People Staring at Computers

Terrifying.

This is such an interesting case. People can come to many reasonable opinions about it, but I'm glad that it ended without a fuss.

Yeah, this story is definitely burying the lede.

The author installed software on computers in Apple Stores, without Apple's permission. That software took photos of visitors to the apple store, and transmitted it to the author.

Definitely shady activity, and when the information about how the author got the photos - is entirely unsurprising that they were raided.

> "I'm not really a computer security person, so I don't understand how that law applies here. Did Apple just call you up and say 'we want you to check this guy out'?"

> "Something like that."

> "Can anyone do that? Can I call you up?"

> The agent who had been taking notes chimed in: "I suppose so, if you just open up the Yellow Pages we're right there, on the inside cover."

Raise your hand if you've had trouble getting the police to even come out to do a report on property theft or vandalism, let alone take it seriously. But, if you're Apple, you can just call up and hire the Secret Service to go after some rando artist messing around in their stores. Another minor illustration of who the government really works for.

Definitely worth reading in its entirety, especially the section on the internet comments about the project.