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Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

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Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#181

Post by angstrom »

nailer wrote: post #177
angstrom wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it pretty despicable they made no honest attempt to get the prototype back to Apple. Until they posted actual information they could've returned it to Apple and I'm sure Apple would've reimbursed them the $5K for the phone and possibly given them future preference for the good deed. This is "Finder's keepers, loser's weepers" hiding behind freedom of press. It isn't by any means in the territory of whistle blo…

> I find it pretty despicable they made no honest attempt to get the prototype back to Apple. Apparently they did, and were ignored. Nobody has come up with anything that refutes this so far. I look at it as: someone made an innocent mistake losing a phone, someone found a phone and called a company, Apple's bureaucracy fucked up and didn't respond as soon as it should have.

Wonder if sjobs@apple.com with attached pictures would've worked. An honest effort isn't "Oh, we called and employee # 1034434393 was clueless." It's on par with a lost wallet. They had all the information.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#183

Post by wmf »

istari wrote: post #151

The police should now post the contents of Chen's hard drive online. After all, they did find it.

No, they should sell the contents of his hard drive to the highest bidder. After all, I hear police departments tend to be underfunded.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#185

Post by nailer »

zts wrote: post #172
nailer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clearly wasn't a typo. I'm well aware the search was conducted by police. I did not suggest otherwise. I am saying that Apple asked the police to raid the property.

So the police are working for Apple now? Clear evidence that their quest for world domination has gone too far.

No, like all humans, they're self interested. They just want to be seen to do a good job protecting one of the states biggest earning and most well known companies in a high profile case.

I personally also pay more attention and go beyond the call for higher profile projects. That doesn't mean I'm involved in some kind of conspiracy.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#186

Post by anigbrowl »

nailer wrote: post #128
MWinther wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the only way we know that to have happened is via Gizmodo's account of what the guy who sold it to them said. I'm not saying he didn't, but we've hardly gotten irrefutable proof that it actually happened. It is, after all, in the guy's interest to make himself look like he was trying to return it.

Agreed. If he's lying about trying to return it, I hope that's revealed and he's punished. In the meantime, I won't condemn him without evidence. I hope anyone else wouldn't either.

Honestly, I don't think the police or Apple care too much about the guy who found the phone. Yeah, he failed to comply with the law and and instead pocketed $5000. Maybe he's sweating in terror right now, wondering how much of an attorney's time he can buy with whatever he didn't spend; maybe he was clever and used a throwaway email address, a false name, and didn't show any ID to the Gizmodo staffer who gave him the money (cash? check? who knows?).

He is a petty criminal...but probably just an opportunist rather than having malicious intent. Paradoxically, it might have been safer for him to set up a blog called ifound-iphone.com and post pictures in a 'LOL it came from the future' fashion: naivete might be a mitigating factor.

But Gizmodo/Gawker has no such excuse. Their whole business is the exchange of reader attention for advertising. They are leaders in their market sector, with a deep understanding of the tech industry and its role in the economy. and they have already been warned by Apple's outside counsel that offering money for hot information is an incitement to criminality.

With all this knowledge and experience, when they got hold of a prototype - which they themselves say was well disguised with a 'very ingenious solution to protect future designs from lookeyloos', they chose to disassemble it and publish detailed information about its manufacture, with a completely reckless disregard for anyone's business interests but their own.

If I were an attorney on Apple's or the DA's staff, my approach would be to forget about the seller, because his testimony isn't even necessary to bring suit against or prosecute the Gizmodo/Gawker folks. In fact, if they do offer to give him up, and I bet they will, I'd say I didn't care.

(I'm not an attorney BTW! It might be professionally unethical to behave like that if the information was being offered.)

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#187

Post by zts »

nailer wrote: post #185
zts wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the police are working for Apple now? Clear evidence that their quest for world domination has gone too far.

No, like all humans, they're self interested. They just want to be seen to do a good job protecting one of the states biggest earning and most well known companies in a high profile case. I personally also pay more attention and go beyond the call for higher profile projects. That doesn't mean I'm involved in some kind of conspiracy.

It's one thing to suggest that the police will pay greater attention to high profile cases (with which I'd agree), and quite another thing to imply that the raid happened because Apple requested it.

Beyond that, could you point out the source of your assertion that Apple requested this? I missed it in the article, and that's the conspiracy you've raised.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#188

Post by kjhgfghjknbv »

ahoyhere wrote: post #63

I'm glad. Around this whole thing, there seemed to be this aura of "teehee, it's ok, we're on the internet!" It seems like they don't believe they could have possibly done anything wrong. It's not that I can't imagine the glee they'd feel when they were offered the opportunity to buy the prototype. But since that glee was not followed up by any second thoughts -- for exmaple, about receiving stolen property, or trade…

So what about photos of a new car prototypes? There are a bunch of magazines devoted to those.

Or reviews of to-be-released movies?

Or photos of celebs in public?

Not terribly happy about companies using the Police to break down doors to manage their PR.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#189

Post by po »

nailer wrote: post #177
angstrom wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it pretty despicable they made no honest attempt to get the prototype back to Apple. Until they posted actual information they could've returned it to Apple and I'm sure Apple would've reimbursed them the $5K for the phone and possibly given them future preference for the good deed. This is "Finder's keepers, loser's weepers" hiding behind freedom of press. It isn't by any means in the territory of whistle blo…

> I find it pretty despicable they made no honest attempt to get the prototype back to Apple. Apparently they did, and were ignored. Nobody has come up with anything that refutes this so far. I look at it as: someone made an innocent mistake losing a phone, someone found a phone and called a company, Apple's bureaucracy fucked up and didn't respond as soon as it should have.

My memory could be off but wasn't it the guy who found the device and sold it to Apple that supposedly made the effort to return it?

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#190

Post by lt »

flatline wrote: post #160
raganwald wrote: post #136

Everyone is debating the whole "Good Faith" thing again. Here's a suggestion: Ask how it is "Good Faith" to "find" something in a bar? This isn't your house, your place of work, or a public space, it's somebody else's property (a phone) inside somebody else's property (a bar). Since when do you leave a bar with something that doesn't belong to you unless it's somebody else's spouse? Long before we get to the question…

What if he'd dropped it on the street instead? Should you leave it on the street, to get rained on, run over, stolen, etc., or take the phone and attempt to return it to the original owner? Finding the phone disabled, what do you do next? Throw it out? Return it to the street? Turn it in to the police? Presumably you've figured out it's some sort of prototype that is property of a corporation, so you contact them abo…

A couple weeks ago I saw a phone falling off a biker's girl back pocket. I stopped and picked up, but the girl was already gone.

We called a couple numbers on her cell trying to get her to call back. Eventually she did - turns out she was running away from her family with her ex; and we "ruined her life" by calling them. She never came back to pick it up.

Next time the phone will remain on the ground.

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