I'll tackle this one guys.
I'm rather confused about this whole thing. Is possession still 9/10th of the law? Is Apple alleging that the prototype was stolen out of the employee's bag?
If you read the affidavit, you'll see that the engineer originally in possession of the phone says he thinks it is possible that it was stolen from his bag while he was away from the table, but doesn't necessarily think that's the case. He doesn't *know* exactly how it became separated from the rest of his stuff.
I'm fuzzing on the whole thing and not trying to be coy.
Fair enough. I'll answer with that in mind.
Are you obligated under the law to return lost property?
In California, and most other states as well, yes.
It might be the decent thing to do but how far does the person have to go by law that recovered the lost property?
In California, you are not legally the owner of found property. In fact, if you take that property into your possession, you have willingly taken on the obligation to get said property back to its owner. Failing that, you are required to turn it in to the police. If, 90 days after that, the item hasn't been claimed, you can then pick it up a the police station and you are now the owner of said found property. (Items over $250 in value require an additional 7 days of notices in local papers in an attempt to locate the owner, and you'll be reimburse the police for those notices before you can claim the found property.)
How is the guy that recovered the device supposed to know if it's authentic? The average person knows little about how to navigate their personal computer they've been using for years. He may have known it was an iPhone but would he necessarily know it's the new generation unless he already owned one? I'll admit that I'm not sure about the selling part but again neither party can really confirm the authenticity.
Irrelevant. He knew it wasn't his. If it's not his, he can't legally sell it regardless of its authenticity.
My wife recently lost her iPhone. She kept calling it and I sent text messages that if it was recovered to please call. I pulled it up on the AT&T map and told my wife where it was. Thinking no one had the phone, I sent a text to it for her to call me once she found it in the park. Within a few minutes, the device was intentionally shut off and just prior someone read all my wife's new emails. She confirmed through her Gmail account. We both showed up at the park and no one fessed-up to having it. I'm sure who ever recovered it kept it or sold it.
That sucks. If you, or the police, ever find evidence of who stole it, the investigation may be reopened and charges may be filed. In this particular case, Chen, through the Gizmodo articles, publicly admitted to and bragged about buying the phone, despite knowing who the real owner was and that the seller was not the same person.
AT&T told me they do nothing about someone trying to activate a stolen phone since they don't track that stuff anymore.
That really sucks. If I had it happen to me, and I could get charges filed, I'd probably press to have AT&T charged as an accomplice, since they have been made aware that a certain phone, which has a unique identifier they're aware of, is stolen property.
Is this case kind of the same thing? Or is it different because Gizmodo published photos? If so, isn't it only on Gizmodo then for publishing the photos?
More or less exactly the same kind of thing. Gizmodo pulled a stupid and publicly admitted to their actions, and as a result got caught. That's the big difference. The person with your wife's phone didn't do something so stupid, so he/she may get away with it.
On the other hand, if it's an iPhone, and you've registered the serial number, you may be able to alert Apple, and if it ever gets sent in for service, it *can* be retained. It doesn't always happen, but it has worked before with other Apple hardware.
