Mac Musings

Apple vs. PowerPage: What Does It Mean?

Dan Knight - 2005.03.14 - Tip Jar

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Memory To Go Special: New 2008 iMac 2GB $42 / iMac Intel Core2 DUO & MacBook Pro 2GB $36 - 1GB $20. MacPro 8 Core Memory 8GB kit $286 / 4GB kit $143 / 2GB kit $93 -- Free shipping available. LIfetime warranty.

Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com

LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, iMac's, Apple Batteries and Apple A/C Adapters. Also Great prices on Used Apple Computers. Call 1-800-941-7654 Click Here.

OWC: NewerTech miniStack FireWire/USB 2.0 HD & Hub Up to 1.0TB of Performance Storage + FW/USB2 Powered Hubs - convenient & sleek 6.5" x 6.5" x 1.5" Featured: 500GB $169.99; 750GB $209.99; 1.0TB $339.99

Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you.

Last Friday, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg ruled that PowerPage's email provider must provide the email records covered by Apple's subpoena. Apple hopes this information will help them identify the person or persons leaking information on their "Asteroid" project.

Subpoenas issued against AppleInsider and MacNN have been allowed to expire.

In this ruling, Kleinberg avoided the question of whether writers on the Internet (often referred to as "bloggers") are journalists, and issue that has been at the heart of most commentary about Apple's recent suits on the Internet.

Instead, the ruling hinges on whether shield laws should protect criminals, such as thsoe who violated their nondisclosure agreements with Apple Computer. This ruling is expected to help Apple identify the source of leaks.

PowerPage's lawyers will appeal this decision.

What Judge Kleinberg Said

Kleinberg clearly distinguishes between the public's right to know about dangerous or illegal activities and the work of rumor sites. "Unlike the whistleblower who discloses a health, safety or welfare hazard affecting all, or the government employee who reveals mismanagement or worse by our public officials, [these websites] are doing nothing more than feeding the public's insatiable desire for information."

In short, in cases where the public interest comes up against Trade Secret law, the public interest wins, but in cases where it's only an interested public, Trade Secret law trumps a free press.

Further, Kleinberg believes that Apple did a thorough investigation and exhausted "all alternative means" of determining who might be illegally leaking this information before filing suit against PowerPage.

If this ruling stands, PowerPage's email provider will have to provide email records to Apple.

What This Means

First and foremost, this means that those who sign nondisclosure agreements and share trade secret information with the press will not have their identity protected by shield laws unless what they disclose is in the public interest. They are breaking the law, and journalists break the law when they protect criminals.

For journalists, this may mean some changes in the way they do business. If they wish to protect their sources, they had better not leave a paper trail or electronic trail (email, Internet chat, etc.) that the courts can subpoena.

For websites and other businesses that use email and chat software, it means being aware of what is being tracked and archived. Does the mail server archive every message processed? Does it keep logs of everything sent and received? Does the chat provider claim a right to chat sessions (AOL does)?

If possible, run your own mail and chat servers so you can control what is and what is not archived. As Steve Watkins warned in Legal Aspects of Network Privacy and Security for Business several years ago,

"Never back up your email server. Despite any benefit you might incorrectly perceive to be derived from this procedure, you are in fact creating one thing and one thing only: evidence.

Anytime you have a backup of your email server, it is subject to subpoena in case of legal action. In layman's terms, this means you will have turn over all backups of your email server to the party suing you. If you have not passed out by this point, read on. Otherwise, lie down, catch your breath, and continue reading when you are sufficiently recovered.

"Having represented both the party who received the email backups (the legal term is called "hitting the jackpot") and the party who was forced to turn over the email backups ("losing your shirt"), I can say unequivocally that, in this scenario at least, it is infinitely better to receive than to give. In a typical company, reference to every secret that the company would not want to be exposed is contained in those backups, not to mention quite a few personal emails that the senders and/or recipients would probably not want paraded about in a courtroom open to the public."

I'm guessing Jason O'Grady wishes he'd done that. By using a third-party email provider, you have less (if any) control over backup and archives.

Depending on how O'Grady corresponded with sources (email, chat, fax, phone, snail mail, etc.) and steps these sources took to cover their tracks (email anonymizers, mailing items away from home and work, using code words and phrases rather than Apple's names for products), Apple may well be able to determine who has been leaking this information and deal with them.

That said, it's very possible that none of these rumor sites have any idea who their sources really are. They may only have an email address or an online ID (AppleLeaker? NDC_Breaker?), and it may turn out that there are no records for Apple to use in identifying the leak.

All this ruling does is require PowerPage's email provider to give Apple the records they request. And if those records are insufficient to identify the sources, you can bet that Apple will try to find other ways to ferret them out.

This isn't over by a long shot. LEM

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Musings

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2008 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.


Have a question?
Ask an expert!

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Best Used Macs
Video Cards
Email Lists
InfoMac's Low
End Mac Forum

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
MacMall
TechRestore
MacResQ
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.