Gawker sez they didn't know for sure it was genuine Apple until they had
the iPhone in hand and disassembled it, but before buying it, if it was to
be genuine Apple, they surely knew the person they bought it from
wasn't the rightful owner. (So why buy it? If it's not genuine, then it's
next to worthless; if it is genuine, then it's illegal.) Once they had it
disassembled and knew for sure it was genuine Apple, they had to know
public disclosure of the photos would be a very bad thing.
Lost iPhone prototype spurs police probe
Summary
Silicon Valley police are investigating what appears to be a lost Apple iPhone prototype purchased by a gadget blog, a transaction that may have violated criminal laws.
Topics
Silicon Valley police are investigating what appears to be a lost Apple iPhone prototype purchased by a gadget blog, a transaction that may have violated criminal laws, a law enforcement official told CNET on Friday.
Apple has spoken to local police about the incident and the investigation is believed to be headed by a computer crime task force led by the Santa Clara County district attorney's office, the source said. Apple's Cupertino headquarters is in Santa Clara County, about 40 miles south of San Francisco.
Editors at Gizmodo.com, part of Gawker Media's blog network, said in an article posted Monday that they paid $5,000 for what they believed to be a prototype of an impending iPhone 4G. The story said the phone was accidentally left at a bar in Redwood City, Calif., last month by an Apple software engineer and found by someone who contacted Gizmodo, which had previously indicated it was willing to pay significant sums for unreleased Apple products.
The purpose of an investigation is to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to file criminal charges. Spokesmen for Santa Clara County and San Mateo County -- home to the Redwood City bar -- declined to comment. Representatives for Apple and Gawker Media did not immediately respond to interview requests. Nick Denton, the chief executive of Gawker Media, wasn't immediately available for comment.
For more on this story, read Lost iPhone prototype spurs police probe on CNET News.
Talkback Most Recent of 58 Talkback(s)
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dogbreath123rd Apr 2010 -
I don't see Gawker's Defence
How do they expect to defend themselves. They knew it
was stolen (removed without the owners consent - "lost" or
lifted, the owner didn't consent, it wasn't handed to the
proper authorities) they bought it. Even if you accept they
didn't "know" until the disassembled it, clearly they hoped
is was genuine (and hence stolen). Then the revealed Apple
trade secrets for profit (and they didn't do a very good job
of that).
What's the defence? "We're idiots", "We've got a blog",
"Look, it's funny" - none of these are terribly compelling.
What did we learn? Apple are doing a new iPhone (hardly
news) it has a front facing camera (Hmm... alright) it might
look different (my guess is it will look very like the
prototype - but we don't know for sure) it's got a big
battery (I could have guessed that). Hardly seems worth
the world of hurt Apple legal will put them in.
Maybe the defence "We're idiots" is plausible, but I don't
think it helps much - legally.
Jeremy-UK23rd Apr 2010 -
Seems they don't watch COPS very much...
people go to jail for recieving stolen property everyday, and they seriously think that buying a stolen prototype phone doesn't count?
Tabloid news people are the lowest lifeform on earth, and this is solid proof of that.
ShadowGIATL23rd Apr 2010 -
Apple should feel like the "Idiots"
What did they expect to happen? You let a person leave campus with an unreleased product! You should know it could be lost or stolen!
The real question is why don't they have an app for that?
rob.sharp@...26th Apr 2010 -
Stupid As Stupid gets!!!
Hey Apple stop wasting taxpayer money because you are too stupid to keep track of what you should be keeping track of.
Why are us taxpayers and the Gov. responsible to protect you from your own stupidity.
Somewhere out there a lady was raped --RAPED-- and her rape kit may lie untested because you are too stupid Apple to keep your phones where they belong.
Why, with limited resources, does a task force have to deal with this?????????????
California likes to kiss Job's rear end while some rapists tiptoes through the valley.
--written on a sweet 27" imac
javajunkie@...23rd Apr 2010 -
Law are laws....
and just as someone stealing your phone and selling it to someone else is illegal, so is stealing a phone from Apple. Prototype or not, it is THEIR property.
As much as I don't like Apple, they are clearly within their legal rights here as afforded to them under the Constitution of the United States.ShadowGIATL23rd Apr 2010 -
Don't you just love comments like this???
"As much as I don't like Apple"...yep, really??. They lost a phone, someone found it and sold it, what is wrong with that??..APPLE you make me puke.
Nsaf23rd Apr 2010 -
What's wrong with that is...
"They lost a phone, someone found it and sold it, what is wrong with
that?"
In California, it's illegal. Someone who didn't own the phone took it and
sold it. By law, the finder should have turned it over to the bar owner or
the police. No reprieve for not knowing that. The most obvious thing to
do was also the right thing to do by law.dogbreath123rd Apr 2010 -
giving the phone to a magazine was like giving it back to the owner
by selling the phone to a magazine, the seller knew that the owner would
see the magazine article and attempt to claim the phone.
in general, why is the bartender trustable? In general, I don't see anything
wrong with using the publicity engines of an online magazine as a tool for
finding the phone's owner...
mistermachine24th Apr 2010 -
Thief doesn't trust bartender or police!
Give the iPhone to the bartender or to the police--that's the law. Gray
Powell called the tavern numerous times to find it. How easily this
whole fiasco could have been avoided.
Until the thief played with the device at home, he didn't even realize it
was a new prototype disguised in an old case.
The thief didn't trust the bartender or the police more than himself.
That's a good one!
Sure, selling the prototype to Gawker was like giving it back to Apple,
but with details of its design and innards publicized a couple months
early. This could be very damaging to Apple, with the extent of
damage difficult to measure. And did Gawker privately share even
more details with Apple competitors?dogbreath124th Apr 2010 -
Tusk...
You make a good point about the bartender, legally you're handing
responsibility to him. You'd have to argue that there was a reasonable
expectation he'd try and return the phone to the owner. I think anyone
would accept that - you're not going to wait in the bar all night for the
owner to return leaving it with the staff seems quite reasonable.
You could choose not to do that and hand it to the police (I'm sure you
could argue that if you'd recognised it was a prototype - and hence
had greater value so you were unsure about handing it into the bar).
But selling it (for a profit mind you) to a magazine? Hardly getting it
back to its owner... You're never going to be able to argue that.Jeremy-UK24th Apr 2010 -
And I am sure you would've done the same thing!!!
I bet not....Nsaf24th Apr 2010 -
iPhones are cool but not precious
iPhones are great but not so precious. From all outward appearances, the
lost device was just an ordinary iPhone. And by morning, it was an
ordinary, inactivated iPhone.dogbreath124th Apr 2010 -
Law
It's against the law. Simple, doesn't matter who it is. Against the law,
why do you think the cops are interested? There is no "if", "but" or
"maybe" here a crime has been committed and admitted to. Do you want
to live in a country where the cops DON'T act under such conditions?Jeremy-UK24th Apr 2010 -
We're there ..
In this country that commonly occurs. Ask the rich and famous.
partman1969@...26th Apr 2010
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