, my friends, it took a while but it happened: the brazilian developer / hacker Guilherme Rambo Your developer account has been locked out by Apple since last August.
Rambo tells in a post on his blog that he tried to solve the problem in the most possible ways with Apple, and only decided to make the case public now, three months later, because he sees no prospect of a single resolution, who knows, through the "media pressure".
In the current scenario, Rambo is unable to generate provisioning profiles for its apps (such as AirBuddy), send notifications push or even contact Apple Developer Program support. The few times he has been able to talk to someone, he has to do so through the developer account of a company he works for.
The big problem in all of history that Apple never told Rambo about locking up his account and not least gave him a reason to. The contacts he had with support informed him that he would receive a brief return and that the case was "under consideration", but after all this the situation remains in the dark.
Well, in the "dark" no. We, as well as Rambo and anyone who follows his trajectory in the Apple world, know that this block has to do with the company's numerous discovery of secrets that he has been scouring about operating system betas and the like, a technique known as Spelunking. Here are some recent examples:
On the one hand, you can stand on Rambo's side and conclude that Apple's bad luck that makes these slips by leaving secret information in software released for public testing. On the other hand, any Apple Developer Program participant signs contractual terms (PDF) and NDAs (non-disclosure agreements, or non-disclosure agreements) that clearly prevent them from doing what Rambo does.
In other words, Apple is right to ban Rambo's account if it wishes. I only see two very wrong things in this story: 1) why the hell does she not make that decision and tell him the reason for the block, and 2) just like Rambo, Apple sites around the world also post information / screenshots / e related software and beta software, clearly violating these terms / NDAs, and Apple does nothing against it.
Moreover, it turns out to be a very silly "retaliation" from Apple after all, if she decides to keep this ban on his account, she won't stop him from continuing to rummage through future beta software and spreading potential leaks to the world. I will not have developer accounts to login and download builds of the OSs.
This story reminded me of the iPhone 4 prototype case found in a bar, whose photos and details were exposed to the world by the site. Gizmodo. The site has been banned for years of Apple events simply for exercising its freedom of the press right; It's not like they broke into the company campus and stole the device, no?
We will follow, of course, the unfolding of this story.
Update 11/22/2019 7:50 PM
Happy ending: Rambo updated the original blog post stating that Apple contacted him today and reinstated his access to the Apple Developer Program.
He obviously gave no extra details about what was talked about.
