Lose an iPhone prototype once, shame on you. Lose an iPhone prototype twice, and you may need to tighten security.
That's apparently what's on Apple's mind, after a company employee reportedly left an unreleased iPhone prototype in a San Francisco bar. Last year, Apple had a similar incident on its hands, after another employee left an iPhone 4 prototype in a different bar.
After these consecutive blunders, Apple may be seeking new managers to oversee its soon-to-launch products and ensure that future products remain safely within company hands.
9to5Mac has come across two job listings on Apple's career portal, offering the position of New Product Security Manager. Only one position was advertised at the time of this writing, presumably because the other has been filled.
According to the listing, Apple is seeking an employee who "will be responsible for overseeing the protection of, and managing risks to, Apple's unreleased products and related intellectual property." Though Apple did not specify the types of products that this new manager would be in charge of, it did list ideal qualifications for the candidate, including "[a]dvanced degree, such as M.S. in Risk Management, Information Assurance, Security Management or equivalent degree" as well as "CPP, PSP, CISSP, CISA, CISM, CRISC or equivalent certification" and "5+ years of security assessment and/or audit experience."
On August 31, CNET reported that an Apple employee had left an unreleased iPhone prototype in a San Francisco bar, where the device was recovered and believed to have been sold on Craigslist. On September 2, the same day that 9to5Mac noticed that Apple was seeking security managers, San Francisco police said they had helped members of Apple's security team conduct a raid in July on a Bay Area home. San Francisco Police Department spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield told SF Weekly that several plainclothes officers accompanied Apple personnel on the raid but "did not go inside the house."
Sergio Calderón, who lives in the house targeted by Apple, told SF Weekly that he never had the device, but that two of the men searched the house, his computer and his car. "Calderón said none of them acknowledged being employed by Apple, and one of them offered him $300, and a promise that the owner of the phone would not press charges, if he would return the device," according to SF Weekly.
CNET reported on September 7 that the SFPD is now investigating the role its officers played in the search.
Also on September 2, a California judge charged two with misdemeanors for allegedly selling an iPhone 4 prototype found in a bar in March 2010. Gizmodo's Jason Chen, who bought the prototype from the pair and leaked photos of the handset shortly before the device was set to launch, saw his home raided and his computers confiscated last year. (Sound familiar?) A California judge dropped charges against Chen in early August 2011.