> It is hard to imagine one could get penalty of bankruptcy instead of going into Jail for this.

IANAL, but I believe for a charge of grand larceny you'd have to show intent to steal, and the "Low-Level" employee seems to have a pretty legitimate case that this was negligence, not theft. On the other hand, I think it's a pretty straight-line open-n-shut case for Apple to sue for damages, and I'm not sure that ruining a young software engineer's financial life for a decade is less of a deterrent than jail.

The negligence was only in losing control of the code. I guess successfully maintaining tight control of the code would be a mitigating factor (or, more likely, lead to not getting caught), but taking the code from Apple for the purpose of sharing it with these researchers in the first place is clearly premeditated (so, showing intent) theft.

Yes, it’s stealing afterall. Taking screenshots using one’s phone is still possible to steal the code, although the effort would be tedious for a large codebase. But for an active adversary, if that’s the only method, he/she would do it. I fear there is no way around that, even with logging enabled (there will be thousands of accessing the codebase per day). If the proposal is to lock down the repository and requires approval, that will make the development very slow. Not even in the banking would a manager want to ask “why” all the time...

I have no idea what they might do, but it's not a law of nature that they have to crack down on access. They have tens of thousands of employees, a single breach isn't evidence that a trusting, open environment doesn't work.

> and I'm not sure that ruining a young software engineer's financial life for a decade is less of a deterrent than jail.

Did I understand you correctly? Are you saying that being in jail is almost the same as having a bad credit with bankruptcy record?

jail is pretty bad, but it's not infinitely bad. that is, there almost certainly exists a sum $X for which you would be willing to go to jail for Y duration of time.

if you're struggling to stay afloat and have no credit/assets, a short time in jail is way worse than bankruptcy. on the other hand, if you've worked as a SWE for a few years, loosing all your money and having terrible credit for years is pretty awful. you're broke, so you can't buy anything outright, and your losses are compounded by the fact that you pay much more interest on things you buy on credit (if you can even get financing at all). it's not hard to see that this could be worse than a short time in jail. it all depends on the length of the sentence and your total losses from bankruptcy.

You do realize that there is life without good credit report? You don’t need to borrow money from somebody else/bank to live good life. Most of the world lives without an obsession with credit reports and borrowing.

yes but (at least in the US), your credit score affects stuff other than borrowing. often landlords will perform a credit check before approving your application; even employers will sometimes check an applicant's credit.

also keep in mind we are talking bad credit and all your assets seized by creditors. i'm not saying a bad credit score is literal hell on earth, but if you have no money and no credit you are gonna have a really bad time for a while.

Most of the world, yes. Silicon Valley? Not so much.

It would be a civil not criminal case if it ever came to that and they would have to prove actual damages. Pursuing it by way of setting an example to employees could very well backfire.