Apple merchandise are sometimes leaked as a result of they’re immensely fashionable, the corporate is protecting of its plans, and people are willing to pay for almost any data on a brand new product. A new must-read report from Motherboard exhibits that not everybody promoting Apple leaks is on the up-and-up, and never due to the data they’re peddling. Some leakers are working for Apple.

Motherboard’s Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai spoke to a double agent named Andrey Shumeyko, an Apple leaker who started providing data to the corporate in 2017. By the time 2020 rolled round and iOS 14 leaked, Shumeyko was actively making an attempt to turn into Apple’s mole, monitoring leaked {hardware} and software program and sharing it with Apple’s Global Security staff within the hopes of getting paid, and to “redeem himself for being part of that community.” There’s a cause why he spoke to Motherboard within the first place, although. Apple by no means paid and “never took into consideration my side and me as a person,” Shumeyko tells Motherboard.

What’s attention-grabbing about Shumeyko’s story isn’t the truth that there are moles working inside the communities promoting Apple’s greatest secrets and techniques, it’s that Apple managed to maintain Shumeyko sharing data for nearly a 12 months. Hacking and ferreting out leaks can generally contain social engineering, manipulating individuals quite than the technical instruments they use. It’s simply uncommon to see such a transparent model of it working the opposite means, and never with a ton of complexity. In non-public messages, Apple appealed to Shumeyko’s curiosity within the firm and his sense of guilt — and it labored, till it didn’t. Here’s what he says one Apple worker instructed him:

Please perceive that our purpose is to guard Apple. All our actions are guided by the premise of what’s greatest for the corporate, our staff, and our prospects (of which you’re one). Therefore your assist—and insights—in understanding attainable threats to us are essential…Do the proper issues to guard Apple. Keep it that means, you may be happy with your self, so will we.

You ought to learn Motherboard’s full piece to study all of the leaks Shumeyko was concerned in, and the not-so-subtle methods Apple tried to govern him. For all the data that also made it out, Apple stays an intimidating firm to mess with.