The Yes Men take on Apple

Apple requires all their suppliers to sign statements that the source materials (such as minerals) they're selling are 'conflict free'.<p>However, according to Steve Jobs, there's no way to be 100% sure that the materials aren't from the Congo or other war zones. Apple has no technique to inspect minerals and find out which mine they came from.<p>Source: <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/jobs-no-way-to-be-sure-iphone-minerals-are-conflict-free/7377" rel="nofollow">http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/jobs-no-way-to-be-sure-iphon...</a>

This is amusing, more so because I could almost see Apple itself attempting to use this concept. But, it's less cutting than several of the past Yes Men campaigns, possibly because of the congruence between the satirized and the satirical premise. Apple is not particularly egregious in sourcing their materials, nor are they particularly hypocritical about their use of rare-earth elements.

Umm.. Surely they meant 'hardware' here.. or else this is a double-troll..<p><i>As you probably know the minerals that are used in the production of various software products have largely been extracted from mines in Africa, especially the Congo. For the most part this mining has gone...</i>

To me this just seems like a Greenpeace-style attention-grab by using Apple's name.

I'm waiting for the Yes Men to take on airport security.

Conflict free iPhones made by Chinese slave labor. There is absolutely no way to get past the fact that someone may have died to bring you that shiny gadget. As disconnected as people are with their food supply, they're even more disconnected to everything else in their homes.