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Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

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Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#241

Post by krschultz »

hyperbovine wrote: post #232
danudey wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California law says that if you find lost goods and appropriate them for your own use (e.g. selling it to a news site for five grand), it's theft. The proper response would have been to make an honest effort to get ahold of Apple and/or Gray Powell directly (e.g. call the company switchboard), and, failing that, turn it in to the police. Instead, he sold it for a profit to a company (Gizmodo) who believed that it was…

So then... Jason Chen must be the guy who sold the phone to Gizmodo. Correct?

They are trying to find the guy who sold it to Jason Chen. Hence the search warrant not the arrest warrant.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#242

Post by krschultz »

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.

If that were true, then how did they so easily contact the guy who lost it and out him after the original post detailing the phone? Conceivably they could have called him before they printed the story about him.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#243

Post by jajabe »

Shield laws protect journalists/sources. In an ideal world, we'd be cheering for a good guy. In this case, the TMZ of tech is in the crosshairs. Not going to do any armchair lawyering, but I sure can't wait for the other side (not the whitewashed Gizmodo story) of the story to come out. Sadly, the conditions for Godwin's law are rapidly being met on this situation. sigh

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#244

Post by jajabe »

Shield laws protect journalists/sources. In an ideal world, we'd be cheering for a good guy. In this case, the TMZ of tech is in the crosshairs. Not going to do any armchair lawyering, but I sure can't wait for the other side (not the whitewashed Gizmodo story) of the story to come out. Sadly, the conditions for Godwin's law are rapidly being met on this situation. sigh

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#245

Post by krschultz »

doron wrote: post #220
rufo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't buy that. You find an iPhone lying on a street-corner? Then maybe you go through your own methods. You find an iPhone at a bar? The first place that person is going to look is at that bar . The sensible thing is to turn it into the bartender, not take it home, attempt to track down the person, then explain why exactly it is you have their iPhone/wallet/etc. (EDIT: Put another way: according to the or…

I found cellphones on several occasions, never gave it to anyone. I always tried (and was successful) in finding the owner by calling people on the phones address book. Actually giving the phone to a stranger, never really crossed my mind, and call NYC police? HA.

I agree with you on trying to return it directly, I found a blackberry while skiing and called the "home" number and was able to get it back to the guy. Keeping it would have been a nice upgrade (maybe if it were a Droid I would have).

However, they obviously knew the owner SINCE HE WAS CONTACTED AFTER THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, and they failed to return it. They did the equivalent of checking the address book when they went on Facebook and then didn't do anything to return it.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#246

Post by sp332 »

huhtenberg wrote: post #84
sp332 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such thing as bad publicity. Imagine gizmodo's ad revenues for today!

They pre-sell their ad space.

Ah, didn't know that. But they can factor this traffic into their average and get more money in the next set of contracts.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#247

Post by krschultz »

tmsh wrote: post #97
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…

I agree with you. But, although I haven't studied this event all that carefully, there is a difference between corporate espionage or some sort of malicious attempt at blatantly undermining Apple -- and the way Gizmodo presented their story, afaik. Gizmodo almost seemed to poke fun at the weird circumstances of the prototype being left behind (the photos of the bar and all that). Did they reveal any trade secrets abo…

I'd be shocked if there was not precedent dealing with exactly this kind of stuff. This is hardly the first time a person in the press has paid for the inside scoop on a trade secret. Ignorance of the case law does not make a person (or corporation) innocent.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#248

Post by johSho7w »

po wrote: post #192
johSho7w wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company can't keep its own secrets it should be their problem. We give protections to patents and copyrights for a reason.

We also give protections to trade secrets for a reason.

If Apple is claiming trade secret protection, they need to demonstrate that they attempted to protect the secret. Apple authorized taking the phone into the public. These "secrets" were not taken from the Apple campus or workplace.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#249

Post by mrkurt »

mbreese wrote: post #236
Judson wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting that everyone always points to this california law, and the key word thrown around is misappropriation, though, according to wikipedia, misappropriation is meant to mean something like: "failure to care for property you were entrusted with" If the phone was returned, in order, to Apple - maybe it was in a contract he signed with Gizmodo, I don't think misappropriation occurred here as the found phon…

> according to wikipedia I don't mean to sound glib, but I'm fairly certain that wikipedia is not an expert on California legal codes.

Nor are most Hacker News posters. At least Wikipedia cites sources. :)

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#250

Post by [deleted] »

mbreese wrote: post #236
Judson wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting that everyone always points to this california law, and the key word thrown around is misappropriation, though, according to wikipedia, misappropriation is meant to mean something like: "failure to care for property you were entrusted with" If the phone was returned, in order, to Apple - maybe it was in a contract he signed with Gizmodo, I don't think misappropriation occurred here as the found phon…

> according to wikipedia I don't mean to sound glib, but I'm fairly certain that wikipedia is not an expert on California legal codes.

[deleted]
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