Cupertino, CA — Everyone knows about Apple’s obsession with security. What they don’t know is just how far Apple Security is prepared to go to do its job.
In the wake of the lost iPhone scandal, stories are surfacing about brutal treatment of subjects during interrogation in Apple Security’s underground “iChamber of Horrors.”
The iPhone engineer who recently confessed to leaving the top-secret iPhone prototype at a Redwood City bar is but the most recent victim of Apple’s overzealous security unit. Other employees have apparently been summoned for offenses that range from using a tacky screen saver to taking Steve Jobs’ parking space.
Stitching together reports from various sources, it appears that Apple Security follows a carefully controlled interrogation procedure.
First, they engage in a little good-cop/bad-cop with the victim. The good cop normally offers a gluten-free cookie from the Apple cafeteria while the bad cop eagerly prepares a set of rusty electrodes. If that fails, Apple Security executes a series of progressively more intense tortures until the subject finally breaks.
One officer takes the subject’s iPod and slowly—very slowly—begins deleting playlists. Next the psychological pressure is amped up when Security tells the victim that his iPhone will be replaced by a BlackBerry, and his iPod replaced by a Zune. If the subject hasn’t yet cracked, he is then told that he is free to go to lunch at the Apple cafeteria — wearing a Dell t-shirt.
Surveillance footage of Apple employee 61227, following forced application of Dell t-shirt — he confessed within four minutes (click to enlarge)
The blood-curdling screams coming from the Infinite Loop basement are not being ignored by the ACLU, which is outraged that such behavior is condoned in this century. “Apple knows full well that using a BlackBerry is cruel and inhuman punishment,” says Ben Zissler, representing the ACLU in the Bay Area.
The big question now is: who is responsible for Apple Security’s behavior? Apple Marketing VP Phil Schiller has known associations with this group. But a recently leaked memo suggests that the trail might lead all the way to the CEO’s door.
Apple did not return calls for comment.
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