jeff_lebowski

Back in the nineties when I was bouncing between various established companies and startups I witnessed two nearly identical scenarios. In both cases the established company won the lawsuit against the startup and its founders.

It is true that in California your employer cannot prevent you from working on outside projects even if they compete with the companies products. They are also able to recruit colleagues. However, that activity must be outside working hours and not utilize company resources or IP. In one of the cases the company discovered the business plan for the startup was written using a company computer during business hours. And then they discovered a receipt for copy of one of the recruited engineer's engineering notebook dated the day before he quit. The startup had to pay hundreds of millions in damages and went out of business.

In short, the devil is in the details. There are California laws that protect startup founders but they're not a get out of jail free card.

While it might be a fine piece of hardware from the most successful and shameless fast-follower iPhone knockoff company, the reviews left out a few important features that prevent me from ever considering the phone.

1) The operating system and primary applications are from a creepy surveillance advertising company who will track everything done on the phone and track every movement of the user. The information collected will be used to line the pockets of employees, executives and investors of said creepy company. The user gets nothing other than a deep invasion of his or her privacy.

2) A second layer of applications and interface "enhancements" are provided buy a hardware company with a notorious reputation of sleazy, unethical and unscrupulous behavior.

3) A third level of applications provided by the wireless carrier. Wireless carriers are so sleazy and corrupt you could write a 4000 page tome documenting their sleaziness and corrupted-ness.

In other words, the phone is a layer cake of privacy invading software sleaze.

So it has a better camera than the current iPhone? Great.  A case with an Apple level of fit and finish? Great. None of that matters when it runs three levels of sleazy software from sleazy companies who don't see their users as customers but rather soulless biological entities whose privacy is ripe for the taking.

The feds are pulling the same thing they did back in 2001. They used the fear generated by the 9/11 attacks to pass the patriot act. Now they are using the San Bernardino attacks to spread their liberty-smashing surveillance state procedures directly into your pants pocket.

If the polls are true, they're winning. In fact, we have one such moron right in this comments thread: note the boot-licking, pants-peeing, liberty-hating Bdoober.  

rgseriously said:

I wonder how all you Apple supporters would feel if it was your mother, father, sister, or brother that was innocently slaughtered.  Tim Cook and all his other tech cronies only care about making billions more.  How about being a law abiding citizen and you will have all the privacy you are entitled to under the constitution.  The government doesnt give a hoot about you jerkoffs that think bigbrother is listening to all your conversations or monitoring your data.  Be serious people.  FBI CANNOT monitor individuals without court order.  Once you break the law you shouldnt have rights.  Apple and all the other tech companies have an obligation morally and ethically to help law enforcement get the data to prevent or gather information to keep us all safe.  If Cook's wife was murdered in San Bernardino i wonder if he would feel the same way.  Jail his ass until he complies.

You know, I suspect Tim Cook's response would be similar to that of a mother of one the San Bernardino victims, Carole Adams:

Carole Adams — whose son Robert was killed in the San Bernardino attack last year — has spoken out in support of Apple's position on encryption, saying the company "is definitely within their rights to protect the privacy of all Americans."