turn around and violate your contract you shouldn't be surprised in the least when they come after you with thier lawyers. If this was a developer talking about the latest technologies on a public mailing list there is a decent chance Apple wouldn't need to puruse it as such. In this case you have someone providing information that should not have been discussed outside of Apples doors before Apple gave the go ahead.
IMO, if this was Apple going after an employee going after some developer for discussing information in a forum publicly without attempting to hide his identity, and not giving away "trade secrets", then it would be news. This is a corporation following up on the terms of a contract, nothing more.
I don't agree with Apple going after rumor sites, rumors are rumors. However, when an employee, a contractor, or a vendor violates thier contract then said company has the right to go after them. This article is about a contractor under such an agreement providing the rumor sites with "Trade Secrets." Your comment is irrelevant to the topic at hand unless you provide the background information you are referring to. Also, comparing Apples actions to those of the PRC is just as much extremism as those that defend Apples every move regardless of it being good or bad.
When you sign a non disclosure agreement and then disclose information covered by the agreement you have violeted a contract. At that point any company will follow through with legal action against you. Not just Apple or Microsoft. Any company that has trade secrets is going to do what they can to protect them. This isn't apple holding on to brainspace. This is about someone violating the terms of a contract and Apple following through on enforcing it.
I always trade in my EA sports games before they come out and usually get about $15 dollars for them. Trade in a couple of other crappy games that have only recently been released (which happens all the time) and you've got just about enough to cover your latest edition sports game.
and updated AI, defenses, offenses, etc. While I would agree it's odd that people would shell out for almost the same game multiple years in a row, I do see why it makes sense to buy updated versions of the game. There are innovations in those games that can be a draw. The first version of Madden NFL for the PS2 was a big step forward graphically. Madden NFL 2002 didn't offer much. 2003 brought the addition of online play. NBA Live is similar with this years version adding an innovative control mechanism. Improvments every few years are worth picking up, dedicated fans get them all. No differant than fans of a particular author, actor, musician, director, etc.
Something else to consider about games is the trade ins. You can walk into any EB buy a game, walk out and come back and trade it in for a counter credit at any time. Hell, they even take NES games still. So you get some return on investment when you "upgrade" to the latest version.
The nearest competing theatre is 75 miles away ( I think they are still independantly owned, but I'm not 100% sure ). The local populace has already been ripped off by this particular chain, and after a few days of outrage they went right back to typical movie going habits. The truth of the matter is that the average person is too apathetic to care. While one, two, or even fifty people may care enough to boycott the chain or write letters. With no alternative to this chain in the area the majority will continue to use thier services without so much as a complaint. 50 people on the bottom line isn't really that much when you are the only game in town.
Slashdot Mirror
While I absolutly agree that this is of dubious news value in the YRO category, there is one point. The choice of laws that they are going to prosecute him under.
from the article:
Serebryany was charged under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, a law so powerful that until March 2002 only the most senior Justice Department officials in Washington could authorize prosecutors to wield it. Only about 35 criminal cases have been filed under the law.
It prohibits anyone from disclosing trade secrets for economic benefit, and carries penalties in this case up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Although investigators acknowledge that Serebryany apparently didn't profit from the disclosures, the law bars giving away secrets for anyone else's economic benefit.
It depends on who he gave it to. Some Canadian vendors sold kits for the old H cards. If I remember correctly these went for about $150US each. There had to be some profit in that. I've also heard that those same systems could be used with the HU cards. Hence DirecTV distributes the P4 cards.
Good grief, it says right in the article that he worked for a lawfirm that handled DirectTV legal issues. He had access to these documents because of his job.
The only issue is which law he was arrested for breaking. It is the toughest of such laws and is meant for people that take these actions with the intention of monetary benefit. He didn't benefit monetarily. However, the law apparently also says that you can't give trade secrets to anyone else that will benefit from them monetarily either. So there is the assumption that he gave it to people that will use it for monetary benefit.
He broke a law and deserves to be arrested. Did they choose the right law? That's for a jury to decide.
The PRO cards were released first. The lower clock cards 9700, 9500 Pro, 9500 were only recently released. This is old news period.
Very true. I didn't mention those things simply because this was the closest I could find and left the rest up to the reader. The PowerBook really is top of the line and best of the barrel if you look at all of the features they pack into that tight little bundle.
There are quite a few laptops offering the Mobility Radeon 9000 now. ATI has list of systems that use it. You can get a Dell Inspirion 8200 etc. Of course you are going to be getting a bigger, heavier laptop if you go with one of the PC vendors.
Also of note, and I pointed this out in another comment. The Alienware Area51-M doesn't use a mobile processor which is of debateable value in a laptop.
Oh, I forgot to link to the P4 3.6Ghz benchmarks done at Toms hardware. This shows a decent example of differances between processors at various Mhz ratings.
By and large, as long as you're comparing similar CPUs, it _is_ that simple. Of course, since PCs have been more than fast enough for 95% of users for a good couple of years now, and the people who really care about performance are smart enough to use applicable benchmarks and not marketing brochures, it's largely irrelevant.
Actually it isn't simple even then. Compare the differances between the AMD K7 series and the Intel P4 series. While they are both X86 they are vastly differant, and MHZ means dick. Sure the Athlon 2600 (2.133Ghz) isn't as fast as the P4 3.6Ghz, but in certain situations the K7 chip does almost as well with a 1.5Ghz differance in speed. This speaks to design being more important than MHZ. You can get more performance out of a chip by boosting the clock, but you can also get more performance out of a chip with better design.
Too bad the Area51-M has a desktop CPU in it and not a mobile P-4.
If you start configuring the systems comparably there is little to no differance in price between the PowerBook G4 and any PC laptops. I've been looking at them over the last several months. The PowerBook also has a few things going for it that are hard to find in other laptops. The Superdrive. I've only found a couple of laptops with DVD-R capabilities, and the one from Sony which was most closly matched to the PowerBook was more expensive at the time. It was also the only laptop other than the PowerBook that at the time took up to 1GB of RAM.
If you are looking for a desktop replacment you have few choices. The powerbook G4 is one, and something like the Sony GRX 600 is another.
What I find more important is size and weight. The powerbook is very slim at 1" thick and weighs in under 6lbs. The sony GRX 600 starts at 8lbs with one battery and is 1.6-1.8" thick.
There are other little differances like 10/100/1000 ethernet rather than 10/100 however that's not that important to most people. There is also the DVI output on the Powerbook and the VGA output on the pc laptops. Again, that won't matter to most people, but there are a growing number of digital displays becoming available so it may matter more in the future.
The very bottom of any of the Linksys 802.11G pages say in large bold letters.
Available End of December:
You can also see that amazon.com has the Linksys 802.11G products listed with a status of "Not yet released"
Linksys at Amazon
Maybe you should check your facts Troll.
Maybe he submitted the article ;)
The Mustang Ranch is gone, they auctioned everythign that was in it off last week. ( I live in Reno and it was *big* news apparently )
Actually, I picked countries where I have friends and/or family so I'm not really worried about being turned away.
Oh, you mean like the new and improved United States of America?
I swear, I'm gonna move to New Zealand, or Australia, or Canada or something.
Actually, there was a big fuss here in Nevada about the potential to lose federal funds for highway maintenance etc when they raised the speed limits about 7 years ago. As far as I know there are only a very few roads with speed limits at 75mph, there are quite a few at 70mph now though.
When you stated you didn't see what he leaked I believed you meant what type of info, which lead me to believe you hadn't read the article. Sorry bout that.
With many Mac users you could take a piece of crap and put an apple logo on it and they would buy it. That's not the case with most products. When companies have detailed specs, rollout plans, etc; and someone lets slip some of that information you have uninformed customers. Uninformed customers can be bad news for the Company as they make decisions or assumptions about what the release product will be like. This is bad for thier business. In the case of designs it allows competitors to see what is being done. While Apple may not have a huge amount of market share they are a competitor with any PC manufacturer. They aren't the PC manufacturers biggest concern, but they are still competition.
You are correct that we won't have a definate answer on if this person violated a contract or not until the end of the trial, but at this point it certainly appears that way.
I've read the forums and I see posts going both ways. He broke the contract and the court should rule against him, or he shouldn't have been asked to sign such a horrible contract in the first place.
Why shouldn't he be asked to sign a contract like this? Since he did sign the contract why shouldn't Apple enforce it? If we were talking about a non compete that stipulated the individual couldn't work in his field of choice for 6 months or more I think that would be unacceptable, but that isn't what we are talking about. We are talking about a non disclosure. It is reasonable to expect to have to sign a non disclosure agreement when working for any company. I see non disclosures all the time. Any time a piece of pre release hardware comes out and we get to play with it I have to sign a non disclosure agreement. Any time I go visit one of our clients locations I have to sign a non disclosure agreement. The agreement protects the company from any damages that may occur from information getting out before the company is ready for it to. To protect intellectual property until the product is ready for market. This is perfectly reasonable. This person violated whatever contract it is he signed (according to Apple), if Apple doesn't go after him in some way they set an example that it is ok to leak information. It is similar to trademark law. If you don't go after trademark violaters you lose the ability to do so later.
I think companies abuse thier power a lot, and I think they buy laws when it's convenient for them. I don't like it, but I believe it to be true. However, I also believe that companies have a right to protect thier business. If that means attempting to settle with an contract breaker than so be it. That happens all the time. If a settlment can't be reached then I would fully expect to see the company take the issue to court. There is too little information available to know if Apple tried to settle this or not, but at this point I have to believe that takeing the matter to court is the proper way to proceed. The individual broke the rules he agreed to and now he faces the consequences. If he didn't want to abide by the rules he shouldn't have signed the contract. If you don't think companies should ask thier employees to sign these types of contracts then you should stop purchasing just about everything because MOST (not all) companies have NDAs as standard paperwork for all new employees.
It doesn't matter if the information will become public, and commenting without reading the article makes you the ass. He "posted schematics and other details of a new model G4 PowerMac." Now, that information will be public, but releasing that information early can potentially damage sales because your competitors know what you are going to be doing, your customers get partial info etc.
Even if the public will know about it at some point, this was a trade secret and he violated a contract. End of story. Apple aren't being asses, they are protecting themselves as any company would.
This has nothing to do with collaboration or corporate culture, nor should it scare any of Apples employees. If you go to work for any company and you then turn around and violate your contract you shouldn't be surprised in the least when they come after you with thier lawyers. If this was a developer talking about the latest technologies on a public mailing list there is a decent chance Apple wouldn't need to puruse it as such. In this case you have someone providing information that should not have been discussed outside of Apples doors before Apple gave the go ahead.
IMO, if this was Apple going after an employee going after some developer for discussing information in a forum publicly without attempting to hide his identity, and not giving away "trade secrets", then it would be news. This is a corporation following up on the terms of a contract, nothing more.
I don't agree with Apple going after rumor sites, rumors are rumors. However, when an employee, a contractor, or a vendor violates thier contract then said company has the right to go after them. This article is about a contractor under such an agreement providing the rumor sites with "Trade Secrets." Your comment is irrelevant to the topic at hand unless you provide the background information you are referring to. Also, comparing Apples actions to those of the PRC is just as much extremism as those that defend Apples every move regardless of it being good or bad.
Obvious troll, but I'll bite I guess.
When you sign a non disclosure agreement and then disclose information covered by the agreement you have violeted a contract. At that point any company will follow through with legal action against you. Not just Apple or Microsoft. Any company that has trade secrets is going to do what they can to protect them. This isn't apple holding on to brainspace. This is about someone violating the terms of a contract and Apple following through on enforcing it.
I always trade in my EA sports games before they come out and usually get about $15 dollars for them. Trade in a couple of other crappy games that have only recently been released (which happens all the time) and you've got just about enough to cover your latest edition sports game.
and updated AI, defenses, offenses, etc. While I would agree it's odd that people would shell out for almost the same game multiple years in a row, I do see why it makes sense to buy updated versions of the game. There are innovations in those games that can be a draw. The first version of Madden NFL for the PS2 was a big step forward graphically. Madden NFL 2002 didn't offer much. 2003 brought the addition of online play. NBA Live is similar with this years version adding an innovative control mechanism. Improvments every few years are worth picking up, dedicated fans get them all. No differant than fans of a particular author, actor, musician, director, etc.
Something else to consider about games is the trade ins. You can walk into any EB buy a game, walk out and come back and trade it in for a counter credit at any time. Hell, they even take NES games still. So you get some return on investment when you "upgrade" to the latest version.
Proving thier other point that we are all just a bunch of thieves in the process. Somehow I just think that would push thier agenda.
The nearest competing theatre is 75 miles away ( I think they are still independantly owned, but I'm not 100% sure ). The local populace has already been ripped off by this particular chain, and after a few days of outrage they went right back to typical movie going habits. The truth of the matter is that the average person is too apathetic to care. While one, two, or even fifty people may care enough to boycott the chain or write letters. With no alternative to this chain in the area the majority will continue to use thier services without so much as a complaint. 50 people on the bottom line isn't really that much when you are the only game in town.
That would work wonderfully where I live. All of the theatres are owned by Century Theatres.