4 ms·

How Wired.com Tracked the iPhone Finder

31 points by ams1 16y ago

pohl 16y ago
A telling Facebook comment on the wall of a former Wired intern who still had connections to Wired. Had he not done that, he might still be underground.
- wallflower 16y ago
  > But even so, the comment was vague (a single word) and not enough to draw a conclusion What was the single word? Payday? Money? "Stolen?!"?, Nevermore?
barrkel 16y ago
First step, you get lucky. I mean, once you have a name and a social group, you're already 99% of the way there.
chrisbennet 16y ago
I wonder how many lies were told in order to get this scoop? "Hi, I'm a friend of Brian's, do you know...?"
- ros3 16y ago
  Hi I'm that intern. No lies involved. We got an email at Wired about the phone (pre-Gizmodo story) and ignored it. After the story we came back to the email, I looked it up on Google, found his real name associated to a post on a forum, searched it on Facebook and, for some very odd reason, he accepted a friends request from me. I guess the lesson here is not to talk (or accept friends requests) from strangers.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    You dishonestly pretended to be interested in friendship with someone and you tell us that he lesson is not to accept friendship requests from strangers? I take the lesson as "Beware, even the nicest people will rationalize dishonesty."
pak 16y ago
Step 1: a comment on Facebook observed by a Wired intern leads to a probe of the guy's friends and recent groups. Given the latest spritz of "I'm leaving Facebook" posts on HN, this is a coincidentially relevant tale of how it was used to track somebody down against his wishes. Even more interesting was that the timing of his profile deletion was an indicator to Wired that he was involved in something abnormal. Some of you seem to regret ever opening a Facebook account; you can count Hogan solidly among your numbers. This story is a memorable counter to the claim that in the new era of social networking, people want everything to be public all the time. Perhaps you might not care too much about your privacy, but one day might come along where you really need to and it's too late.
- yaroslavvb 16y ago
  IMHO, this fits nicely under Eric Schmidt's philosophy that "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." After all, it's the morally questionable act of profiting from someone's mistake that's the ultimate cause of his troubles.
awa 16y ago
FTA: I hope it sends a message that journalism is still very much alive, Wow... why don't I see a hue and cry regarding the name revelation by wired.com here. When Gizmodo released the name of Gary powell it was called a cheap shot... But stalking someone using facebook and revealing their name to the world which definitely could affect the person's career is suddenly fair game.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Has this person been convicted of a crime? No? Well now... Does anybody remember Richard Jewell? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell
  - pak 16y ago
    On the other hand, the guy's lawyer does admit he was the one that found the phone, it's not likely Wired found the wrong person. I don't think Wired is making any assumptions about the legal status of what he did. Does that make it any less freaky that trawling Facebook is what led to this scoop? Well, admittedly no.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      To me, "trawling Facebook" means using publicly available information. Pretending to be interested in friendship is "social engineering," which is a polite way of saying "lying."

31 points by ams1 16y ago

pohl 16y ago

A telling Facebook comment on the wall of a former Wired intern who still had connections to Wired. Had he not done that, he might still be underground.

wallflower 16y ago
> But even so, the comment was vague (a single word) and not enough to draw a conclusion What was the single word? Payday? Money? "Stolen?!"?, Nevermore?

barrkel 16y ago

First step, you get lucky. I mean, once you have a name and a social group, you're already 99% of the way there.

chrisbennet 16y ago

I wonder how many lies were told in order to get this scoop? "Hi, I'm a friend of Brian's, do you know...?"

ros3 16y ago
Hi I'm that intern. No lies involved. We got an email at Wired about the phone (pre-Gizmodo story) and ignored it. After the story we came back to the email, I looked it up on Google, found his real name associated to a post on a forum, searched it on Facebook and, for some very odd reason, he accepted a friends request from me. I guess the lesson here is not to talk (or accept friends requests) from strangers.
- raganwald 16y ago
  You dishonestly pretended to be interested in friendship with someone and you tell us that he lesson is not to accept friendship requests from strangers? I take the lesson as "Beware, even the nicest people will rationalize dishonesty."

pak 16y ago

Step 1: a comment on Facebook observed by a Wired intern leads to a probe of the guy's friends and recent groups. Given the latest spritz of "I'm leaving Facebook" posts on HN, this is a coincidentially relevant tale of how it was used to track somebody down against his wishes. Even more interesting was that the timing of his profile deletion was an indicator to Wired that he was involved in something abnormal. Some of you seem to regret ever opening a Facebook account; you can count Hogan solidly among your numbers. This story is a memorable counter to the claim that in the new era of social networking, people want everything to be public all the time. Perhaps you might not care too much about your privacy, but one day might come along where you really need to and it's too late.

yaroslavvb 16y ago
IMHO, this fits nicely under Eric Schmidt's philosophy that "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." After all, it's the morally questionable act of profiting from someone's mistake that's the ultimate cause of his troubles.

awa 16y ago

FTA: I hope it sends a message that journalism is still very much alive, Wow... why don't I see a hue and cry regarding the name revelation by wired.com here. When Gizmodo released the name of Gary powell it was called a cheap shot... But stalking someone using facebook and revealing their name to the world which definitely could affect the person's career is suddenly fair game.

raganwald 16y ago
Has this person been convicted of a crime? No? Well now... Does anybody remember Richard Jewell? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell
- pak 16y ago
  On the other hand, the guy's lawyer does admit he was the one that found the phone, it's not likely Wired found the wrong person. I don't think Wired is making any assumptions about the legal status of what he did. Does that make it any less freaky that trawling Facebook is what led to this scoop? Well, admittedly no.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    To me, "trawling Facebook" means using publicly available information. Pretending to be interested in friendship is "social engineering," which is a polite way of saying "lying."