Someone at Apple lost their job today

[waywardgs]

http://gizmodo.com/5520164/this-is-apples-next-iphone

Oops.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

I was going to write how this is dumb, but corporate espionage is serious business. Whoever found the phone isn't just a douchebag for not returning it, they are a colostomy bag.

[Mogonis]

Apple probably wanted it to happen. At least it's no longer a cracker.

[AnticorRifling]

Apple probably wanted it to happen. At least it's no longer a cracker.

My first thought as well.

Hey let's "lose" a device and have it fall into the hands of someone that can give a good analysis as well as positive review.


It smells like a celeb getting in trouble or having a sex tape released just before their new movie/album is set to release.

[StrayRogue]

Looks nice. I think I finally might join the legions of Apple fanboys and go for it when it's released.

[Kitsun]

At least they didn't put it up for sale to Apple's competition to reverse engineer it faster?

[AnticorRifling]

At least they didn't put it up for sale to Apple's competition to reverse engineer it faster?

Because it's a plant!!!

That or whoever found it realized that selling something like that, assuming it's a true lost to the wild device, is serious bad shit getting dumped on your head once you're caught.

[Androidpk]

Definitely sounds like some out of the box advertising.

[Soulpieced]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rtOXMZlMTkg/S2CJrHAAiFI/AAAAAAAACkM/sZxpqVOkvHg/s640/Its_A_Trap.png

[Tisket]

The story about how the phone was "lost" (http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone) sounds like an attempt to advertise the beer garden to me:


The Gourmet Haus Staudt. A nice place to enjoy good German ales. And if you are an Apple Software Engineer named Gray Powell and you get one too many beers, it's also a nice place to lose the next-generation iPhone.

The 27-year-old Powell—a North Carolina State University 2006 graduate and talented amateur photographer—is an Apple Software Engineer working on the iPhone Baseband Software, the little program that enables the iPhone to make calls.

On the night of March 18, he was enjoying the fine imported ales at Gourmet Haus Staudt, a nice German beer garden in Redwood City, California. He was happy. The place was great. The beer was excellent. "I underestimated how good German beer is," he typed into the next-generation iPhone he was testing on the field, cleverly disguised as an iPhone 3GS. It was his last Facebook update from the secret iPhone. It was the last time he ever saw the iPhone, right before he abandoned it on bar stool, leaving to go home.

Knowing how ferocious and ruthless Apple is about product leaks, those beers may have turned out to be the bitterest of his life.

Until now, Apple's legendary security has always worked perfectly. Perhaps there was a blurry factory photo here, or some last-minute information strategically whispered to some friendly media there. But when it comes to the big stuff, everything is airtight. At their Cupertino campus, any gadget or computer that is worth protecting is behind armored doors, with security locks with codes that change every few minutes. Prototypes are bolted to desks. Hidden in these labs, hardware, software and industrial-design elves toil separately on the same devices, without really having the complete picture of the final product.

And hidden in every corner, the Apple secret police, a team of people with a single mission: To make sure nobody speaks. And if there's a leak, hunt down the traitor, and escort him out of the building. Using lockdowns and other fear tactics, these men in black are the last line of defense against any sneaky eyes. The Gran Jefe Steve trusts them to avoid Apple's worst nightmare: The leak of a strategic product that could cost them millions of dollars in free marketing promotion. One that would make them lose control of the product news cycle.

But the fact is that there's no perfect security. Not when humans are involved. Humans that can lose things. You know, like the next generation iPhone.

Apple security's mighty walls fell on the midnight of Thursday, March 18. At that time, Powell was at Gourmet Haus Staudt, just 20 miles from the company's Infinite Loop headquarters, having his fun. Around him, other groups of people were sharing the jolly atmosphere, and plenty of the golden liquid.

The person who eventually ended up with the lost iPhone was sitting next to Powell. He was drinking with a friend too. He noticed Powell on the stool next to him but didn't think twice about him at the time. Not until Powell had already left the bar, and a random really drunk guy—who'd been sitting on the other side of Powell—returned from the bathroom to his own stool.

The Random Really Drunk Guy pointed at the iPhone sitting on the stool, the precious prototype left by the young Apple engineer.

"Hey man, is that your iPhone?" asked Random Really Drunk Guy.

"Hmmm, what?" replied the person who ended up with the iPhone. "No, no, it isn't mine."

"Ooooh, I guess it's your friend's then," referring to a friend who at the time was in the bathroom. "Here, take it," said the Random Really Drunk Guy, handing it to him. "You don't want to lose it." After that, the Random Really Drunk Guy also left the bar.

The person who ended up with the iPhone asked around, but nobody claimed it. He thought about that young guy sitting next to him, so he and his friend stayed there for some time, waiting. Powell never came back.

During that time, he played with it. It seemed like a normal iPhone. "I thought it was just an iPhone 3GS," he told me in a telephone interview. "It just looked like one. I tried the camera, but it crashed three times." The iPhone didn't seem to have any special features, just two bar codes stuck on its back: 8800601pex1 and N90_DVT_GE4X_0493. Next to the volume keys there was another sticker: iPhone SWE-L200221. Apart from that, just six pages of applications. One of them was Facebook. And there, on the Facebook screen, was the Apple engineer, Gray Powell.

I want a good german beer now.

[Cephalopod]

I want a good german beer now.

Today is the 25th Anniversary of Sam Adams. Drink that instead.

But yeah, this seems like a plant from a few different angles.

[Numbers]

The person who found it sold it to Gizmodo for $10,000.

[Asha]

Looks nice. I think I finally might join the legions of Apple fanboys and go for it when it's released.

Agreed.
Before it just looked too massive and now it looks more like an i-pod, which is what I always wanted it to.

[AnticorRifling]

Wouldn't apple have some sort of legal disclaimer/jargon on the phone's boot screen if it's a proto type? I've gotten to work with a few next gen business models for SFF, CMT, laptops (travel, desktop replacement, etc) and all of them had a big ass warning on boot screens, backgrounds, and as stickers on the inside of the cases, etc. Basically saying GTFO unless authorized.

[Kuyuk]

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/20/blog-apple-letter-proves-phone-prototype-is-real-deal/?hpt=T2

[Tisket]

Silicon Valley cops raid Gizmodo editor's home, take four computers (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100426/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1791)


Police broke into the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen and confiscated four computers and servers, the tech blog reports. Gizmodo broke the news last week about Apple's next-generation iPhone, after paying a source who found it in a California bar $5,000 for the device.

The officers were from the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT), a California law enforcement group based in Silicon Valley. In the search warrant, which Gizmodo posted, REACT officers checked a box indicating that they were looking for property "used as a means of committing a felony."

Since the Gizmodo iPhone scoop broke last week, some have speculated that Gizmodo and its parent company, Gawker Media, might be liable for criminal prosecution for being in receipt of stolen goods under California law.

Gawker has blasted back at the police with seized-property charges of its own, claiming that the police had no legal grounds for seizing a journalist's property. Gaby Darbyshire, Gawker's chief operating officer, wrote to the police that Chen "tells me that he showed you an email I had sent him earlier that day that told him that he should tell you that under both state and federal law, a search warrant may not be validly issued to confiscate the property of a journalist."

In a ruling handed down last week, a New Jersey court determined that a blogger being sued for defamation did not have full standing as a journalist and therefore was not protected under the state's "shield law," which protects journalists from being compelled to take part in court proceedings pertaining to their work. California has a shield law, but there is no shield law that covers federal criminal cases.

In her letter, Darbyshire further explained that Chen "tells me that you ignored him and, having been inside for a few hours already, you proceeded to remove the materials despite his protestations."

Chen said that REACT did not damage his other property — apart, that is, from bashing in his door to get inside while he wasn't home.

— Michael Calderone is the media writer for Yahoo! News.

Apple doesn't fuck around. Guess this wasn't just an advertising stunt.

[Mogonis]

REACT would be a great F.E.A.R. spinoff game.

[Cephalopod]

Honestly, Apple wouldn't even have needed to have anything to do with this. (but they probably are involved)

Gizmodo basically admitted on their website: they knew knew who owned the phone, that the person who'd found it didn't take any serious efforts to return it (leaving his number at the bar would have been enough) and that they were paying money for a device that was not the legal property of the person selling it.

[Tisket]

It's much more interesting to imagine Apple orchestrated a stormtrooper style takedown.

[Slider]

Soo.. Apple sends him a letter saying give our shit back, he writes back saying "no problem, come get it" and instead of, oh I don't know, sending some corporate flunky to collect the phone, they send the police Geek Squad to break down his door, and confiscate his computer and servers....

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/04/20/apple-wants-its-secret-iphone-back/

[BigWorm]

Soo.. Apple sends him a letter saying give our shit back, he writes back saying "no problem, come get it" and instead of, oh I don't know, sending some corporate flunky to collect the phone, they send the police Geek Squad to break down his door, and confiscate his computer and servers....

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/04/20/apple-wants-its-secret-iphone-back/

This Wired story about the raid (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-raid/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Ind ex+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher) and other stuff I have read (I was a fairly regular Gizmodo/Gawker reader before this) implies that he already gave it back. This raid was to gather evidence about how the phone was obtained apparently.

From what that story says and a couple others I have read, California law is pretty explicit about barring police from using a warrant to gather evidence from a journalist, even if they are investigating that person for a crime. Also while the question of whether a blogger is a journalist or not is still pretty up in the air nationally, from what I understand the language of the California law covers Chen. IANAL, but it could be interesting to see how this plays out in court.

By the way, Apple just so happens to be on the steering committee for the REACT task force (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1795) that executed the raid

[waywardgs]

http://www.cultofmac.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/500x_apple-gestapo.jpg

[Numbers]

Gizmodo basically admitted on their website: they knew knew who owned the phone, that the person who'd found it didn't take any serious efforts to return it (leaving his number at the bar would have been enough) and that they were paying money for a device that was not the legal property of the person selling it.

The guy who found the phone did try to return it. Twice. Apple ignored him both times.

I don't see how what Gizmodo did was illegal in any sense. The phone wasn't stolen -- it was lost. If you found $1,000 on the ground and knew who it belonged to, but when you contacted that person to return it they ignored you, could the police arrest you for keeping that money?

What Gizmodo did may not be moral or ethical, and revealing the identity of the person who lost the phone was a total dick move, I don't see how it's illegal.

[Cephalopod]

The guy who found the phone did try to return it. Twice. Apple ignored him both times.

I don't see how what Gizmodo did was illegal in any sense. The phone wasn't stolen -- it was lost. If you found $1,000 on the ground and knew who it belonged to, but when you contacted that person to return it they ignored you, could the police arrest you for keeping that money?

What Gizmodo did may not be moral or ethical, and revealing the identity of the person who lost the phone was a total dick move, I don't see how it's illegal.

I hadn't seen anywhere that the guy tried to return it... if that's the case, MY BAD.

My understanding was that he immediately tried to sell it to both Engadget and Gizmodo, and Gizmodo won.

(I still can't find a reference to him trying to return it.)

[Clove]

I haven't found any sources that reference the finder attempting to return it to Apple first, and as far as I know the identity of the finder hasn't been revealed either. Apple certainly hasn't claimed anyone attempted to return the prototype to them (but probably wouldn't because it would make them look pretty silly).

Meanwhile:


http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20003477-37.html?tag=mncol;posts

The criminal probe into Apple's errant iPhone prototype is expected to broaden, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told CNET.

San Mateo County's investigation may expand beyond Gawker Media's Gizmodo.com, which acknowledged buying the prototype for $5,000, and the unknown person who sold it to the gadget blog, the source said. Police obtained a warrant to search a Gizmodo editor's home on Friday evening. CNET was the first to report an investigation was under way earlier that day.

One reason for an expanded investigation is obvious: law enforcement wants to learn who found the so-called 4G prototype and offered it for sale. California law makes it a crime for someone to find lost property but not return it.
That kinda answers your question Numbers. I suspect even if you attempted to contact the owner but weren't taken seriously CA might expect you to leave it at a lost and found or if especially valuable with some authority like the police. Selling it though? Not so much.

Under a California law dating back to 1872, any person who finds lost property and knows who the owner is likely to be--but "appropriates such property to his own use"--is guilty of theft. There are no exceptions for journalists. In addition, a second state law says that any person who knowingly receives property that has been obtained illegally can be imprisoned for up to one year.

"appropriates such property to his own use" kinda sums it up in my mind and I take it to mean that in CA even if you're unable to directly return found property you know the likely owner of you are not allowed to sell it or use it (without being guilty of theft).


Some more interesting Cnet articles:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20003539-37.html?tag=mncol;posts

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20003446-37.html?tag=mncol;posts

[BigWorm]

I haven't found any sources that reference the finder attempting to return it to Apple first, and as far as I know the identity of the finder hasn't been revealed either. Apple certainly hasn't claimed anyone attempted to return the prototype to them (but probably wouldn't because it would make them look pretty silly).

http://gizmodo.com/5520729/why-apple-couldnt-get-the-lost-iphone-back

But I don't really consider calling Apple tech support a legitimate attempt to return it.

[Clove]

http://gizmodo.com/5520729/why-apple-couldnt-get-the-lost-iphone-back

But I don't really consider calling Apple tech support a legitimate attempt to return it.
Thanks for finding and posting that BW.

Me neither. Frankly I'm surprised he didn't just give it to the manager of the bar like a normal person might "Hey, someone left this at your bar."

I also don't consider Gizmodo much of an unbiased source (or for that matter the finder himself) without some sort of substantiating proof (i.e. phone log). I know I would certainly claim I tried to return property I thought I might be accused of stealing.

I'm also somewhat skeptical of the story itself although if the probe results in charges and court I'm sure it will be verified or discredited. Frankly Gizmodo is a biased reporting source that has something to gain by attempting to make the seller (and Gizmodo's involvement) as "innocent looking" as possible. Even though the story is entirely plausible, it's really just a story at this point. No phone logs, no confirmation from Apple, even the Apple rep that "verifies" the call didn't claim to actually receive it but, rather "sat next to the guy that did." Not saying it isn't true, just saying it's the sort of thing I'd expect the seller to say and Gizmodo to report.

That being said, I'm thinking Apple is not only going to revise security policies but I expect that they'll also create plans and policies to address the potential loss of a prototype for future worst-case scenarios like this one. It's a tough situation, they don't want to broadcast that they've lost a prototype and a memo to CS saying something like "hey if someone calls saying they found a strange iPhone transfer them to the COO" will effectively do just that. I could on the other hand see Apple sending out a CS alert with something like, "We have noticed a dramatic increase in high-quality iPhone knockoffs, some of which are almost indistinguishable from genuine Apple iPhones. If you receive any support calls about unusual iPhones please transfer the call to..." etc.

[Clove]

http://indyposted.com/20240/guy-who-found-iphone-4g-regrets-his-mistake/

The guy who found and then sold the iPhone 4G prototype to Apple last week has come forward and says he “regrets his mistake in not doing more to return the phone.”


Brian Hogan confirmed to Wired that Gizmodo paid him for the phone, his lawyers said “Brian thought it was so that they could review the phone.” His lawyers added that he does a lot of volunteer works that that he “is the kind of young man that any parent would be proud to have as their son.”

According to Calfornia police, Hogan is “very definitely … being looked at as a suspect in theft. Assuming there’s ultimately a crime here.”

In California even finding property can be theft if the item is not returned to the owner or handed over to police. According to reports Hogan had a friend call Apple Care, that’s differs from Gizmodo who said he had tried “calling a lot of Apple numbers” while attempting to return the device.

Wired also reveals that Hogan apparently tried to shop the phone around to at least several websites and they revealed another e-mail he had sent to a competing website.

Personally I don’t think Apple employees should have had prototypes in a bar, but that’s just my common sense kicking in."had a friend call Applecare...." "an Apple rep sat next to the guy that got the call..." Nobody seems to want to be that guy.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Corporate theft/espionage will get you in the clink. That's serious business, seriously.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Oh, and isn't offering to pay for any beta Apple products illegal too?

[Clove]

Offering to buy property that is stolen is illegal. Considering they were hoping to purchase an Apple prototype and Apple wasn't the seller, Gizmodo can be considered guilty of buying stolen property. I have a feeling Apple is going to be pressing charges soon... you really can't encourage news outlets to pay people to steal your shit for a scoop.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Yeah, that's what I thought. The folks at Gizmodo seem like douchebags in the website, like they did nothing wrong. I hope they get a beat down of epic proportions. There is reporting, and then there is the TMZs of the world, and Gizmodo is a tech oriented TMZ.

People & Corporations should have some rights to privacy.