Nice article

It seems to me that Apple has more to gain by participating with and not against, their most ardent fans online. http://www.socialmediaworx.com/2008/why-doesnt-apple-get-social-media/

Apparently, Apple employees are 15x more likely to use the word "secrecy" to describe their company than employees at other companies: http://blog.glassdoor.com/2008/10/05/apple-a-fortress-of-secrecy/

I really admire that Nicholas Ciarelli started ThinkSecret when he was just 13, I wish I would have had a brilliant idea like that when I was 13.

Brilliant article. I've been following the Nick Ciarelli/Think Secret story for years. Here's some wiki info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_dePlume

Glad you found a new home online.
- South Dakota

Apple is a big company, and it still has a lot of intellectual property to protect. You're making a pretty big assumption in linking your case to their current efforts, or lack thereof. And, you have no real way of knowing whether or not they are taking any action. They may just be better at doing it in a more stealth way than when you were a snot-nosed brat and they were a smaller company.

"F- it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. But our stuff is *sooo good*. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you *worm*. Because our stuff is *great*. It's *shiny* and it's *pretty* and it's *cool* and it *works*. It's not like you'll go back to a Windows Mobile phone. Ha! Ha!"

http://tinyurl.com/4roxbf

Great to see you back in print, Nick. Gonna bookmark this Beast thing for daily reads.

I realized a long time ago, when I was still in school, and I smelled some of the BS that our educators wanted me to swallow. In 1792 there was a political party called the "Democratic-Republican Party", and now I'm to believe that they are separate. It seems to me that the "Democratic-Republican Party" which probably still exist as one would forever have complete control over our government... which they do. But I digress... I don't care what the media polls are. I have never been polled (ever). Nor has anyone I met (ever). I question the accuracy. If what I gather from my own polls is correct then John McCain doesn't have an ice cubes chance in Hell of becoming our Commander in Chief unless our votes don't count. Which they don't. So I am aware that from what you read from here you may stop reading and count me out since I decided not to vote. I am a Republican and I do not support John McCain. I do support Barrack Obama and wish him well. I have decided not to vote until the open ballet is reinstated.

The "closed ballet" system has been implemented because a long time ago, we did have an open ballet. And everyone know who their neighbor voted for. And people retaliated and vandalized opposing party members homestead. (this is the time when the Democratic-Republican Party had other competition such as the Federalists) We no longer live in such a time. In fact walk down your street and see how many houses and cars publicly display who they intend to vote for. An open ballet would leave a paper trail and allow me to look in the books and read off the lists of names of the citizens that voted . And I would look for just my name and verify that it matches that candidate that I voted for.