A former Apple engineer who was fired from the company for allegedly leaking confidential information to the media used a bathroom break to reveal information that may contain evidence, according to a lawsuit filed by the iPhone maker against the former employee. It was revealed that he had deleted a certain messaging app.
Andrew Ord, who worked as a software engineer in the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s iOS division, used his work phone to send thousands of texts to reporters at the Wall Street Journal and Information over a five-year period. He is said to have sent a message.
Apple, which filed a lawsuit against Ord in California Superior Court on March 18, argued that the media leaks were intended to “kill” products and features that Ord had “taken issue with.”
Over a four-month period, Ord exchanged more than 1,400 messages using an encrypted messaging app with a Wall Street Journal reporter he called “homeboy,” the lawsuit alleges.
Ord and the Journal both declined to comment. The Post has reached out to Apple and The Information for comment.
The Journal and The Post are both owned by News Corp.
Apple also claimed that Mr. Ord was in frequent contact with a reporter for the Information, a technology-focused news site popular with venture capitalists.
According to the complaint, he sent the Information reporter more than 10,000 text messages and even “traveled across the continent to meet her.”
Apple accused Ord of trying to undermine the company through “vanity” and “personal enjoyment of media attention,” which “played a significant role in the fraud.” did.
The complaint included screenshots of text messages allegedly sent to “Homeboy” by Ord, who joined Apple after graduating from college in 2016.
“I can’t wait for the chaos to erupt before the corporate folks at Apple wake up,” Ord allegedly wrote in a text exchange.
The lawsuit also includes excerpts from text messages in which Ord allegedly wrote:[I] It would be great if I could leak it to my friends at WSJ. ”
Ord also wrote in a text message:[expletive] policy and [the] Press,” according to the complaint.
Last fall, Ord’s boss suspected Ord of leaking information to the press and confronted him about the issue, according to the complaint.
In an interview on Nov. 7, 2023, Ord “repeatedly denied ever leaking information to anyone.”
He also informed his supervisor that he did not have a work-issued cell phone.
“Pretending to need to go to the bathroom during the interview, Mr. Ord removed his iPhone from his pocket during a break and permanently deleted large amounts of evidence from the device,” the lawsuit alleges.
Apple claimed that Ord used the encrypted messaging app Signal to communicate with Journal reporters.
On December 12, when asked about Ord’s deletion of the Signal app from his phone, Apple said that he had “finally come clean partially,” but that it was a “narrow confession limited to information that could not be destroyed.” “I only provided it,” he said.
The company, which has since fired Mr. Ord, said it would give him the chance to avoid a lawsuit if he fully cooperated with the investigation and revealed the full extent of the information leaked to the media.
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Apple is seeking unspecified damages from Aude.
