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Apple, which keeps secrets about unpublished product information, hates the leak of product information by insiders, so it has a way to catch insiders.
Last week, the well-known Twitter leaking account @analyst941 suddenly announced that it had deleted its Twitter account, claiming that because the siblings were working at Apple and often revealed product information and leaks, Apple used “fake news” to confirm who the insider was, not only expelling @analyst941 siblings, And Apple may also take legal action against the two.
“9to5mac” reported that Apple has developed many methods of catching insiders, some of which are even very subtle.
How does Apple protect confidentiality? For example, to create a silo system dedicated to product development, employees may work individually or in small teams to deal with a certain part of the product. The teams responsible for the same product but in different parts may not know that the other party is also working on the same product.
Apple does not allow developers to share work content. Although the circular design of Apple Park is meant to encourage employees to cooperate, it is more of a public relations image than the real situation.
“9to5mac” refers to employees who don’t even know what products they are working on. For example, employees who study audio technology may not know whether the work is for HomePod, Mac, AirPods or iPhone speakers. If the prototype needs to be tested in public places, it will also carefully disguise the product and carefully track and record the whereabouts of the product.
Apple only told employees that leaking product secrets is a crime, and the company will hold these insiders legally responsible. Although if some employees still try to leak information, Apple will of course develop means to determine who leaked it.
unique design
Apple attaches great importance to product design, but in the past, many foreign technology websites always got product design drawings, but Apple can determine from these pictures who leaked product designs, why? Because each employee gets a unique product design drawing.
invisible watermark
Apple can also hide invisible watermarks in images, which are invisible to the naked eye but detectable digitally. For example, a picture looks like a completely black square, but it may have two color codes of #0D0D0D and #000000.
file name
Apple often sends the same file to different employees under different file names.
subtle font changes
The picture may contain text, and subtle changes in fonts are also Apple’s way of tracking ghosts.
non-subtle font changes
Apple sometimes chooses less detailed font changes. Suppose it wants to let employees know that the files they get are unique, then Apple may randomly use more obvious font changes such as italics and bold.
Phrasing, punctuation placement
Apple sometimes makes wording and punctuation slightly different if it wants to narrow down the insiders to a few people.
Feed fake news
For normative information, Apple may change the details, and it is difficult for employees who are not familiar with normative information to know that they have received false information in the first place. False information may also include product launch dates, prices, colors, etc.
The outside world believes that the reason why @analyst941 was caught this time is because it was previously revealed that the iPad version of Final Cut Pro will be launched in 2024, and the iPad version of Logic Pro will be launched in 2025. Turns out, Apple made Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro available for iPad just days after @analyst941 broke the news.
(Source of the first image:apple）
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