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Circumstances Surrounding Lost Next Gen iPhone Detailed

Resumé

Guy Powell
2001-Yesterday: Apple Software Engineer
  • Ability to generate international media attention
  • Trusted with trade secrets by Fortune 500 company
  • Slightly deaf in one year
  • Should be able to sit again in two weeks
Salary requirements: $5K "relocation fee" up front
 
The more and more I hear, the more I am convinced it was either a plant or a fake. I'm leaning towards a planted leak.
 
iSee said:
B.S.

If you find a lost phone in a bar you could:
1. Leave the phone with the manager so when the owner comes back for it, it'll be there.
2. Turn it over to the police.
3. Look through the contacts/email to figure out who's phone it is and contact them to return it.

The phone was stolen.
Click to expand...

Or look into the picture folder and see all the naked pictures and X rated video. Your believe is yours alone. Or will you play the Moral card.
 
kiljoy616 said:
Why do you hope, how does it turn you on to have someone sued.

There was no stolen phone, some dropped the phone, someone picked it up and sold it to someone else. Knowing the guys name could constitute and ethical issue, but there was at no time anything that shows they where deliberate trying to steel anything.
Click to expand...

In fact, despite your grand pronouncements you're wrong. Keeping property which is identifiably owned by someone (i.e., not a piece of gum lying in the street and could have been anyone's), and which you should know they have not relinquished their claim on, is theft. Both selling it and taking it apart and destroying it, depending on the exact circumstances, can be either or both of various forms of trafficking in stolen goods and theft by conversion.

If I drop a candy bar or a one-dollar bill in the street it's finders keepers. If I drop my backpack with a drivers' license and cell phone in it, you're going to jail if you keep it.
 
theBB said:
According to Gizmodo founder's response to AP, they paid $5,000 for it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100419/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_apple_iphone

This is trafficking in stolen goods. They might have a big lawsuit and a criminal case to defend against. Well, at least I hope they do.
Click to expand...

I think in the future it would behoove you to leave the interpretation of the law up to those who know what they're doing.
According to your definition of stolen, every busboy is trafficking stolen goods when they clear a table because they're being paid to transfer abandoned property.

You're also assuming Giz has no intention of returning the phone. :-\
Cynical conclusions are quite easy to jump to aren't they?
 
The fact that he never came back is BS. He has to know how big of a F UP that was. Second, why the hell out he have it out laying like a regular phone knowing what type of chance that was. This story is a plant. No way he could be so stupid. Also, no chance they sat there waiting for him to return.
 
Kwill said:
Guy Powell
2001-Yesterday: Apple Software Engineer
  • Ability to generate international media attention
  • Trusted with trade secrets by Fortune 500 company
  • Slightly deaf in one year
  • Should be able to sit again in two weeks
Salary requirements: $5K "relocation fee" up front
Click to expand...

ROFL nice very nice
 
deputy_doofy said:
I wonder about that, too. I find it hard to believe that there isn't some non-stop monitoring of the phone's locations, remote-wiped or not.
Click to expand...
When wiped, there is no functioning software on the phone at all--it goes into DFU mode. No working network connections.
MacPhilosopher said:
Right. In this case the price of sale($5000 for a smartphone) is an admission to knowing this was a case of economic espionage , rather than a simple finders keepers problem.
Click to expand...
It's not industrial espionage because the device was found in public and because the purchaser is not an industry player.

There are issues with knowingly purchasing goods from people who are not the lawful owners (including potential criminal penalties), and all sorts of tort damages that could be sought since Gizmodo knew exactly what they were buying, but it's not an espionage issue. If the buyer had been an industry player and/or if the device was removed from the Apple campus without authorization, there would be additional issues of unfair competition, industrial espionage, and a host of other problems.

Apple might demand that Gizmodo take down the articles and return the unit, but a lawsuit doesn't necessarily help them and these pictures will never be erased from the Internet. It's more likely that they'll get the prototype back and not make any public comment.
 
racer1441 said:
If some left a case at the bar and some random guy went through it and found incriminating documents about someone in power, he'd be a hero.

Same thing here. Gizmodo did good. The guy who had a prototype phone out and about while he was tying one on is a moron.
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This is assuming that the company that bought this "misplaced" iPhone, was told the truth.

Everyone assumes that gizmodo is being honest, I'd probably say anything to keep from getting sued.
 
The Final Cut said:
I love how your all so quick to point fingers and make accusations. Like you would hand over an iPhone prototype to a bar's lost and found what a joke! Taking the phone is not a crime, if apple wont admit it's theirs. I think you all upset that you did not find the phone yourselves!
Click to expand...

If I didn't know it was a 4G, i would have just handed it to the staff just like any other phone. If I knew it for what it really was, I would have left my name and number with the bar staff to keep it secure with me until I could get it back to the rightful owner however long it takes. Longer than the guy did, what was it, less than 24 hours before he pulled it apart?

Anyway, I assume a reward from Apple like free iPhone upgrades for the next ten years would be as good as $5000 from Gizmodo and without the risk of jail time, so the guy took the stupid choice as well as the unethical one.
 
GrimReaper10 said:
without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft.
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So if the guy did as he says, and made all those calls AND put in a ticket with Apple, then I would say he is free and clear.
 
theTechnician said:
I'm betting Apple already knew that he had lost it by now, and Giz said that as of today he still has his job at Apple, so what's the big deal in releasing his name and the backstory? Someone care to explain?
Click to expand...

Are you serious? The harm is not in letting Apple know hes name (of course they know it already), its letting the whole world know hes name.

You´d think people figured out as much.
 
djdole said:
I think in the future it would behoove you to leave the interpretation of the law up to those who know what they're doing.
According to your definition of stolen, every busboy is trafficking stolen goods when they clear a table because they're being paid to transfer abandoned property.

You're also assuming Giz has no intention of returning the phone. :-\
Cynical conclusions are quite easy to jump to aren't they?
Click to expand...

Real Lawyer sent me this:

Ahh, my favorite!


In Tort law it's either "trespass to chattel" or "conversion" depending on how much you deprive the owner of the item's use. If the person takes it awake and never returns it, or sells it... we're talking about "conversion" and the convertor would be liable for the entire amount of the phone.


In criminal law it's called "larceny." However, since larceny requires a mental state, that is, "intent", the question becomes... whether at the time you took the phone you knew who the rightful owner was, and you intended the moment you picked it up, to "permanently deprive" the owner of it's use...


Some states use the word "theft" in their statutes... here is the applicable Texas law:


"Sec. 31.03. THEFT. (a) A person commits an offense if he unlawfully appropriates property with intent to deprive the owner of property.
(b) Appropriation of property is unlawful if:
(1) it is without the owner's effective consent;
(2) the property is stolen and the actor appropriates the property knowing it was stolen by another; or
(3) property in the custody of any law enforcement agency was explicitly represented by any law enforcement agent to the actor as being stolen and the actor appropriates the property believing it was stolen by another..."
 
They stole it.

I have found a few phones over the years. What you do it call people in the contacts until you get someone who knows the owner and can arrange a pick up.
Two: they couldve asked the bar tender if the guy paid with a card etc.

Then once they realized it was a prototype, they knew who the owner was, apple, and knew they could get a lot. That's theft. Gizmodo is equally guilty.

"Journalism" doesn't exempt them from the laws of California.
 
If Apple could perform a remote wipe via MobileMe, :mad: Steve knows who sold his phone. The chap better save the $5K for legal fees.
 
zoomad said:
Trafficking stolen goods? Hardly. As far as the original finder is concerned, it was abandoned property. Sure, they should've reported it to the police to give Apple a chance to reclaim it, but it's not stolen. That's like saying you stole the $5 bill you found on the street.
Click to expand...

The correct term is mislaid property

Mislaid means voluntarily placement and then inadvertently forgotten. Example, phone left at bar table.

The finder of the property is legally required to turn the property over to the owner of the business where the property was lost and the business owner becomes caretaker.

Abandoned Property is something that has been discarded by the owner with no intention of taking back title of it.

Still, a reasonable search for true owner is required. Given how these allegeable happend weeks ago, Im sure if Apple wanted it back, they would have gotten it back. Also Gawker's team of lawyers prolly had a say it in.
 
djdole said:
I think in the future it would behoove you to leave the interpretation of the law up to those who know what they're doing.
According to your definition of stolen, every busboy is trafficking stolen goods when they clear a table because they're being paid to transfer abandoned property.

You're also assuming Giz has no intention of returning the phone. :-\
Cynical conclusions are quite easy to jump to aren't they?
Click to expand...

Whether they have any intention of returning the phone is immaterial. If they only steal it for a month, it's still stolen. This phone wasn't owned by the employee, it was owned by Apple. Apple had not abandoned it (neither had the employee, in fact--you seem to be unfamiliar with what constitutes abandonment). The person who sold it to Gizmodo likely knew this if they knew enough to shop it around to electronics blogs, and Gizmodo definitely knew it. If the circumstances are exactly as stated in Gizmodo's own backstory published tonight, it is absolutely clear that multiple crimes were committed both by the seller and representatives of Gizmodo. Gizmodo isn't dumb enough to not realize this (well, probably not--maybe they think shield laws will protect them) which leads me to believe that their story is ******** in one regard or another.
 
awmazz said:
If I didn't know it was a 4G, i would have just handed it to the staff just like any other phone. If I knew it for what it really was, I would have left my name and number with the bar staff to keep it secure with me until I could get it back to the rightful owner however long it takes. Longer than the guy did, what was it, less than 24 hours before he pulled it apart?

Anyway, I assume a reward from Apple like free iPhone upgrades for the next ten years would be as good as $5000 from Gizmodo and without the risk of jail time, so the guy took the stupid choice as well as the unethical one.
Click to expand...

haha, Apple would not contact you to give you jack, they send lawyers after you in a heartbeat, what you think because you buy apple products their your friend or something. Try again. Your a customer, that all, that you are a cultish customer even better, but they are not your friend and they still behave like an big corporation, attack first, think about who you hurt later.
 
Dear Steve,
Please put out a statement saying this is bogus or real.

Love,
Faithful Apple User
 
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