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Criminal Investigation of Lost Next-Generation iPhone Spurred by Apple Requests
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So you were present during the call or listened to a recording of it then? You have no idea what was said. The people at the call center don't have the authority to do anything about it, what can they possibly do? If the call center rep said "I'm sorry sir, but there is nothing I can do to help you other than take this information down" that equates in your mind to "refusing" to accept the phone?
In EVERY organization there are people authorized to do only certain things, it's the reality of the world. In the company I work for I am not authorized to quote prices to customers or buy machinery for the company. There are people here that can do those things. Were I to make a deal for the company about buying a machine it would be null and void as I do not have the authority to act in that manner.
What makes you think that the call center has the authority to refuse the return of a phone, or even accept it?
It all doesn't matter. If I have a phone then the only way you could become the owner legally without me giving it to you is if I throw it away (then it is abandoned and you can pick it up), or if I lose it, you pick it up, you eventually hand it over to the police, they don't manage to find me, you wait a few weeks, and eventually you can pick it up from the police and it is yours.
The "handing over to the police" is essential; without that step it is theft.
First, a thing is "stolen" if it is stolen according to the letter of the law. But the police obviously can't take action if they don't know something is stolen. So you can file a report with the police, and they take action. Filing the report obviously doesn't mean it is stolen, you might be lying, but the police will take action and things will be sorted out somehow.
Now "theft" according to California law includes many more things than just larceny. For example, if you rent a car and don't return it then this action will eventually become "theft" according to California law. Or if you "borrow" my credit card, use it to get money, and return it. Or in this case, if you pick up lost property and keep it.
In this case something happened that people may find confusing: If I remove a phone from your pocket, that is theft, at the moment when I take the phone. All very clear. But if you lose the phone and I pick it up, that's not theft. It's only when I don't do the right things in the days or possibly weeks afterwards that it turns into theft. I might just be a bit slow in finding you. But if I sell the phone, then obviously I can't do the things anymore that I am supposed to do (try to return it to you and give it to the police when that fails), so at that point taking the phone turns into theft.
You must be joking. They knew the phone was stolen. They had no right to hold it in their grubby little hands, much less any right to open it.
En garde! I'll see if I can find it. [EDIT] Found it, same punishment. Gizmodo should thank their lucky stars that they didn't fedex it to their NY office. They'd be in a lot more trouble.
Thanks for spelling it out for me, now I get it:
You lease a car from Ford. I "find" it, and call Ford customer service with a wild story about how I found this car. Call center flunky thinks I'm nuts, so I get to keep and sell the car. Amirite ?
Right, but the question was directed at people who apparently can't be arsed to wait for the trial or even the investigation to finish because they're already done with the conviction, using a story they don't even believe as a crutch.
"Hundreds of Gray Powells"? That's really funny. It's not a name like Larson or Lindstrom in Sweden. Not hundreds or thousands, maybe two. Maybe one. And only one at Apple, a local number and located 15 minutes away. Of course he wouldn't have had to worry about it if he would have just said to the bartender or wait staff: "Here, I found this phone on the floor." So burdensome and difficult to figure out the right thing to do.
And it's somehow comforting to know Swedish ethical values are so equivocal that simply turning in a lost or mislaid item, not keeping it, is considered "robotic law compliance". We used to think Scandinavian countries were so culturally sophisticated and superior. I guess we were wrong.
Here's a refresher course: if it's not yours, leave it alone or give it back. Shall we go over that again?
I question the story of the finder, which is something Gizmodo is really just relaying.
The most important piece of the story is true and that is the fact that Gizmodo paid someone for this phone that was not the legal property.
Why is it true? Would you knowingly incriminate yourself on a top 100 site? So they either 1) made it all up to cover up something else or 2) they are just that stupid. (this is not an exhaustive list.)
Yeah, and Apple was wearing a short skirt and a low cut top. Obviously, they had it coming. (tip o' the hat to cmaier)
Yes, but the support line wasn't his first choice, it was where he eventually ended up after trying other numbers. Apple has no 1-800-FOUND-PROTOTYPE! number, they probably have no routines or provisions whatsoever for this particular scenario (well, NOW they might, but not 2 months ago). And like every company they have barrier upon barrier built to keep callers away, or at least make sure they only waste the time of someone really, really unimportant. Automated answering, queues, the works. The odds of getting through to anyone in Apple's inner circle of people who were privy to details about the iPhone aren't very good, and very few callers are persistent/convincing/smart enough to navigate the hurdles.
We have no idea who the finder is, so it's a rather pointless exercise to attribute all sorts of superpowers to him and then call the fact that he didn't use these powers extremely suspicious. For all we know he could simply be a total dumbass who didn't think of any of these suggested methods of returning the phone. Have you not met enough dumbasses in your lives to realize that the likelihood that this is one of them is very high?
Ask your favourite share dealer to buy 100 APPL shares for you at $200 each and see what happens
I think he will want that order in writing.
Headline writers drive me nuts sometimes. CNET has one saying that Gizmodo is considering a lawsuit over the raid. The article says that Gizmodo's lawyer said Giz *could* sue, not that they're considering it.
Well if they have looked into enough to determine that they could sue, I think it is fair to say they are considering it.
Still a crap headline.
Eww, but it had cotties on it!
No, I was not there. I've read press accounts of the call and hope Apple will be compelled to release the audio if it exist. It reaches refusing if they do not act on the information; if Apple was following this lead in the interim then it would not be refusing. However, the accounts I've read suggest they discounted the tip as a hoax. To your last point; yes there are people in all organizations tasked with responsibilities. Just because the person getting the information initially is not tasked with getting it back does not absolve Apple here. You will also agree that the hierarchy of any organization should be designed so that information is communicated in a manner that the 'right' person gets it and can act upon it. In your example, you may not have the ability to do something - but you know who to call when asked about this? Right? Here, the person getting the call should have communicated it to a 'higher-up', eventually reaching someone that would see it for what it was or Apple should have told their support staff to be on the lookout for anyone asking about an unusual or atypical iPhone.
Apple did not - they FAILED. They are claiming theft and possible felony charges, simple because the right hand of Apple did not know what the left hand was doing. That my friend is wrong.
Ask your favourite share dealer to buy 100 APPL shares for you at $200 each and see what happens
I've already rectified that, but investing into APPL isn't too much of a bad idea right now.
Anyway, I've ordered 200 shares to be bought into APPL.
Eh? When he found the phone it was after midnight and he was in a bar, drunk, believing he had found an ordinary 3GS. He switched it on, saw the name Gray Powell in the Facebook app, and memorized it. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't switch to Sherlock Holmes mode in that state at that time of night and start trying to call Apple or any of the hundreds of Gray Powells in the area regarding a lost 3GS. I don't think Sherlock Holmes would try calling Apple after midnight either. I wouldn't call anyone after midnight unless someone died or I'm 100% sure that the person at the other end is awake and out partying or whatever.
When he woke up the next day he was more alert and started going about trying to return the phone, but by that time it had been remotely disabled so there was no chance of looking for internal numbers - the phone was stone dead. He did however notice that the phone looked weird because it looked like it had a case on despite being the same physical size as a 3G/3GS. Then he tinkered with it and the shell came off (it takes about 2 seconds, as shown in the Giz demo video), noticed the odd XX markings, and it dawned on him it may be some sort of prototype. Then he called several of Apple's numbers, ended up with support who dismissed him as a prankster/loon.
From that point on you can fault him for not taking it to the nearest police station, sure. He could also have tried calling XX number of people listed as "Gray Powell", but given that he knew by this point that he might have some sort of valuable/secret prototype on his hands it might not necessarily be the best idea, should the wrong Gray Powell respond "sure! I've lost a phone!"
But as for searching for clues like internal numbers, not possible due to the phone having been bricked.
It's nice to know that there are robots out there who will instantly do the smartest and most law-compliant thing at any given time and place, even in a bar past midnight. Myself, I usually get my heureka moments way after the opportunity occured. I guess I'm alone...
I'll just keep repeating this over and over since it doesn't seem to be getting through: you leave the phone or your contact info with the bartender. If that's not convenient for whatever reason, you give it to the police. It's very simple -- you don't need to be a "robot" or especially smart or "law-compliant", you just need to not be a thief.
I think it's time to move to the sentencing phase. Assuming the facts come in as reported so far, and that Chen, the COO, and the finder are all convicted of felony theft or receiving stolen goods, and all have no prior criminal record, should any of them receive a custodial sentence? I understand that assumptions are required since we have no probation report or experience of judging their behavior at trial, but I'm interested in just how serious we think their misconduct was, apart from the technical basis for conviction. Do we regard one party as more culpable than another?
I've met my fair share. But this guy was smart enough to shop it around to at least 2 tech sites not known to the general public, and knew enough to collect a significant sum of money for it.
There is another option for this finder, interestingly enough one that is mentioned under the law, namely to take it to the police.
What I don't see under the law is that you can appropriate said property to yourself after you decide you've done enough by calling someone who can't provide help.
If Gizmodo had the finders story from the start of their possession, why didn't they call the numbers at their disposal first? By your reckoning the finder is a "dumbass" but I would hope the editor of a gadget blog might have a little more insight than that? The reason that neither of them called the "right" people, or brought the phone to the police is that it did not benefit them to do so. Keeping the device on the other hand did benefit them.
Wow, so now Apple REFUSED to take back the item?
Talk about rewriting history.
It's a total "lame ass attempt" because he called AppleCare. He already had the exact name of the Apple Engineer and could have called Apple's local office to directly to speak to him, he used Facebook to find the name of the engineer so he could have sent him a message too. Lastly, after all that, it's still not yours and you have to turn it in to the police before selling it.
I also love how you're taking this thief's word of the story at face value that he "found" it. Do you still think the same if the "finder" watched him play with this new/different phone while at the bar and then when the engineer wasn't looking he snatched it? Still feel the same way?? Because we can't dismiss that that didn't happen either.
Yeah, we should all be held to the lowest common denominator when it comes to ethical issues.
Leave it where it is. Leave it with the bar. Call Gray Powell. Leave a voice message for Powell. Leave an email for Powell. Notify Powell on Facebook. Drive over to the Apple campus (15 minutes away). Put it in an envelope and mail it (1 Infinite Loop,Cupertino CA). You don't have to be sober or a PhD to figure this out.
Do you even realize how far afield you're going, fabricating a gossamer-thin rationalization about these events?
I'd actually throw in a conspiracy charge, counselor. Not sure what that does to the sentencing, but it makes things more serious. If the computers were used in the transaction, possibly federal charges (from the use of the internet). I'd find a way to get Gizmodo on RICO, but I can't figure out any fun predicate acts.
Not saying anyone should get time (being a convicted felon is, in itself, not a fun thing to be), but I wouldn't be surprised if someone from gizmodo does - they seem to be more culpable to me, as I suspect they were pulling the puppet's strings. Obviously the evidence is all very murky right now.