Comment on Is there a way out of an NDA after signing? It just seems people are so affraid of breaking it
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
So, you signed a legally-binding Non-Disclosure Agreement and now you wish to disclose something in it?
You might think you can do it anonymously, but they may have a way of tracing the leak back to you. One thing Apple does and has done is put people on bogus projects that will never see light of day. Report on the Apple game system, the Apple scale, and the Apple running shoes, they can narrow that leak down to you, or you and a couple other people, and drop you (since you weren’t doing anything for them anyway). Stupid examples but you get the point.
There’s also the canary system, a spy/counterspy method mentioned by Tom Clancy in his Jack Ryan books. I don’t know if it’s real, or if the CIA, Mossad, KGB, or any other intelligence agency actually uses it. The idea is, you tell three friends the same secret, but you change up the details each time and you keep track of who was told what version of the lie. When the lie comes back to you, you know who betrayed you because of the detail only one of them got (the canary that sang).
(If canary is familiar, you may have also heard the term “warrant canary.” This is a case where someone, say a VPN provider, will put a line of text on their site that says “We have never been asked to provide records on our customers.” Once they get, and are forced to comply with such a request, they remove the line, and people watching it know what’s up. Same concept, actually.)
So like the last person to reply said, it’s not a good idea. Even if you’re anonymous, you may spill something linked directly to you, and they know you leaked it and can prove it in court.
I beta tested and signed an NDA about a video game that’s been out for over 10 years now. I still don’t talk about the beta test. I’ve played the commercially released game. I don’t like it. I’ve shared my opinion on those experiences. Only ever told my wife about the beta test. But even so, there was nothing really worth mentioning in the beta test. It was just a little more boring than the commercial version, because they added more shit to do. It’s still a turd, it just now has a couple chocolate sprinkles on it. Or, it’s still a pig, but now it has lipstick on it.
AA5B@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
IANAL obviously, but a game beta seems like the perfect legitimate use case for an nda. It’s time limited, very specific, you have legitimately volunteered.
NDAs are all different but ask yourself
If you have any such questions, you should definitely consult a lawyer before assuming
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
Bot? Or just bored?
I’m not OP, I’m not the one asking. And in my case the game came out like 15 years ago. So, not sure why all the help, but maybe it’ll be useful for someone else? I surely don’t need a lawyer to tell me I can or can’t mention I was in a beta test for a game years ago… certainly don’t need to pay one.