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Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

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Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#31

Post by raganwald »

Freebytes wrote: post #25
raganwald wrote: post #19

Why is this opinion Hacker News? Does the system need to be hacked? Do people think the system has been hacked? How is the presence of this story on HN different than the presence of the same story on reddit?

Hacker News is not only about hacking. Hacker News is about delivering content that is entertaining and useful to people that are programmers or people that are planning or currently running a start-up. This is actually completely relevant because anything involving this story could involve a small business that finds itself in a similar situation. Gizmodo could have been a small startup idea that only had a few view…

> anything involving this story

Sorry, I don't believe that anything involving the story is relevant to HN, nor do I believe that anything entertaining is HN. The acid test is "Anything that would gratify our intellectual curiosity." Some issues connected to this story do, some do not.

Remember that almost everyone here reads multiple sources of information: We read reddit, we read stackoverflow, we are on twitter. Therefore, there is no need for HN to contain every story that might be entertaining or even interesting.

For example, anecdotes about using dating sites are of great prurient interest to hackers, but not Hacker News. Stories about what makes some profiles on dating sites attract more responses than others: Hacker News.

So besides entertainment value, what specifically about this post should gratify my intellectual curiosity? What can I learn from this post to write software? What does it teach me about running a start-up?

Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#32

Post by michaelcampbell »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #24
evgen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the finder failed to take adequate steps to return the phone and then sold it to another party it was no longer lost, it was stolen.

You even left out the part where they disassembled it, which crosses the line even more blatantly.

How so? IF some other piece of material property was stolen (which was the only complaint here, no? I could be wrong), disassembling it doesn't add to the charges.

Or did Apple (or the police) assert that IP and/or trade secrets were stolen, in addition to (or exclusion of) the phone itself?

Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#33

Post by michaelcampbell »

evgen wrote: post #21
sabat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it was not stolen: the Apple employee who had been in possession of the prototype, Gray Powell, admits that he got drunk and accidentally left the phone at the bar. It was not stolen. It was lost.

When the finder failed to take adequate steps to return the phone and then sold it to another party it was no longer lost, it was stolen.

I thought steps WERE taken, and subsequently rebuffed. And as soon as the "owner" and the eventual party of possession were aware of each other, the device was returned.

Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#34

Post by rbanffy »

MaxwellKennerly wrote: post #7
Terretta wrote: post #4

Asking "Why were two completely different crime department cases in two completely different jurisdictions handled in two completely different ways?" is just glomming onto current news in an attempt to raise the profile of some other complaint. The complaint (her TRO should have been enforced) is valid, but has nothing to do with the handling of trade secrets investigation elsewhere in the country.

The problem in both cases is the absence of any standards governing the exercise of the prosecutor's and investigator's discretion. The appearance of impropriety in both cases magnifies the problem. If REACT wants to make it a high priority to issue subpoenas to recover information from third parties that might relate to someone else's wrongful possession of a phone for a brief amount of time, then so be it. Last I r…

Selectively enforcing high-profile offenses is a valid strategy if you want the increased awareness to be used as a dissuader for similar offenses, so, I understand when the prosecution wants to be "overzealous" when it comes to a valuable prototype.

Having said that, what happened to that woman is inexcusable. I understand police doesn't want to be used to intimidate a parent on behalf of other parent, but this inaction is absolutely shocking.

Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#35

Post by Terretta »

CoryMathews wrote: post #14
Terretta wrote: post #4

Asking "Why were two completely different crime department cases in two completely different jurisdictions handled in two completely different ways?" is just glomming onto current news in an attempt to raise the profile of some other complaint. The complaint (her TRO should have been enforced) is valid, but has nothing to do with the handling of trade secrets investigation elsewhere in the country.

The complaint is that if the law is the law then every case should be handled the exact same. Regardless of who it is. A phone is a phone 3 daughters is 3 daughters. It should not matter whose phone or whose daughters. They are simply showing how bad/corrupt/failed the current law system is.

> The complaint is that if the law is the law then every case should be handled the exact same.

If every case "should be handled the exact same", explain to the LAPD they don't need seven (7) divisions and could save tax dollars:

http://www.lapdonline.org/detective_bureau

  - Vice Division
  - Juvenile Division
  - Commercial Crimes Division
  - Detective Support & Vice Division
  - Robbery Homicide Division
  - Force Investigation Division
  - Gang and Narcotics Division

Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#37

Post by MaxwellKennerly »

rbanffy wrote: post #34
MaxwellKennerly wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in both cases is the absence of any standards governing the exercise of the prosecutor's and investigator's discretion. The appearance of impropriety in both cases magnifies the problem. If REACT wants to make it a high priority to issue subpoenas to recover information from third parties that might relate to someone else's wrongful possession of a phone for a brief amount of time, then so be it. Last I r…

Selectively enforcing high-profile offenses is a valid strategy if you want the increased awareness to be used as a dissuader for similar offenses, so, I understand when the prosecution wants to be "overzealous" when it comes to a valuable prototype. Having said that, what happened to that woman is inexcusable. I understand police doesn't want to be used to intimidate a parent on behalf of other parent, but this inac…

"Selectively enforcing high-profile offenses is a valid strategy if you want the increased awareness to be used as a dissuader for similar offenses, so, I understand when the prosecution wants to be "overzealous" when it comes to a valuable prototype."

I can respect that. But that also raises a number of questions. Does REACT believe that this incident will create a wave of prototype thefts by journalists? Do they believe that public reaction and civil lawsuits arising from such incidents will be insufficient to deter future individuals contemplating such a crime?

The bigger problem is that we're all doing a post hoc analysis that REACT likely didn't do at all. Maybe it saw a hot story in the news and so dashed off the broadest subpoena it possibly could. Maybe Apple made a few calls. The situation is concerning enough to warrant, at a minimum, an explanation from REACT as to what they thought they were doing. Depending on that explanation, an investigation or sanctions could be warranted.

Frankly, that might happen sooner than we think. I wouldn't be surprised if the EFF or ACLU filed suit on behalf of Chen for the unlawful seizure of his property. Of all places, California is the last state in which you want to start seizing a journalist's computers on a mere hunch that a crime was committed by someone else.

Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#38

Post by app »

MaxwellKennerly wrote: post #30
evgen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the finder failed to take adequate steps to return the phone and then sold it to another party it was no longer lost, it was stolen.

Maybe so. But that doesn't answer the question as to why this stolen phone -- apart from the millions of other items stolen in California and reported to the police -- deserved special treatment by law enforcement, and warranted the use of unusual and aggressive measures to obtain information about it. It's still just a single phone, a phone that's been returned to its owner. Maybe Apple was damaged by the loss in a…

Because stealing someone's iPhone off a restaurant table isn't a felony, it's petty theft. You're trivializing what the new iPhone is. It represented millions of dollars of R&D and contained proprietary information so is therefor potentially protected under trade secret laws. There's no functional difference between publicizing the physical phone or it's blueprints: you're competition knows what you're up to (and can't sell yet) and your customers are going to forgo buying your current product.

Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#39

Post by brlewis »

raganwald wrote: post #31
Freebytes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News is not only about hacking. Hacker News is about delivering content that is entertaining and useful to people that are programmers or people that are planning or currently running a start-up. This is actually completely relevant because anything involving this story could involve a small business that finds itself in a similar situation. Gizmodo could have been a small startup idea that only had a few view…

> anything involving this story Sorry, I don't believe that anything involving the story is relevant to HN, nor do I believe that anything entertaining is HN. The acid test is "Anything that would gratify our intellectual curiosity." Some issues connected to this story do, some do not. Remember that almost everyone here reads multiple sources of information: We read reddit, we read stackoverflow, we are on twitter. T…

When I did jury duty a couple of years ago, the division of power among police, judge and jury interesting. The legal system is more than laws. I found this post by a lawyer interesting because it addresses an important question related to that division of power. I don't know that it directly informs security of distributed systems or a startup's interaction with the legal system, but I think someone interested in either of those areas might find this story interesting.

Re: Why Is Apple's iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice?

#40

Post by Terretta »

MaxwellKennerly wrote: post #30
evgen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the finder failed to take adequate steps to return the phone and then sold it to another party it was no longer lost, it was stolen.

Maybe so. But that doesn't answer the question as to why this stolen phone -- apart from the millions of other items stolen in California and reported to the police -- deserved special treatment by law enforcement, and warranted the use of unusual and aggressive measures to obtain information about it. It's still just a single phone, a phone that's been returned to its owner. Maybe Apple was damaged by the loss in a…

> unannounced seizure of a journalist's home and work computers

So, buying stolen merchandise or trafficking in trade secrets is fine as long as you write a story about it?

-- http://twitter.com/TheMacalope/status/12917912411

Quoting Gruber:

Journalist shield laws are about journalists being able to protect sources who may have committed crimes. They’re not a license for journalists to commit crimes themselves. Gawker is making an argument that is beside the point. They’re arguing, “Hey, bloggers are journalists.” The state of California is arguing “Hey, you committed a felony.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-gizmodo-search-...

Btw, quoting Gawker:

"We may inadvertently commit journalism. That is not the institutional intention."

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