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To be honest, that doesn't sound like a "good" friend to me. Doesn't trust you enough to share not only any work details, but not even an opinion either? May

To be honest, that doesn't sound like a "good" friend to me. Doesn't trust you enough to share not only any work details, but not even an opinion either? Maybe too much self-importance?

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
You've never worked in a high-security environment, have you? My father was in the CIA, in the late '40s thru '60s. We didn't find out until the late '90s. One of his brothers was almost certainly a Company Man, too, but that has never been confirmed; even though he’s been dead for decades. Apple's OPSEC is probably tighter than the CIA's.
- eplanit 6y ago
  Yes I have. Guarding national security is one thing. Keeping a new consumer gadget secret is another. Apple isn't so important.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    >Apple isn't so important. You forgot you're on HN where Apple is a religion who's products people here swear are irreplaceable and that nothing in the world ever comes close in polish. Every products they launch tends to break news sites and comment sections. This wouldn't happen if they wouldn't be so secretive about it. They're also a trillion dollar company who's products shape the lifestyle of many (the infamous shame of the green/blue bubble in chats).
  - bitexploder 6y ago
    To society as a whole, yes. To the company itself, there is definitely competitive advantage to protect trade secrets so harshly. It’s hard to argue it doesn’t have some value for Apple. I think it’s a little extreme and disagree with the degree to which they enforce it on all of their teams, even knew where it clearly has minimal competitive advantage.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    CIA does very little guarding national security as far as I can tell.
    - WJW 6y ago
      For a spy agency that is exactly how it should be. If any rando on the internet could detect what they were doing then it wouldn't be very secret.
      - AsyncAwait 6y ago
        The CIA is very quick to 'leak' of its successes to the national press via 'anonymous government officials'. It's just I don't consider staging coups and arming extremist 'rebels' to be part of protecting national security[1]. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
        WJW 6y ago
        How can you tell that all successes are leaked and that all the things leaked are actually true? If they prevent 100 terrorist plots but 95 of those were through various means that they wish to keep secret, they would simply only leak the ones for which they don't care that their sources are exposed. In fact, it would be extremely difficult to verify if the stories about arming rebels are even true, or maybe a side plot to play down their competence and lull the actual adversaries into a false sense of security. It is in the very nature of a spy agency that the general public does not know what they are up to.
        sneak 6y ago
        If they intentionally leaked nothing, this would be perhaps a reasonable approach. The fact that they leak positive stuff sometimes, and coupled along with the fact that they run a global network of torture sites (and hacked the computers of their own congresspeople who are their oversight, then lied about doing so) means that they probably aren't as do-good and trustworthy as you seem to think they should be assumed to be.
  - webmobdev 6y ago
    I agree. Apple doesn't (nor do many other corporates). And so they make you sign lot of contracts and non-disclosure agreements to shut you up. So you shut up to put food on your table.
    - foobarian 6y ago
      I don't have many friends, but of the ones I do there are still two whole people I would be comfortable sharing privileged info with peace of mind that they will keep it to themselves. The same goes the other way, I have no problem keeping confidential things confidential.
      - xvector 6y ago
        Agreed, that's just called having a good friend. I've had friends at Apple that have no trouble telling me what they're working on.
- spicyramen 6y ago
  Good thing that under Jim Cook, there's nothing they can hide as no new products exists :)
- goldenchrome 6y ago
  Loyalty to institutions that don't care about you is the most foolish idea. I would never worry about keeping state or company secrets because they would never keep mine. It's a one-sided exercise in self-flagellation. The more we learn about our government the more we learn about it's inhumanity. Giving your life to it is akin to throwing it away. Perhaps worse than that because of the damage one can cause.
- m463 6y ago
  A friend of mine had an aunt who worked for a government agency. She got an award. She did something that was a big deal. They had a ceremony and her close family was allowed to attend. However, my friend said the ceremony was congratulations and handshakes, but zero details about what it was for.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hef19898 6y ago
  I had both, Amazon and as a defense contractor. Nothing ever would have prohibited me from talking about how work was, what I worked on was for obvious reasons easier at Amazon. But even in the contractor job it was no problem saying I worked on Integrated Logistics Support on aircraft. This was a far cry from being CIA, so. That being said, I told people the comment thing more than once. Always to people I know and people that know me well enough to get the meaning. In other cases I just said I won't answer certain questions. Much different than the bo comment trope.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    It's sometimes funny how those things worth with the government. I was talking to an acquaintance who worked at a company that built satellites for NRO/NSA & Friends. He could tell me things like "we had a great test of the cryocoolers last week and some of our design tweaks really improved the performance. On the other hand he wouldn't tell me what the satellite was for or even its name. A coworker of mine went to a foreign country once on a business trip. When he asked what he could tell his wife about his trip, the guidance he got was "You can tell her either where you're traveling or why you're traveling. Not both."
- jariel 6y ago
  ? Apple is not 'the CIA' for gosh sakes. There's no reason for all of this. It's perfectly reasonable for people to say 'I work on iOS' or I work on 'new hardware but I can't say much more than that', or 'I work in production for Apple TV'. Most people at most companies are not allowed to talk about the details of what they do.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    That. I was contractor once, we obviously were allowed to say what we did to various degrees. Like working on picture analysis or analyzing operational data and so on. But not about the actual details. Even the projects and so on were usually only refered to indirectly. After that, it usually just took 5 minutes on Google to find out what it was. Say supporting a new military aircraft program for the German armed forces, that left you with two options. Again, we never talked about the details, say prices, data and so on. And I won't. Nor will I talk about concrete data from my days at Amazon. But, yeah, I very much talk about what I did. Would be quite difficult to pass interviews and get projects, wouldn't it? Same goes for the real secret stuff. Saying you worked abroad for the CIA is much different from saying you served as a CIA operative in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2004. Unless, of course, you get an official legend fot your life after.
fenomas 6y ago
That's certainly one possible way to interpret what he said. Here's another: he wasn't refusing to answer my question, he was sardonically answering it.

To be honest, that doesn't sound like a "good" friend to me. Doesn't trust you enough to share not only any work details, but not even an opinion either? Maybe too much self-importance?

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

You've never worked in a high-security environment, have you? My father was in the CIA, in the late '40s thru '60s. We didn't find out until the late '90s. One of his brothers was almost certainly a Company Man, too, but that has never been confirmed; even though he’s been dead for decades. Apple's OPSEC is probably tighter than the CIA's.

eplanit 6y ago
Yes I have. Guarding national security is one thing. Keeping a new consumer gadget secret is another. Apple isn't so important.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >Apple isn't so important. You forgot you're on HN where Apple is a religion who's products people here swear are irreplaceable and that nothing in the world ever comes close in polish. Every products they launch tends to break news sites and comment sections. This wouldn't happen if they wouldn't be so secretive about it. They're also a trillion dollar company who's products shape the lifestyle of many (the infamous shame of the green/blue bubble in chats).
- bitexploder 6y ago
  To society as a whole, yes. To the company itself, there is definitely competitive advantage to protect trade secrets so harshly. It’s hard to argue it doesn’t have some value for Apple. I think it’s a little extreme and disagree with the degree to which they enforce it on all of their teams, even knew where it clearly has minimal competitive advantage.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  CIA does very little guarding national security as far as I can tell.
  - WJW 6y ago
    For a spy agency that is exactly how it should be. If any rando on the internet could detect what they were doing then it wouldn't be very secret.
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      The CIA is very quick to 'leak' of its successes to the national press via 'anonymous government officials'. It's just I don't consider staging coups and arming extremist 'rebels' to be part of protecting national security[1]. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
      - WJW 6y ago
        How can you tell that all successes are leaked and that all the things leaked are actually true? If they prevent 100 terrorist plots but 95 of those were through various means that they wish to keep secret, they would simply only leak the ones for which they don't care that their sources are exposed. In fact, it would be extremely difficult to verify if the stories about arming rebels are even true, or maybe a side plot to play down their competence and lull the actual adversaries into a false sense of security. It is in the very nature of a spy agency that the general public does not know what they are up to.
        sneak 6y ago
        If they intentionally leaked nothing, this would be perhaps a reasonable approach. The fact that they leak positive stuff sometimes, and coupled along with the fact that they run a global network of torture sites (and hacked the computers of their own congresspeople who are their oversight, then lied about doing so) means that they probably aren't as do-good and trustworthy as you seem to think they should be assumed to be.
- webmobdev 6y ago
  I agree. Apple doesn't (nor do many other corporates). And so they make you sign lot of contracts and non-disclosure agreements to shut you up. So you shut up to put food on your table.
  - foobarian 6y ago
    I don't have many friends, but of the ones I do there are still two whole people I would be comfortable sharing privileged info with peace of mind that they will keep it to themselves. The same goes the other way, I have no problem keeping confidential things confidential.
    - xvector 6y ago
      Agreed, that's just called having a good friend. I've had friends at Apple that have no trouble telling me what they're working on.
spicyramen 6y ago
Good thing that under Jim Cook, there's nothing they can hide as no new products exists :)
goldenchrome 6y ago
Loyalty to institutions that don't care about you is the most foolish idea. I would never worry about keeping state or company secrets because they would never keep mine. It's a one-sided exercise in self-flagellation. The more we learn about our government the more we learn about it's inhumanity. Giving your life to it is akin to throwing it away. Perhaps worse than that because of the damage one can cause.
m463 6y ago
A friend of mine had an aunt who worked for a government agency. She got an award. She did something that was a big deal. They had a ceremony and her close family was allowed to attend. However, my friend said the ceremony was congratulations and handshakes, but zero details about what it was for.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hef19898 6y ago
I had both, Amazon and as a defense contractor. Nothing ever would have prohibited me from talking about how work was, what I worked on was for obvious reasons easier at Amazon. But even in the contractor job it was no problem saying I worked on Integrated Logistics Support on aircraft. This was a far cry from being CIA, so. That being said, I told people the comment thing more than once. Always to people I know and people that know me well enough to get the meaning. In other cases I just said I won't answer certain questions. Much different than the bo comment trope.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  It's sometimes funny how those things worth with the government. I was talking to an acquaintance who worked at a company that built satellites for NRO/NSA & Friends. He could tell me things like "we had a great test of the cryocoolers last week and some of our design tweaks really improved the performance. On the other hand he wouldn't tell me what the satellite was for or even its name. A coworker of mine went to a foreign country once on a business trip. When he asked what he could tell his wife about his trip, the guidance he got was "You can tell her either where you're traveling or why you're traveling. Not both."
jariel 6y ago
? Apple is not 'the CIA' for gosh sakes. There's no reason for all of this. It's perfectly reasonable for people to say 'I work on iOS' or I work on 'new hardware but I can't say much more than that', or 'I work in production for Apple TV'. Most people at most companies are not allowed to talk about the details of what they do.
- hef19898 6y ago
  That. I was contractor once, we obviously were allowed to say what we did to various degrees. Like working on picture analysis or analyzing operational data and so on. But not about the actual details. Even the projects and so on were usually only refered to indirectly. After that, it usually just took 5 minutes on Google to find out what it was. Say supporting a new military aircraft program for the German armed forces, that left you with two options. Again, we never talked about the details, say prices, data and so on. And I won't. Nor will I talk about concrete data from my days at Amazon. But, yeah, I very much talk about what I did. Would be quite difficult to pass interviews and get projects, wouldn't it? Same goes for the real secret stuff. Saying you worked abroad for the CIA is much different from saying you served as a CIA operative in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2004. Unless, of course, you get an official legend fot your life after.

fenomas 6y ago

That's certainly one possible way to interpret what he said. Here's another: he wasn't refusing to answer my question, he was sardonically answering it.