“A leaker is pretty much a person who has access to people within companies. The leaker then shares this information with the public. Many leakers have different sources you know. You have people in marketing, maybe you have people in PR. You’ve got people in the manufacturing process so in factories. Sometimes people just want to sh information without any other goal. They just want to get information outside.”-Max Jambor, Leaker
An interesting tidbit that Max shares is how he started to cultivate sources out of China. He set up a Weibo account and started following people on the platform who were posting about devices that had not been announced. Jambor would start chatting up these people who appeared on Weibo and ask them if they had more information about a phone they had been posting information about.
“I’m trying to keep a good balance between what gets people excited ahead of the launch and not to piss off a company entirely.”-Max Jambor, Leaker
Things changed when the Galaxy S10 leaks went viral and instead of having to find sources, sources were calling him. And the leaker admits that there were times when he was worried about getting into trouble. But precise details about those situations were not revealed. While he did get nervous at these times, he states that “at the end of the day everything turned out to be just fine.”
Jambor has learned through feedback from some of his sources that some companies like leaks since they result in free publicity for their devices. But there is a limit and the leaker says that newer leakers don’t seem to care what information they publish as long as the info gets out to the world. On the other hand, Max says that If you use your real name, you do have to consider what a company is thinking.
We’ve seen a huge increase in people posting info on social media claiming to be “leakers.” Max’s story is a fascinating one detailing one of the legitimate leakers who has been around for a long time despite his still young age.