Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 306 posts

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#161

Post by nailer »

jrockway wrote: post #127
nailer wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gent who found the phone said it. You can look up the quote easily online.

37prime's argument is that this guy is lying to protect himself. But personally, I doubt the story is false. A drunk guy forgetting his phone is something that happens every day.

Since 37prime doesn't have any evidence to prove the finder was lying about repeatedly attempting to return the phone to Apple, I'd like to assume he's not.

Lest, you know, someone make a similar accusation about either:

- me

- you

- 37prime

sometime in the future. This is one of the basis' upon which society works.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#162

Post by raganwald »

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…

We agree that the street is a very different situation than a bar. I agree that if you find it in a public place you should pick it up and try to return it. That's why I specifically said this isn't your home, your place of business, or a public place.

But if you find something on somebody else's property, you can find the owner while still on the property or give it to the person in charge of the property. Taking it off the property puts a very big responsibility on your shoulders to do the right thing in a tearing hurry or be judged a thief.

To me it is very simple. You can find lost property in a public place. You cannot find lost property on somebody else's property. The owner may have lost it, but you can't take it away. Going onto somebody else's property and taking something home that doesn't belong to you is pretty clear-cut.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#163

Post by nailer »

zweben wrote: post #107
qq66 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His legal obligation was to return it to the bartender, but calling Apple to return it is hardly "unreasonable."

Given that the people he spoke to wouldn't even be aware of the existence of the lost prototype, I don't think you could call that an honest attempt to return the phone at all. Even sending an email to sjobs@apple.com would've been more likely to get the phone back to Apple.

You're right, sjobs@ would have been better, but whoever received the call at Apple and didn't route it to the right people (or whoever ignored it for a week) seriously let the company down.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#164

Post by eli »

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, that Gizmodo acted wrong and should be punished. They bought stolen goods, period.

The problem is that them hiding behind a shield law isn't totally nuts. What if someone leaked them something that was actually in the public interest--something important for people to know, but that could still be considered a trade secret. We certainly don't want the courts deciding what's "important" news and what isn't, do we? If not then how do we protect one without the other?

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#165

Post by jrockway »

nailer wrote: post #161
jrockway wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

37prime's argument is that this guy is lying to protect himself. But personally, I doubt the story is false. A drunk guy forgetting his phone is something that happens every day.

Since 37prime doesn't have any evidence to prove the finder was lying about repeatedly attempting to return the phone to Apple, I'd like to assume he's not. Lest, you know, someone make a similar accusation about either: - me - you - 37prime sometime in the future. This is one of the basis' upon which society works.

You misread my post. I have edited it for clarity.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#166

Post by anigbrowl »

drewcrawford wrote: post #138
slackerIII wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your plan for when the judge tells you to supply the decryption key?

Truecrypt supports plausible deniability: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability I don't do anything remotely heinous enough to warrant a court order to reveal my encryption key, however.

A possible plausible explanation for the existence of a partition/device containing solely random data is that you have wiped (securely erased) the content of the partition/device using one of the tools that erase data by overwriting it with random data (...)

Um...that kid in Tennessee that accessed Sarah Palin's email did a secure erase, but enough of his activity was revealed by some malware on his machine, as well as ISP records etc., that he also got charged with obstruction of justice for having deleted stuff germane to the crime of unauthorized access. Just sayin'.

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#167

Post by jrockway »

karzeem wrote: post #154
evgen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they can't punish you for not giving them the combination. Yes, they can. If the judge has reasonable grounds to believe that you are withholding evidence or the knowledge necessary for law enforcement to collect this evidence then the judge can hold you in contempt of court and place you in jail until you agree to provide the information. While there have been a couple of aberrations in the general flow of case…

There's a subtle distinction to be made here between providing the key and providing access. Courts have ruled that the Constitution permits the government to compel you to provide access to the relevant information (e.g. to open the safe). But you don't have to give the government the combination. Just open the safe for them, and you can keep the combination to yourself. Anyway, that doesn't really change the basic…

Citation?

(And I'm not asking to be snarky. I need more information before I decide to run for public office and change the law :)

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#168

Post by jrockway »

anigbrowl wrote: post #129
jrockway wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I benefit from covering this, will I have to give the money back? What about the New York Times? What about Apple?

No, because you are commenting on something that was already public knowledge. There's nothing to suggest that the innards of the phone were discoverable by the public until Gizmodo threw up ~20 pictures of them.

But the ad views are due to being served with a search warrant, which is public information (or at least something they are allowed to disclose).

Re: Police raid Gizmodo editor's house

#169

Post by jrockway »

anigbrowl wrote: post #142
zweben wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not a very good one, clearly.

I had to laugh at her complaint that the search warrant didn't authorize a night search, and her argument that they violated the terms of the warrant because Jason Chen found them in his house when he returned at 9:45pm...even though Chen's description of events reports them as saying they had been there for several hours before he arrived.

Indeed. I am pretty sure "night search" means something like "4am". Before 10pm, it's "evening".
Post reply on HN