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The Appalling Reaction to the Apple iPhone Leak

• ugh 16y ago
  Hm, I’m not so sure whether Chen’s house was raided because he published information. After all, Engadget also posted photos of the prototype, even that same prototype, yet the police didn’t raid their editors’ homes. Rather this seems to be a case of Gizmodo being clueless about how to do proper investigative reporting (i.e. don’t buy stolen stuff). Should journalists be allowed to buy things they know to be stolen? Sure, but not always. Memos which show government fraud? Hand over cash. Consumer electronic? Rather not.
  • ahk 16y ago
    What's the big diference between government secrets and company secrets? Just that one is more tawdrier and of less consequence? These days companies are getting so unaccountable to anyone that I'd rather not have reporters make any such distinctions.
    • somebear 16y ago
      You could start with the simple question "who will be hurt if I do not publish this information?" I have a hard time finding anyone who would be hurt if the finder of iphone had handed it over to the bartender, apart from Apple's competitors. Like it or not, real journalists make these distinctions all the time.
      • ugh 16y ago
        “Like it or not, real journalists make these distinctions all the time.” It‘s their job. Finding stuff that’s worth publishing, checking all the facts and writing it up nicely. That’s journalism in a nutshell.
• hammerdr 16y ago
  I think he brings up a point in his post which effectively nullifies his argument. Throughout the article, both explicitly and implicitly, he alludes to the fundamental nature of a strong free press in American society. Occam's Razor; which is more likely? The American public has completely lost sight of the principle of a strong free press despite having held on to the ideal for 200 years. Or, that the American principle of a strong free press is still alive and kicking but the American ideal is not offended by this particular case. I think, even for the most cynical among us, that the second seems more likely. Why would that be? Well, there is the "distressing" issue of Gawker Media purchasing (known) stolen goods. There is also the general distaste that most Americans have for tabloid (yellow) journalism. Gawker Media is not very well respected by the American public. Combine this with the general attitude of Gizmodo (Look what we got! Na na na naa!) and the disgusting way that Gizmodo ousted the engineer involved in losing the prototype and we start to see a clearer picture of why getting the police involved doesn't offend too many people's free press sensibilities. Consider, just for a moment, that Gruber had gotten pictures of an Apple product (legally) and posted those pictures on his blog. Do you think police would be breaking into his home?
  • sheldonwt 16y ago
    Can you remind me again how you qualify a phone (lost, drunkenly) as 'stolen'. You seem to be using that word rather loosely, when the person who found that phone in fact found lost property, not stolen property. Nobody stole from Apple here, rather Apple made a grave mistake which it seems in hindsight they then used the police to assist in helping them recover from. How can you say that Apple's clear and apparent ability to influence the actions of the police isn't at least a little bit frightening? A little bit? It doesn't matter whether Gruber or Gawker posted those pictures, the fact of the matter is that the journalist who did post them faced what seems to be police persecution at Apple's direction. Consider, just for a moment, that it had been a Windows Mobile 7 phone. Do you think the police would be breaking into his home?
    • vtail 16y ago
      Your intuition regarding California Law is wrong. "One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft." CAL. PEN. CODE § 485
• nollidge 16y ago
  That's all well and good, but the author is neglecting to mention the fact that there was a stolen item involved here, which is the entire point.
  • nostrademons 16y ago
    Right. If you take away the whole bit about this being a 4G iPhone, the facts are something like this. Guy leaves cell phone at a bar. Cell phone is picked up by another patron. Instead of leaving the phone with the bartender, finder takes it home. Finder fires it up, logs onto FaceBook, discovers who the phone belongs to. Instead of contacting the phone's owner, finder sells it to Gawker for $5000. Gawker makes halfhearted attempt to contact Apple. Gawker knows who phone belongs to, yet never makes an attempt to contact them directly and return it. Gawker (to our knowledge) never tells Apple "Hey, this is Gawker Media, we have one of your development phones". Gawker takes apart phone and runs a story. Gawker exposes phone's owner as the most unlucky engineer within Apple. If it were my phone (even aside from the dev phone aspect), I'd be pissed. I'd probably press charges. If it were just a matter of losing my phone, okay, these things happen, I should've been more careful. If it were a matter of losing my phone, someone picking it up and not knowing how to contact me, okay, that's understandable. But if someone picks up my phone, knows exactly who I am, and then sells it instead of giving it back, how is this not theft?
  • megablast 16y ago
    How would HP react if Mark Simon had paid for some information? How would HP react if someone had left a briefcase in a bar, and it was sold, and it's content put online. Not to mention the fact that Apple is incredibly secretive, and in this case, for good reason. The iPhone is a multi-billion dollar product, Apple only releases a new once a year, and it is a huge event. This is not a new HP calculator.
• sh1mmer 16y ago
  I think as Gruber pointed out previously the material point here is a criminal action may have been committed rather than just a breach of a civil contract. Leaking information about product launches is one thing stolen goods is another. If Gizmodo's actions are ok, does it open the door for protection of the press when an employee of a company decides to sell them stolen materials?
  • 100k 16y ago
    Malone makes a good point though: do you think Apple would sue the San Jose Mercury News (or ABC, or Time, or...)? They are suing Gawker because Gawker is weak, and the rest of the media won't defend a blogger.
    • jbrennan 16y ago
      Apple would probably not sure Time or ABC or any big-time news agency. But I'm guessing this is more because a big-time agency has the sense/legal advising to not buy stolen goods.
    • ajg1977 16y ago
      As of the time of writing, Apple aren't suing anyone. The only current legal activity is that of a criminal investigation into the circumstances that led to the iPhone being in Gizmodo's position. Like Gruber and the above poster, I just don't buy the "left on a barstool" piece of this. A seasoned Apple engineer, in his late 20's, trusted to carry one of a handful of iPhone prototypes, somehow manages to leave it at a bar? If he'd been younger that could be put down to the foolishness of youth, but since he's not then he would have to be an idiot to do this. And Apple don't hire idiots.
      • Osmose 16y ago
        One does not have to be an idiot to be forgetful, or perhaps tipsy.
      • mkramlich 16y ago
        I like how you imply that someone being in their late 20's would not do something that could be attributed to the foolishness of youth! Late 20's -- yeah that's practically the age of respected senior statesmen, the jaded world-weary traveller, the wise old man down the -- oh wait, wrong end of the spectrum. :) This is not a criticism on your post, just a humorous point about the subjective perception of age and maturity. I'm in my late 30's and definitely look back at my 20's as the decade where I was (a) an adult, technically, but also (b) still engaging in a lot of the foolishness of youth. I'm sure others would feel the same. One's 20's is that decade where you are an adult and yet still in many ways still like a teenager. Especially for folks that don't start having kids yet. On a separate point, I think the fact that he was entrusted with a super secret prototype AND then chose to bring it with him to a bar where alcohol drinking would be going on and lots of people in close proximity to his body, some strangers/non-coworkers, and possibly darkly lit, and so on, says there was some poor judgement going on by him. It may or may not have been a theft, but he is at least partly to blame because he could have taken different actions that would have prevented it from happening. On your point about Apple not hiring idiots: I bet even if Apple hires folks who are smart about engineering they are going to pick some who make poor choices when alcohol is involved. Logic goes out the window after a few shots of vodka and a glance from a pretty woman across the room. :)
• johnswamps 16y ago
  Can someone explain to me what the purpose of the shield law is? Whether Chen is protected under it or not seems like a technicality to me. I'm more interested in how the law is supposed to benefit society. Is the idea that journalists should be able to keep their sources confidential? Or that they should be be immune from retaliation for printing unflattering stories of the government and police? Is it to protect whistle blowers? Is it supposed to protect journalists who have broken the law?
  • vtail 16y ago
    You can read about e.g. New York Times Co vs United States and decide for yourself whether shield law benefits the society or not.
  • philk 16y ago
    The idea is that a free press protects society and protecting people/sources who publish things that the powerful don't want published facilitates this.
• rbranson 16y ago
  The guy bought something that was obviously stolen. This was willful behavior. He spent $5,000. Come on! This article was written as if he saw it sitting on a table in a bar and took pictures of it.
  • madmaze 16y ago
    How was it stolen? It was lost. The finder tried to return it and when he got turned down with no success, he turned around and sold it. The person who did the wrong doing was the finder and not Chen.
    • halostatue 16y ago
      A good-faith attempt was not made, IMO. A manager of an Apple store certainly would have been a good person to return it to. A note to Steve Jobs would have gotten their attention, and it's not like no one has his email address. You're right that the finder did the most wrong thing here, by selling the lost phone (at which point, IMO but IANAL, the phone was stolen because the finder no longer had any intention of making any further effort to return the lost phone to the rightful owner). However, Gizmodo/Gawker/Chen are not blameless as buying stolen goods is itself a crime.
    • Maktab 16y ago
      The recent Wired story about Brad Hogan, the guy who found the phone, implies that Hogan did not actually make any of the attempts to find the phone that Gizmodo claimed. Whatever the justification of the police raid on Chen's house and all the other elements of this story, it seems clear that Hogan never had any intention of making a good faith attempt to return the phone to its rightful owner.
  • ahk 16y ago
    "Obviously stolen"? Where is this reported as being true? And even so, would it have made a difference to you if it was on Wikileaks instead? Be careful what you're choosing to condemn in your support of Apple.
    • 16y ago
• rajbot 16y ago
  How can a journalist, who writes a piece about the iPhone 4G proto and then spends half his article praising "good hard reporting", get the name of the product wrong? s/G4/4G/
  • philk 16y ago
    Just because someone makes a trivial mistake does not invalidate their argument.
    • deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    • Maktab 16y ago
      But it does call into question their command of the facts and the small yet important details of the situation. In my opinion it was quite evident throughout the article that Malone had not studied the situation sufficiently and did not seem to be aware of the California penal code provisions which can make lost property stolen, the Wired story which implied that Hogan made no effort to return the phone and what level of actual power over day-to-day decisions Apple would enjoy on the REACT steering board. Are they even in a position to order a raid? Malone writes as though that's an uncontested fact, but that's hardly true.
  • jarek 16y ago
    The product, having not yet been officially unveiled, does not have an official name. The casing itself says only "iPhone." The letter from Apple said "a device that belongs to Apple." "G4" can be considered to stand for "generation four" and indeed this was a naming method used by Apple for iMacs and other products. Just because a lot of people think the name will be "4G" doesn't make him wrong.
• sophacles 16y ago
  This absolutely cannot be the first time a prototype has turned up in some reporter's hands via dubious means. So here is what I would like to know: When Apple is NOT involved, what are the reactions? Not just of the company and reporters, but people who don't really have any stake in it? I am genuinely curious how much of the "apple did nothing wrong" crowd is just apple fanboyism, and how much of the "gawker was in the clear" crowd is just anti-appleism. Another thing I would like to know: Gawker returned the phone when apple finally admitted the phone was theirs. During the denial stage, why would anyone be responsible for returning property to someone who claims "that isn't mine". Forget apple: if someone sees a $100 bill at my feet and says, "Hey did you drop that bill?" and I say "Nope, not mine", I can't later claim "that guy stole my $100!". Final question: since apple did get their property back, why are all these people outraged? A large number of them have probably downloaded leaked movie/tv/music. Many of them have railed against IP law in the US. But now that it's Apple they are talking about the "terrible damages that come from Apple not getting to talk about the phone on their own terms". I call shennanagans.
• Anechoic 16y ago
  FYI, here is On The Media's report on the situation: http://onthemedia.org/transcripts/2010/04/30/01 http://onthemedia.org/transcripts/2010/04/30/01 "I think what makes it fundamentally less compelling is the fact that they paid for this phone. If they had simply discovered this phone and took pictures of it, no one would question that that’s a valid journalistic enterprise. But what they were doing here puts them a hair’s breadth away from what a fence does." "I think that the prosecutor should have shown more restraint, ironically, in the same fashion that Gizmodo should have shown more restraint. I mean, this is not a mob case. You don't have Chen saying, leave the iPhone, take the cannoli."