Hackers Hit Apple Supplier Foxconn 193
wiredmikey writes "Protests against Apple and Foxconn due to furor over reports about working conditions have gone digital. A group known as SwaggSec has successfully hacked computers at Foxconn, and posted the stolen data to The Pirate Bay website. News of the hack comes as protesters paid a visit today to Apple stores around the world to deliver petitions demanding the improvement of working conditions at factories run by Apple suppliers in China and other countries. In response to the attack, Foxconn reportedly took down a website that explains the services it offers to some of its partners, including Apple, Cisco and Acer."
Apple gets singled out (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apple and Foxconn (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I, for one don't buy anything which comes from Foxconn. No Dell, no HP, no Microsoft, no Nintendo, etc. Before buying something I check where and by who is made.
Re:Apple and Foxconn (Score:4, Insightful)
it's simply not economically viable to manufacture here in the States.
As long as we continue to allow imports of materials covered in the blood of the workers who produced it, then yes, it will remain "not economically viable". Should we suddenly have an outburst of compassion and decide to ban such imports, I imagine it will magically become economical again to manufacture here. Also.. you're only getting about a 10% discount when you buy products produced by sweatshop as opposed to regulated and safe working conditions.
And let's be clear: The product you're buying isn't essential to your livelihood. It is a status symbol and a material comfort. Is that 10% really worth it? There are some standards that we should not compromise on: We should not allow business with companies or countries that have to place nets on and around their buildings to catch people committing suicide because of it's poor working conditions.
Re:Apple and Foxconn (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only is it completely ineffective to hand a signed petitions to some Apple store manager in an attempt to influence the working conditions of an internationally traded public company in China...
Not so. Excuse me, but these are precisely the market forces that are supposed to insight change in "pure capitalism". Pure capitalism and our American brand of government / industry cooperation are essentially bottom-up enterprises where change usually comes from the accumulation of lots of insignificant voices.
I'm curious what alternative you would suggest would insight change? Three chain-wearing ghosts visiting Tim Cook overnight convincing him to change his businesses practices and relationships?
Re:Apple and Foxconn (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that 10% really worth it?
Those Foxconn employees chose to work there because, to them, it's much better than working in the alternative business, namely, very dirty and very poor 4th world level farming. If big companies all around started refusing to work with Foxconn, it'd shrink, laying all that people off, back to the farms, to die of diseases they currently don't. So, even if the current situation is currently "bad" (from our perspective), the alternative is worse.
There's no magic trick. The only real solution for poor working conditions is to increase demand for labor more than the net growth of the workforce. Higher demand coupled with lower offer equals higher prices (in this case, higher wages). Once the demand over there is so high that companies start competing among themselves for workers, so that workers can start choosing were to work, a choice which usually includes considerations on working conditions, these companies will all find themselves compelled to improve working conditions, or start losing their best workers, then the average ones, and finally even the bad ones. Not being dumb, they'll follow the improvement path simply because there'll be no alternative.
All of which means, counter-intuitively as it seems, that people should actually do the opposite of what you suggested.
Re:Apple and Foxconn (Score:2, Insightful)
Thats not for Apple to decide. A company will (AND SHOULD!!!) always find the most cost-effective (yet legal) way to meet an end (short of compromising design or manufacturing goals). Thats the responsibility the company has to its shareholders.
Pure and textbook sociopathy.
Headline Change Please (Score:3, Insightful)
That headline should read Hackers Hit Everyone's Supplier, Foxconn.
I wonder what % of their business even comes from Apple? I am not saying Apple shouldn't be pushing to make things better they should. But, Apple is hardly the only person that uses Foxconn, the way you see this stuff reported you would swear Foxconn only works for Apple
Re:Apple and Foxconn (Score:3, Insightful)
Where does $20 per month come up? The average Chinese wage is something like $20 per day now, certainly at least for College graduates. Granted that's lower than the US (for now, he he), Japan, and most of Europe, but it's rising steadily.
The problem isn't so much that workers in the US can't do it, but that they are spoiled and they don't want to. Sending stuff offshore costs money. Dealing with different companies costs money. Shipping things around the globe costs money too - all of which means that people won't farm work to China or somewhere else just because it's slightly cheaper - it has to be a *lot* cheaper.
But US workers think it's their "right" to earn $25/hour for labor jobs that don't require a college degree or any advanced vocational training - and they use Unions to enforce this. When it costs $25 per hour to get someone to run a wire, or $25 per hour to get someone with 2 month's training to operate a screwdriver to put car doors on, something's wrong. Unions were probably necessary at one point when the companies had way too much bargaining power, but now the Unions have a monopoly on labor, and can demand well above natural market rates. The US can only lose from that in the long term.
As for " disregarding what would be human rights violations here in the US." Yeah, the US has not always had the same standards they do now, and some of them seem absurd to the rest of the world. There is no reason a 16 year old shouldn't be able to work if they want to. There is also no reason people shouldn't be allowed to work overtime if they want to. Some people would kill for more overtime, and then human rights groups come in and say "no, you can't do that".
I do believe that they should improve safety standards, but what is a reasonable cost/benefit trade-off to Americans is not yet reasonable in China or India. The best way to change that is to let them continue to make money.
Re:Apple and Foxconn (Score:4, Insightful)
You have no grasp of modern economics. If the US starts a global trade war, the US will find it has no markets for its goods. Since the rest of the world isn't insane like you, they will happily trade with each other, pretty much ignoring the US.
Keep in mind that the US uses more petroleum than it can provide from its own resources. Maybe we could "single source" from US sources for a short while, but it wouldn't be more than a few years. When oil is traded in Euros because the US dollar has tanked, buying oil on the global market will be insanely expensive compared to what we pay now.
Protectionism does not work for a country's economy. It causes the economy to crash. It doesn't matter what you think should happen. It only matters that people more knowledgable than you know the consequences.