Brutal legal action college student faced after he triggered the biggest leak in Apple's history
Apple didn't take the information leak lightly
Fighting a legal battle against Apple isn't something you're likely to emerge from victorious, and one college student found this out after participating in what many consider the biggest leak in the tech giant's history.
Leaks have largely become an inevitability in the tech world in this day and age, as there are countless insiders for each company ready to reveal the plans for the next couple of years.
Apple certainly isn't spared from this, as leakers have revealed everything from new phone releases, updates to iOS systems, and even long-awaited new features on the horizon.
However, one unfortunate college student found out that this wasn't always the case after they leaked the iPhone 4 ahead of its release, revealing the 'brutal' legal action they faced in the aftermath.
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To give some context, tech publication Gizmodo shocked the smartphone world in early 2010 when they revealed the 'next iPhone' several months after its release in what turned out to be the fourth generation of Apple's industry-defining gadget.
They claim that the phone - which was designed to be disguised as an iPhone 3GS - was picked up by a random person when Apple software engineer Gray Powell accidentally left it at a bar in Redwood City, California.
The person who picked up the phone quickly realized it wasn't an iPhone 3GS and was instead the unreleased and yet-to-be-revealed iPhone 4, selling it for $5,000 to Gizmodo who then published the leak.
That leaker then took to Reddit's ever-popular question and answer subreddit r/IAmA three years later, willing themselves to reveal all about the crazy situation they ended up in.
One of the most fascinating questions that emerged was the legal repercussions of their actions, as it's difficult to comprehend quite how severe a punishment leaking a product like this could hold.
"Legally, I was fined $125 dollars, had to do 40 hrs of community service, and go 1 year informal probation," the leaker revealed, which isn't actually too bad relative to the 'crime' and the cash exchanged with Gizmodo.
Adding to their experience, they also revealed whether they now have a criminal record as a result of the leak:
"I was charged with a misdemeanor misappropriation of lost property, which I had expunged after my informal probation was up. I think the outcome was pretty good considering I had a special task force after me whose sole purpose was to investigate high tech crime, and who Apple happened to be a board member of."
It certainly shows the extent Apple was willing to go to at the time to snuff out the leaker and prevent anyone else from looking to do the same in the future, although relative to the current leaking landscape it feels like the iPhone 4 thief pulled the short stick.
That $5,000 from Gizmodo didn't actually seem to go quite as far as you might expect based on the leaker's other responses though. When clarifying how much they earned from the debacle, they revealed that the 'expensive lawyer' they had to hire as part of the legal battle ended up costing "much much more than $5,000."