September 10, 1989

OH NO, NOT AGAIN: Apple Computer’s internal security problems — the stuff of which legends are made — hit the streets again last week. The San Jose Mercury News got wind of an upcoming Macworld column by Steven Levy (he wrote the April Fool’s spoof about IBM’s Mac clone), chronicling the adventures of an unnamed Valley worker who made a video in broad daylight of “dumpster diving” in Apple’s trash.

This particular dive yielded schematics and source code documents, among other stuff. Trash cans weren’t locked, papers weren’t shredded and, at one point, a security guard walked within 40 feet of the film crew. The guard didn’t even turn his head.

When the Merc story appeared, someone at the mystery film maker’s real job phoned Apple’s legal department and identified the film maker as Chuck Farnham, who made international news over a year ago when a “source” sent him the schematics of Apple’s laptop and he wrote about it for a now-defunct Macintosh trade journal.

Farnham won’t say if Apple is threatening him over his recent archaeological exploits, but “They’re applying some very strange pressure.” Apple said no one was available for comment.

He says he’s had it with the “information gathering” business and is about to start developing a computer program for the developmentally disabled. He claims the information on unreleased products that he’s gathered over the years has mostly been for barter in a massive worldwide underground of Macintosh cognoscenti, though he’s also sold information to trade magazines.

“(Apple) could have put me out of business a long time ago by putting me under non-disclosure and asking me about security issues,” Farnham says. “Regardless of what they think of me, I do have a certain set of ethics. If I sign something, I don’t talk about it. Unfortunately, they hire a bunch of folks who DO sign things, and still talk. And then they get mad at me.”

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK: Just in case you didn’t already have enough to read, I figured it was about time I mentioned a new Mountain View-based magazine, ASIC Technology & News. ASICs, or “application-specific integrated circuits” (another name for custom chips), is a market growing by leaps and bounds.

ATN’s president and publisher is Nanci Magoun, a former chip industry analyst for Dataquest Inc., and an applications engineer and marketing communications manager for Fairchild Semiconductor’s ASIC operations. Mahendra Jain, formerly director of ASIC applications worldwide for National Semiconductor and Fairchild, is editor.

ATN’s funding came from the sale of Magoun’s house, from MK Global’s Jim Riley, and some private financing from Dave and Rick Norman. Dave Norman, you’ll remember, founded Dataquest and Businessland.

The tabloid, in production since May, has already won two design awards. Run with a bare-bones staff of eight, ATN is written either by staff or “free-lancers with ASIC experience,” Magoun says.

In addition, some of the pieces are written by contributors who work for ASIC vendors. Though often this can result in thinly-concealed product promotions, ATN avoided potential conflict by hiring “Chainsaw Mary” Lee, a former Mercury News news editor who earned her name for her ruthless editing style.

SPEAKING OF MAGAZINES: Former PC World editor Harry Miller is starting a new multimedia “publication” with Lou CasaBianca ,rock and interactive video promoter. Neither will comment on rumor (still firming up their funding, I hear), but what’s interesting about the venture — called MacMedia — is that it will be published in several formats, including print, CDROM, interactive video disc and video tape. They’re supposedly aiming for a launch around January 1990.