Nothing to do with the money you do make.
AH purchases, Tradeskills, and even obtaining newer skills requires you to spend quite a bit.
No high end game content. (Getting to make a new character at lvl 50, is not exactly exciting).
Currently, PvP is a major portion of the endgame. With battlegrounds coming up, that will definitely get a nice kick up to the next level. Also, there are several high end instances that are good for high end players to repeat, as well as instances which require upwards of 40 players to have a chance at.
No player owned anything (i.e. apartment, super base, frickin telephone booth for that matter).
Repetitive quests. Sure the story text changes but not much else.
Can't really argue too much with either of these. Currently, there is no player housing, but reportedly Blizz has Guild/Player housing in the works. I can't wait to see how they handle it ^^.
No player vs. player. (ok this should sort of be in the next update)
World of WARcraft. PvP is really the highpoint, and it gives it out in several flavors, from PvP servers where it's all combat all the time, to 'Normal' servers where you can still PvP, but on a much more optional basis.
I've played a lot of MMOs, starting with UO way back when. I've played EQ, SWG, FFXI, Lineage, L2, and even gave CoH a shot. While WoW has one of, if not the shortest time from level one to cap, it's probably the most entertaining. There's still plenty for me to do, and once Blizz gets the servers completely stable, then there will be a lot more stuff coming.
While from a grief prevention perspective, CoH has handled the problem well, it lacks in content pretty sorely. While not having any item drops, etc might be good for that purpose, that fact also means that a player has less to work towards and gain within the game.
World of Warcraft is probably a much better example of what can be done to prevent that type of griefing; Instanced Dungeons, as well as high end loot that is randomly dropped by mobs all over the world. In addition to this, most if not all high end loot is Bound to the character that picks it up, which removes it from the economy the moment it's dropped.
Since you don't run Windows, you don't realize that SP2 for XP created as many problems as it fixed. I was forced into SP2 at work, but at home I refuse to install it. The firewall is cumbersome and difficult to deal with; the popup blocker isn't much better.
Yes, they should patch existing versions of IE. Yes, they should continute patching Windows. However, the fixes should not create new problems that can only be resolved by a version upgrade.
So, IMO since you don't run windows at all, you should be less critical of issues that you really don't have a clue about, which gets under my skin.
Well, here's a hypothetical. Lets say that you're some kid, 15 or 16. You start up an AMD rumor site, post a variety of ways to contact you with 'insider' info. You get a lot of stuff, and you post it on your site with all sorts of buzzwords. Reliable source, etc. Now, since all the info you're getting is coming from anonymous sources, and you have no clue of who they are, what they do, etc., do you really believe that any of them could possibly work for AMD?
In regards to that, I personally wouldn't. It's the internet, land of the troll, misinformer, et al. 90% of what you'll find and hear is crap, so why should this kid have any reason to believe otherwise? I sure as hell wouldn't in his shoes. Yes, it ultimately appears that somewhere along the lines he's gotten a good bit of info from someone who broke their NDA. Should he be reasonably expected to know that? IMO, no. He never asked for any personal info, he wanted it all anonymous. He probably expected to wind up as the biggest joke site around, with all sorts of off the wall crap.
As to whether everyone there would be under an NDA, I highly doubt that. NDAs in most tech companies are limited to those who actually work with compartmented data on a day to day basis; the front desk secretary isn't going to be expected to hear about what's going on in one of the "secret" R&D labs in the 3rd subbasement, which isn't normally accessible from the main lobby elevator.
No, IGE employs contractors. They don't own anything, which is why they haven't been sued. It's hardly impossible to do nothing but employ contractors and be able to contact them within a few minutes.
As for buying/selling immediately, It's hardly immediate. The site itself says that the goods are delivered within 24 hours, and at times can take even longer. For those that do sell, you're contacted by some third party who actually buys it off you. In essence, you're sending the money to a buyer who is then sending IGE money, at which point you receive your cut. As for how they can take care of all that in any reasonable amount of time.. well, isn't IM wonderful?
Newsblob is wrong.. not the first time, not the last time. Life goes on there.
Yes, he's soliciting insider info. Does that mean he'll get it? Maybe, maybe not. Personally, if I were to start a site like that, I'd expect the noise:signal on actual insiders to be exceptionally high; high enough that I could safely assume that pretty much everything I actually receieved was from shmoes like me looking for recognition within the community. Oddly, this is why a lot of people post here, IMO.
I do recall that the code name release was the major kick off point that Apple really started pursuing a C&D, however that alone doesn't really mean much to me. Coincidences do exist and are very real. Personally, if you want to keep stuff secret, then don't give it a code name in the first place. Certainly don't use something that anyone can pull out of a dictionary. As far as how he got that, I suppose the only two people who know are him and whoever told him. It could be that some disgruntled R&D guy fed him a bunch of info; it could be that some secretary who's not under an NDA heard it at the office water cooler. Either way, there's really no way to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did receive the info from someone actually under NDA. While I'm touching on the validity of his sources, I'll touch on his web sites claim, as well. Just because he claims to have reliable sources doesn't mean he actually does. To me, ThinkSecret is a rumour site, started by a 13 year old, which, over the years, has been blown way out of proportion. The fact that a rumor site which makes a bunch of claims to legitimacy is cited as a source by major journalistic publications in this specific domain is absolutly astounding, and really should be looked at by the publications themselves.
Thus far, this is a Civil case. In the case I was responding too, it was a criminal case in which an individual wouldn't reveal a source which could have been used in obtaining a conviction. That, FWIW, is also known as 'Obstruction of Justice'.
Well, based on how it's presented, that's all I can really go by. I simply don't have the time to crawl through every site around that might have something to do with this; the newsblob here seems to indicate that EFF is getting involved on behalf of ThinkSecret.com; not someone's ISP. I'm sure you can recognize and accept that, correct?
As to whether or not the kid in question was privy to where the information was coming from, that's the glory of the great, almighty anonymous internet. All the submissions he received came through a webform on ThinkSecret, or through anonymous voicemail. So, in effect, he really didn't have a bloody clue as to where the info was coming from.
That leads me to the point that I've made countless times. It's really easy for all of us to sit back and say that he had some relationship with an Apple insider, or that he HAD to know that this was coming from someone who is obviously under NDA. But if you were in his shoes, and you're just trying to run a rumor mill site related to upcoming Apple stuff, are you seriously going to perform an indepth background check on every submission that you get? I know I wouldn't. It's positively absurd for someone running a rumor site, asking for insider info, at the age of 12 or 13, when this kid opened ThinkSecret.com, to really take anything he gets with more than a grain of salt. In retrospect, yes, it certainly appears that he's gotten a lot of stuff that could quite possibly have come from an Apple employee breaking NDA. However, I've had a lot of the same thoughts, and usually right about the time that MacWorld rolls around, and usually, on the stuff that really makes sense, Apple reveals a product along those lines. Does that mean that I'm in cohorts with an insider at Apple? No, it just means that I was thinking one day, and it just so happens that Apple, in their great wisdom, came up with something way ahead of me, and release it at about the same time I was thinking it'd be great to have that.
While the destruction of the economy via gilselling was indeed one of the motivating factors in my switch to WoW, there was more to it than that.
I played FFXI for the better part of two and a half years[1], with breaks for SWG, a second shot at EQ, and a couple other MMOs. When I finally gave up FFXI, it was, IMO, because I'd done pretty much everything that was reasonable to obtain. I'd capped out two jobs, at least under the original cap of 60; I'd accumulated a great deal of gil. I was well respected as one of the better players of my two chosen classes; Dark Knight and Paladin. I had simply gotten to the point that the grind was ridiculous; I was getting turned down by many japanese players whom I'd previously grouped with, to great success, as well.
Overall, I had a great time with FFXI, but as with you, I'll never go back to it.
[1] Yea.. that means that I was one of those crazy people who played the japanese release. I had a blast with it, despite my minimal knowledge of hiragana.
Cosmos isn't a plugin per se, so much as a UI enhancement mod. You don't have to upload any data to thott just by using it; you don't even have to upload your characters data.
As an avid WoW player, I don't think I could go back to a point in time before I used Cosmos. I've used it since beta, and have come to be heavily reliant on the additional button bars, party status monitors, etc that Cosmos adds to the UI.
As to whether or not Blizz will change their policy concerning UI modifications, I don't think they will. They have been very proactive about enforcing their ToS, however that same ToS explicitly allows players to modify the UI to make it more adaptable to their specific needs/desires. It's almost like WoW is an OSS MMO, to a small extent. That's a good thing, isn't it?
On those things, yes. However, SoE has never been truly vigilant about enforcing ToS[1], and Square-Enix wasn't either when I was playing FFXI.
In addition to that, now that they own Ogaming, they can essentially live off the ad revenue from there, and even if they lose out on an MMO or two, of which WoW will likely be the one to really enforce ToS, they'll still roll along, skimming off the top from sales in games where nothing is done about the blatant ToS violations.
IGE hasn't specifically done anything in violation of the TOS. However, they provide a sell point for people within the game to sell items and ingame currency for real world currency.
As you profess to play MMOs, I'll assume you've read through the Terms of Service(ToS). Unlike a shrink wrap EULA, this is a perfectly binding, legal contract which you are required to follow in order to use the service. One of the common, yet usually unenforced clauses is that you will not resell ingame content as it is property of $MMO_Company, and doing so infringes on their rights.
Now, as for how IGE gets around that is this: They don't actually own any accounts, nor directly employ anyone who sells currency. As I mentioned, they are simply a sell point; a place for people who do farm items/currency to advertise their wares and sell them to turn a buck. The best way to think of them is as a really really big eBay store.
Unless the individual disclosing information no longer works for Apple, then they should be able to pursue the matter internally. Most NDA'd employees are under a very strict contract which will allow the employer, in this case Apple, to pursue a course of investigation within the company. They can easily bring in a team of investigators, run polygraphs, etc.
In short, you don't need a court order to find out who's disclosing trade secrets from inside your company; you should already have measures in place to find an individual doing this.
Most likely, it won't. IGE hasn't been sued for the sole fact that they don't employ currency farmers directly, nor do they own any accounts. IGE is simply an intermediary in the whole process, providing a sell point for independent contractors who essentially work freelance.
Well, lets say that I do something like this. Is it reasonable for me to assume that everyone who sends me information is working under NDA from Apple? Hardly; if that were the case then anything and anything I received would be known to me and me only as I can't legally disclose it under the UTSA.
Yes, it's wrong of the individual who broke NDA to have done so; however, that's something that Apple should be handling internally, by enforcing the contracts that they hired people under.
Saying that he knows anything that noone has told him is bullshit, pure and simple. The fact that he's right simply means that he can be really good or really lucky when it comes to guessing tech trends concerning Apple.
I've thought that Apple should put out a sub $500 PC for a while now. If I'd posted that in a blog somewhere 3 weeks before Macworld, or at any point in time between them, does that mean that I'm disclosing trade secrets? No, it doesn't.
I don't doubt for a minute that someone is feeding him information; However, I'm still objective enough to realize that you can only go so many ways with technology. Apple has put out high end machines; the next logical step there is putting out a really cheap one. Look at the current tech market; it's pretty ripe for something like that. Same thing goes for the iPod Shuffle; solid state MP3 players are getting snagged up all over the place and one from Apple will do just as good if not better.
Now that I've played Devil's Advocate with all that, is it highly likely that a handful of people inside Apple have decided to break NDA and risk their career in the tech industry? I suppose so. pesronally, I wouldn't, just for the fact that getting caught will kill your career.
I think you're overlooking a lot of stuff. Yes, he's been doing this for a long time. If you'd bothered to read some of the prior articles on/. about this, you'd know he started this when he was 12 or 13, and Apple issued the cease and decist when he was 19 or 20.
Now, you say that he "knew damn well what he was doing". I can't really argue with that. He put up a site, asked for people to give him info via an anonymous web form. After that, he'd put it all together, and put it up on a blog style site. Claiming that he explicitly knew that the info he was receiving was from someone bound by NDA is ludicrus, regardless of how true it had turned out. Everything he put up there could very well have turned out the other way. Furthermore, the fact that apple has needed to put out a cheaper computer to gain marketshare isn't a trade secret, that's common knowledge. As for the rest of the information he's posted up, anyone looking at Apple's past efforts could easily make a reasonable guess as to where they might go next.
Ultimately, the issue at hand is whether or not he knew that the sources were under NDA. Proving that will likely be next to impossible; it's quite possible that he pulled all the info out of his ass.
Forcing him to reveal sources is fine. However, Apple isn't suing him for that; the basis of their suit is that he was aware the information was under NDA before he received that.
Responsible journalism is about pursuing the validity of your sources to the best of your ability; this kid received it from an anonymous webform which could have been filled out anywhere. As such, he's extremely limited to the amount of work he can do to validate the source. Furthermore, he was running a rumour site. The fact that he was getting fed a lot of good information doesn't change the fact that he received just as much bad info.
So.. should he have to reveal the sources? Only if he has some guarantee that Apple isn't going to turn around and prosecute him under UTSA.
Different Precedent. The individual that is being sued by Apple hasn't received a court order to reveal information concerning the individuals who revealed Apple trade secrets.
Now, at some unforseen point in the future, should this person receive a court order to reveal the information in question, then yes, your point would stand. Until then, however, he is under no requirement to disclose information from a protected source.
As you pointed out, the UTSA prohibits a third party from releasing information from a source they know to be bound by an NDA. However, the issue that you seem to either ignore or skirt over is whether or not this kid knew that the people giving him information were bound by an NDA. He started running this site when he was what, 13? I didn't even know that the UTSA existed when I was 13, let alone know what an NDA was. Since that point in time, has he openly requested that apple employees break their NDAs? No, he hasn't. He put out an open call for any information from anyone who may or may not have it, and he released it online.
While the information in question was classified as a trade secret, without him knowing that it was coming from someone under NDA he's not in violation of the UTSA, which is what he's being sued under.
All that said, the UTSA is valid, but it's not that hard to get around. Simply not asking whether or not the source of information is bound by a NDA is more than enough to protect you from liability under the UTSA.
Bottom line, Apple is bringing it's weight to bear on someone in order to coerce the names of his sources, and those are protected by 1st amendment rights. I say good on the EFF for stepping up on this one.
WoW and EQ2 may have received a lot of hype and they may have had moderately successful launches, but they weren't the genre-defining events that many have hyped them to be.
"Moderately Successful"? While I can't really speak for EQII, calling WoW's launch "Moderately Successful" is completely wrong. They moved 250k units the first day, had 120k accounts the first day. Since then, they've actually had to stop selling the game until they can finalize the character migration process, and bring even more hardware online. I say even more because in the first two weeks of launch, due to the unparalled popularity, they had to double, yes double the number of servers available within two weeks of launch. Currently, less than 3 months after launch, WoW is boasting 600k subscribers. Blizz has broken pretty much every record for an MMO launch ever.
While EQII's launch was lackluster at best, saying the same of WoW is horridly inaccurate. Saying that WoW will have to catch up to FFXI's subscriber numbers is just a bunch of crap. They've already done it, and they hit FFXI's 2 year number in 3 months.
Actually, I know a handful of people who are there that were in my flight from basic. However, that's just a careerfield issue. While getting out of Texas is most certainly welcome, due to the manning of my AFSC, I'm very likely going to be here for the rest of my career, with the only real option for leaving being a change of AFSC.
As I replied to another person in this thread, it's not about quality of life issues. Yes, officers on the whole enjoy better quality of living than the enlisted force. However, they also have greater responsibility, workload, etc. to go along with that increase in pay and allowances. Think of it like this; a senior coder at XYZ Software, while a highly valued employee, will not receive the same pay and bonuses that the Senior Executive Manager of the Department does.
Actually, what you are referring to is not a "back door draft". When you retire, you will usually have a reserve/guard commitment for a set period of time in addition to your active duty commitment. What he is in danger of being called back for is nothing more than his commitment, which he agreed to when he originally enlisted.
I myself signed on for a 6 year active duty commitment, followed by 2 years of inactive reserve.
On the topic of being in the military, and it's impact on personal life, yes, it can and will at times have a large, perceptible impact on your personal life, however when you enlist, you should be aware of the fact that you are indeed giving your oath to do whatever is required of you in the line of duty in the defense of your country, and its ideals. IMO, if you are not fully able to do that, then the military really isn't the right decision for you.
I'm not going to say that I personally enjoy the fact that from time to time I have to put my personal life aside. It sucks, and it's not a big secret. However, when I enlisted, I made the decision that if required, I could put it aside, and deal with any problems that arose from that necessity. When you're faced with these events as a military member, it's not about liking it, or wanting to do it, it's about the fact that you swore an oath to uphold the ideals of your nation, to defend and protect them at all costs.
I think you might want to go back and re-read both my post and the grand parent to your post. He was talking about how officers spend less time away from home; I made the point that mine was deployed anywhere from 6-10 months out of the year simply due to the normal ops tempo of the ship he was on. Even when he was in port, he was aboard ship 3 days out of 7 for watch, and I can think of times where he'd spend two weeks out of the month or more on board, away from home.
My point is that the grandparent's current wife had a relationship with a military member fall apart, and the fact that it fell apart was blamed on the military by the grandparent. I happen to disagree with this, and can speak from a much more personal perspective about all the things the military offers families to help cope and deal with having a spouse/father away for extended periods of time. Instances like the situation he described generally come about due to the fact that these options are not explored or used.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing to do with the money you do make.
AH purchases, Tradeskills, and even obtaining newer skills requires you to spend quite a bit.
No high end game content. (Getting to make a new character at lvl 50, is not exactly exciting).
Currently, PvP is a major portion of the endgame. With battlegrounds coming up, that will definitely get a nice kick up to the next level. Also, there are several high end instances that are good for high end players to repeat, as well as instances which require upwards of 40 players to have a chance at.
No player owned anything (i.e. apartment, super base, frickin telephone booth for that matter).
Repetitive quests. Sure the story text changes but not much else.
Can't really argue too much with either of these. Currently, there is no player housing, but reportedly Blizz has Guild/Player housing in the works. I can't wait to see how they handle it ^^.
No player vs. player. (ok this should sort of be in the next update)
World of WARcraft. PvP is really the highpoint, and it gives it out in several flavors, from PvP servers where it's all combat all the time, to 'Normal' servers where you can still PvP, but on a much more optional basis.
I've played a lot of MMOs, starting with UO way back when. I've played EQ, SWG, FFXI, Lineage, L2, and even gave CoH a shot. While WoW has one of, if not the shortest time from level one to cap, it's probably the most entertaining. There's still plenty for me to do, and once Blizz gets the servers completely stable, then there will be a lot more stuff coming.
World of Warcraft is probably a much better example of what can be done to prevent that type of griefing; Instanced Dungeons, as well as high end loot that is randomly dropped by mobs all over the world. In addition to this, most if not all high end loot is Bound to the character that picks it up, which removes it from the economy the moment it's dropped.
Yes, they should patch existing versions of IE. Yes, they should continute patching Windows. However, the fixes should not create new problems that can only be resolved by a version upgrade.
So, IMO since you don't run windows at all, you should be less critical of issues that you really don't have a clue about, which gets under my skin.
Cheers.
In regards to that, I personally wouldn't. It's the internet, land of the troll, misinformer, et al. 90% of what you'll find and hear is crap, so why should this kid have any reason to believe otherwise? I sure as hell wouldn't in his shoes. Yes, it ultimately appears that somewhere along the lines he's gotten a good bit of info from someone who broke their NDA. Should he be reasonably expected to know that? IMO, no. He never asked for any personal info, he wanted it all anonymous. He probably expected to wind up as the biggest joke site around, with all sorts of off the wall crap.
As to whether everyone there would be under an NDA, I highly doubt that. NDAs in most tech companies are limited to those who actually work with compartmented data on a day to day basis; the front desk secretary isn't going to be expected to hear about what's going on in one of the "secret" R&D labs in the 3rd subbasement, which isn't normally accessible from the main lobby elevator.
As for buying/selling immediately, It's hardly immediate. The site itself says that the goods are delivered within 24 hours, and at times can take even longer. For those that do sell, you're contacted by some third party who actually buys it off you. In essence, you're sending the money to a buyer who is then sending IGE money, at which point you receive your cut. As for how they can take care of all that in any reasonable amount of time.. well, isn't IM wonderful?
Yes, he's soliciting insider info. Does that mean he'll get it? Maybe, maybe not. Personally, if I were to start a site like that, I'd expect the noise:signal on actual insiders to be exceptionally high; high enough that I could safely assume that pretty much everything I actually receieved was from shmoes like me looking for recognition within the community. Oddly, this is why a lot of people post here, IMO.
I do recall that the code name release was the major kick off point that Apple really started pursuing a C&D, however that alone doesn't really mean much to me. Coincidences do exist and are very real. Personally, if you want to keep stuff secret, then don't give it a code name in the first place. Certainly don't use something that anyone can pull out of a dictionary. As far as how he got that, I suppose the only two people who know are him and whoever told him. It could be that some disgruntled R&D guy fed him a bunch of info; it could be that some secretary who's not under an NDA heard it at the office water cooler. Either way, there's really no way to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did receive the info from someone actually under NDA. While I'm touching on the validity of his sources, I'll touch on his web sites claim, as well. Just because he claims to have reliable sources doesn't mean he actually does. To me, ThinkSecret is a rumour site, started by a 13 year old, which, over the years, has been blown way out of proportion. The fact that a rumor site which makes a bunch of claims to legitimacy is cited as a source by major journalistic publications in this specific domain is absolutly astounding, and really should be looked at by the publications themselves.
Thus far, this is a Civil case. In the case I was responding too, it was a criminal case in which an individual wouldn't reveal a source which could have been used in obtaining a conviction. That, FWIW, is also known as 'Obstruction of Justice'.
As to whether or not the kid in question was privy to where the information was coming from, that's the glory of the great, almighty anonymous internet. All the submissions he received came through a webform on ThinkSecret, or through anonymous voicemail. So, in effect, he really didn't have a bloody clue as to where the info was coming from.
That leads me to the point that I've made countless times. It's really easy for all of us to sit back and say that he had some relationship with an Apple insider, or that he HAD to know that this was coming from someone who is obviously under NDA. But if you were in his shoes, and you're just trying to run a rumor mill site related to upcoming Apple stuff, are you seriously going to perform an indepth background check on every submission that you get? I know I wouldn't. It's positively absurd for someone running a rumor site, asking for insider info, at the age of 12 or 13, when this kid opened ThinkSecret.com, to really take anything he gets with more than a grain of salt. In retrospect, yes, it certainly appears that he's gotten a lot of stuff that could quite possibly have come from an Apple employee breaking NDA. However, I've had a lot of the same thoughts, and usually right about the time that MacWorld rolls around, and usually, on the stuff that really makes sense, Apple reveals a product along those lines. Does that mean that I'm in cohorts with an insider at Apple? No, it just means that I was thinking one day, and it just so happens that Apple, in their great wisdom, came up with something way ahead of me, and release it at about the same time I was thinking it'd be great to have that.
I played FFXI for the better part of two and a half years[1], with breaks for SWG, a second shot at EQ, and a couple other MMOs. When I finally gave up FFXI, it was, IMO, because I'd done pretty much everything that was reasonable to obtain. I'd capped out two jobs, at least under the original cap of 60; I'd accumulated a great deal of gil. I was well respected as one of the better players of my two chosen classes; Dark Knight and Paladin. I had simply gotten to the point that the grind was ridiculous; I was getting turned down by many japanese players whom I'd previously grouped with, to great success, as well.
Overall, I had a great time with FFXI, but as with you, I'll never go back to it.
[1] Yea.. that means that I was one of those crazy people who played the japanese release. I had a blast with it, despite my minimal knowledge of hiragana.
As an avid WoW player, I don't think I could go back to a point in time before I used Cosmos. I've used it since beta, and have come to be heavily reliant on the additional button bars, party status monitors, etc that Cosmos adds to the UI.
As to whether or not Blizz will change their policy concerning UI modifications, I don't think they will. They have been very proactive about enforcing their ToS, however that same ToS explicitly allows players to modify the UI to make it more adaptable to their specific needs/desires. It's almost like WoW is an OSS MMO, to a small extent. That's a good thing, isn't it?
In addition to that, now that they own Ogaming, they can essentially live off the ad revenue from there, and even if they lose out on an MMO or two, of which WoW will likely be the one to really enforce ToS, they'll still roll along, skimming off the top from sales in games where nothing is done about the blatant ToS violations.
As you profess to play MMOs, I'll assume you've read through the Terms of Service(ToS). Unlike a shrink wrap EULA, this is a perfectly binding, legal contract which you are required to follow in order to use the service. One of the common, yet usually unenforced clauses is that you will not resell ingame content as it is property of $MMO_Company, and doing so infringes on their rights.
Now, as for how IGE gets around that is this: They don't actually own any accounts, nor directly employ anyone who sells currency. As I mentioned, they are simply a sell point; a place for people who do farm items/currency to advertise their wares and sell them to turn a buck. The best way to think of them is as a really really big eBay store.
In short, you don't need a court order to find out who's disclosing trade secrets from inside your company; you should already have measures in place to find an individual doing this.
Most likely, it won't. IGE hasn't been sued for the sole fact that they don't employ currency farmers directly, nor do they own any accounts. IGE is simply an intermediary in the whole process, providing a sell point for independent contractors who essentially work freelance.
Yes, it's wrong of the individual who broke NDA to have done so; however, that's something that Apple should be handling internally, by enforcing the contracts that they hired people under.
I've thought that Apple should put out a sub $500 PC for a while now. If I'd posted that in a blog somewhere 3 weeks before Macworld, or at any point in time between them, does that mean that I'm disclosing trade secrets? No, it doesn't.
I don't doubt for a minute that someone is feeding him information; However, I'm still objective enough to realize that you can only go so many ways with technology. Apple has put out high end machines; the next logical step there is putting out a really cheap one. Look at the current tech market; it's pretty ripe for something like that. Same thing goes for the iPod Shuffle; solid state MP3 players are getting snagged up all over the place and one from Apple will do just as good if not better.
Now that I've played Devil's Advocate with all that, is it highly likely that a handful of people inside Apple have decided to break NDA and risk their career in the tech industry? I suppose so. pesronally, I wouldn't, just for the fact that getting caught will kill your career.
Now, you say that he "knew damn well what he was doing". I can't really argue with that. He put up a site, asked for people to give him info via an anonymous web form. After that, he'd put it all together, and put it up on a blog style site. Claiming that he explicitly knew that the info he was receiving was from someone bound by NDA is ludicrus, regardless of how true it had turned out. Everything he put up there could very well have turned out the other way. Furthermore, the fact that apple has needed to put out a cheaper computer to gain marketshare isn't a trade secret, that's common knowledge. As for the rest of the information he's posted up, anyone looking at Apple's past efforts could easily make a reasonable guess as to where they might go next.
Ultimately, the issue at hand is whether or not he knew that the sources were under NDA. Proving that will likely be next to impossible; it's quite possible that he pulled all the info out of his ass.
Responsible journalism is about pursuing the validity of your sources to the best of your ability; this kid received it from an anonymous webform which could have been filled out anywhere. As such, he's extremely limited to the amount of work he can do to validate the source. Furthermore, he was running a rumour site. The fact that he was getting fed a lot of good information doesn't change the fact that he received just as much bad info.
So.. should he have to reveal the sources? Only if he has some guarantee that Apple isn't going to turn around and prosecute him under UTSA.
Now, at some unforseen point in the future, should this person receive a court order to reveal the information in question, then yes, your point would stand. Until then, however, he is under no requirement to disclose information from a protected source.
While the information in question was classified as a trade secret, without him knowing that it was coming from someone under NDA he's not in violation of the UTSA, which is what he's being sued under.
All that said, the UTSA is valid, but it's not that hard to get around. Simply not asking whether or not the source of information is bound by a NDA is more than enough to protect you from liability under the UTSA.
Bottom line, Apple is bringing it's weight to bear on someone in order to coerce the names of his sources, and those are protected by 1st amendment rights. I say good on the EFF for stepping up on this one.
While EQII's launch was lackluster at best, saying the same of WoW is horridly inaccurate. Saying that WoW will have to catch up to FFXI's subscriber numbers is just a bunch of crap. They've already done it, and they hit FFXI's 2 year number in 3 months.
Actually, I know a handful of people who are there that were in my flight from basic. However, that's just a careerfield issue. While getting out of Texas is most certainly welcome, due to the manning of my AFSC, I'm very likely going to be here for the rest of my career, with the only real option for leaving being a change of AFSC.
As I replied to another person in this thread, it's not about quality of life issues. Yes, officers on the whole enjoy better quality of living than the enlisted force. However, they also have greater responsibility, workload, etc. to go along with that increase in pay and allowances. Think of it like this; a senior coder at XYZ Software, while a highly valued employee, will not receive the same pay and bonuses that the Senior Executive Manager of the Department does.
I myself signed on for a 6 year active duty commitment, followed by 2 years of inactive reserve.
On the topic of being in the military, and it's impact on personal life, yes, it can and will at times have a large, perceptible impact on your personal life, however when you enlist, you should be aware of the fact that you are indeed giving your oath to do whatever is required of you in the line of duty in the defense of your country, and its ideals. IMO, if you are not fully able to do that, then the military really isn't the right decision for you.
I'm not going to say that I personally enjoy the fact that from time to time I have to put my personal life aside. It sucks, and it's not a big secret. However, when I enlisted, I made the decision that if required, I could put it aside, and deal with any problems that arose from that necessity. When you're faced with these events as a military member, it's not about liking it, or wanting to do it, it's about the fact that you swore an oath to uphold the ideals of your nation, to defend and protect them at all costs.
My point is that the grandparent's current wife had a relationship with a military member fall apart, and the fact that it fell apart was blamed on the military by the grandparent. I happen to disagree with this, and can speak from a much more personal perspective about all the things the military offers families to help cope and deal with having a spouse/father away for extended periods of time. Instances like the situation he described generally come about due to the fact that these options are not explored or used.