
An apology... - aaronbrethorst
http://furbo.org/2010/04/19/an-apology/
======
qeorge
The engineer in question is a good friend of several of us here at HN. We
sincerely appreciate the support he's being shown here and elsewhere around
the internet.

So there is no doubt: Gray is one of the smartest engineers I've ever had the
pleasure of knowing, and I'm sure he feels terrible about this. Although I'm
sure this is going to be one of the worst weeks of his life, he will land on
his feet, wherever that may be.

If he becomes available for hire, I highly recommend him to any startup in the
SF area. Its rare to find such a combination of raw talent and work ethic in
one engineer.

~~~
wisty
There is a slight upside - Apple might not let him go because they don't want
to wear any flack from the media.

Still, that would put him in a pretty difficult position. Having the
perception that you were kept on just to avoid PR problems isn't an ideal
situation. I'd rather be sacked quietly and look for a job elsewhere, or be
quietly kept on; whatever the boss though best.

I'm sure that the reporters justify it to themselves on that basis. But they
haven't looked ahead.

~~~
jacquesm
If Apple lets their prototypes out of the house in conditions that are 'real
life' then they have to live with the fact that in 'real life' phones get lost
and get stolen.

What bugs me is that I can't imagine that every phone that is lost or stolen
makes it's way to gizmodo, so how on earth did they find out that that phone
was a prototype? Or did they really have a bunch of 'misses' before this
'hit'.

Apple should do exactly nothing about this, unless the prototype iphone was
taken off their facility without their permission. If it was then the risk is
theirs. Every day there must be thousands of phones that are lost, and it's
not like it's a big deal anyway. Just another incremental upgrade to a
consumer device, who cares.

~~~
jonknee
> What bugs me is that I can't imagine that every phone that is lost or stolen
> makes it's way to gizmodo, so how on earth did they find out that that phone
> was a prototype? Or did they really have a bunch of 'misses' before this
> 'hit'.

It looked different. iPhones only come in a couple designs, it's not hard to
tell when it's different.

~~~
derefr
It was wearing a case that made it look like a 3GS (in a case), though. You'd
have to pick it up and stare at it to realize it had an extra camera cutout,
etc. You'd have to be planning to do _something_ with the phone already (steal
it, or just return it to its owner) to take that long/hard a look.

------
razerbeans
Seeing the name-drop of the Apple engineer on Gizmodo made my jaw drop. I
couldn't believe that they would do such a thing. This no doubt casts a shadow
on his career and life. It's a reckless attempt by what appears to be a subpar
site to make itself somewhat legitimate. In this respect, they've failed
miserably.

~~~
TomOfTTB
As much as I hate to defend Gawker I don't think you can blame them for the
negative impact on his career. Say what you will he is guilty of what they
claim he did. I would hope future employers would be willing to look past it
and realize it was an innocent mistake but they have a right to know. In the
end this incident is relevant to how much you trust him with prototypes in the
future.

Beyond that Gawker is a news source. It's their job to report on stories. So
while it was dishonest to buy the stolen prototype this post is just reporting
the story and I'm not sure it's out of the bounds of what a news organization
should do.

~~~
anthonyb
Bullshit. There's a big difference between making a mistake, and having that
mistake sprayed across the internet for all to see.

~~~
TomOfTTB
Simply put once a news source starts omitting facts based on what they think
is relevant that's the beginning of the end. News sources should report the
facts in as complete a fashion as they are capable of doing. To do otherwise
is to open the door to abuse. What's to stop a reporter from leaving a friend
out of a story while reporting his coworkers were involved in some
malfeasance? In that case the coworkers then look more guilty in comparison to
their unmentioned friend who appears innocent because he wasn't reported in
the story. That's just one example of how omitting facts can lead to
dishonesty in reporting

~~~
fhars
Omitting irrelevant facts is the whole point of news publishers in the
informaton age. You don't pay them to find information, you pay them to filter
information.

~~~
TomOfTTB
The mistake you make is in assuming your judgement of what is irrelevant is
sacrosanct. Again I give an example...

Let's say a Conservative reporter is in Iraq and for whatever reason he's the
only reporter allowed there. Let's say he finds out that there were no WMD but
says to himself "That's irrelevant because President Bush thought there were
WMD so there's no reason for me to report on that". Would that be right?

Of course not. But the reason we have rules against reporters using their
judgement to omit details is because it leads to situations like the above.

Now back to this situation. I'm not saying this is true I'm just putting forth
a possibility. That said what if this is a person who serially does things
like this? What if he could be linked to several leaks over the past few
years? Wouldn't his name be relevant then? But how could you know if that was
the case if reporters decided to omit his name every time he was involved?
That's just one example of how this one fact that you think is irrelevant
could in fact be very relevant

~~~
ugh
There are many journalists in Iraq. And you know why that is? Because if there
were only one of them, he might make wrong judgments. Yeah, there might be
wrong judgments when humans are involved, no one could disagree with that. The
way out, however, is not to force journalists to report everything, the way
out is to make sure there are always a good many journalists writing about the
same stuff.

Journalists have to make judgments all the time, they have to decide which
parts of a story are important and which parts are irrelevant. If they didn’t
do that – if they weren’t allowed to do that – they wouldn’t do their job.
Reporting whatever you hear and see is not what being a journalist means.

You can have nice arguments about which judgments are the right ones, which
are the wrong ones. Saying that Gizmodo should just report whatever they know
is not such a argument.

(You actually start to make the right kind of argument in your last paragraph
which is nice but I don’t see how there is any evidence at all that hints at
the scenario you are describing. There are always many things which are
possible but that’s hardly a convincing argument. Evidence is what’s needed.)

Note please, that the New York Times [1] doesn’t mention the name. Apple
engineer is all they write.

[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/technology/companies/20app...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/technology/companies/20apple.html?hp)

------
swilliams
What reason did gizmodo have to release the identity of the engineer that lost
the phone? To "prove" that their story was more real? Did they even consider
what's going to happen to that guy?

Every gawker website feels like it is just barely a half step above a tabloid,
and in some cases, less than that (cf, Valleywag). Behaving this petulantly is
not a very good way to discourage the popular perception of bloggers, it only
solidifies it.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Apple knew whose phone it was, this story doesn't harm him there at all.

It may even help prevent him from being fired or retaliated against, now that
his name is public.

It could help or hurt with future employers, but I'd guess on balance it
helps. Probably won't be trusted with prototypes again, but that was going to
be the case either way.

Not to defend gizmodo, they seem pretty borderline in the whole thing.

~~~
staunch
Just because they added a few sympathetic lines to their post doesn't mean
they actually give a shit about what happens to the guy. They had no
altruistic motivations in releasing his name. They did it for page views (i.e.
money).

------
tomwans
Gizmodo's attitude is making me sick. All of these articles have such a "haha,
gotcha!" attitude towards Apple (and especially Gray) for no reason at all.
Apple is secretive about their products, so what? You got the prototype. Take
the photos and report on it. There's no reason to divulge all this information
about Gray. Apple knew who lost the phone already, since they were able to
wipe it remotely. Their snide remarks and attitude in both
[http://gizmodo.com/5520479/a-letter-apple-wants-its-
secret-i...](http://gizmodo.com/5520479/a-letter-apple-wants-its-secret-
iphone-back) and <http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone>
make me feel as if the Gizmodo writing staff consists entirely of 8th graders.

~~~
tomwans
... <http://gizmodo.com/5520669/it-was-gray-powells-birthday>

... really? did you kick him enough while he was down? It's just unethical to
exploit someone this much just for your ad clicks.

------
jsz0
They very possibly did the guy a favor exposing his identity not only to
insulate him from hasher retribution but also as pretty clear evidence it was
an innocent mistake. No one would leave their identity on the device if they
had personally conspired to sell it on the black market. I don't think it's
that big of a deal. If the device was being field tested Apple was accepting
the risk of theft/loss. If it had been an iPad 2 months before it's
announcement maybe but it's just an expected refresh of an established
product. Not the end of the world. Apple's software folks leaked the existence
of the front facing camera in the SDK months ago. Apple's competitors won't
gain anything with a 2 month advance knowledge of the 4th generation design.

~~~
Frazzydee
Apple puts in a lot of effort to maintain an air of secrecy. It's part of
their pubic image.

AFAIK this is the first time there has been a leak this big. It is a big deal
to Apple.

~~~
hyperbovine
_It is a big deal to Apple._

Inside the RDF, you are probably correct.

Back here in reality, I would just like to take the opportunity to shout out,
_BIG FUCKING DEAL_. They're working on a new version of the arguably most
successful consumer electronic in history. WHO KNEW? It uses all the latest
technology. WOW! It looks... SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT! Stop the presses and notify
the President!!

I am tired of Apple acting treating it's product pipeline like it's the
fucking Iranian nuclear program, of the blogs and MSM gobbling it up by the
fistful, of these fools who buy into this idiocy and waste minutes, hours,
days sitting in line for the newest iProduct. Really? You're going to post a 5
minute video of you unboxing an iPad? Certainly there are more pressing issues
confronting mankind.

~~~
protomyth
How much money in PR do you have to spend to make up for the "disappointing"
events because everyone already saw the phone. This is not some little matter
of secrecy, this is big money. It also affects the media that covers Apple
events. They lose money because they don't get the page views.

~~~
tghw
In this particular case? $0.

No one is going to care in 3 months when this is released. Apply fanbois will
still be wetting their pants to be the first on line when it comes out. In the
meantime, the media that are going to "lose money" are actually getting an
advance.

Ayway, since when is it everyone else's responsibility to keep Apple's secrets
secret so the media can get more page views?

------
mahmud
I will celebrate the day when HN front-page is not filled with Apple drama and
gossip.

~~~
pg
The reason the frontpage has the stories it does is because they're the ones
users have voted for. If you want different stories, the solution starts with
you: try voting for some. You haven't voted on any of the stories currently on
the frontpage.

~~~
jacquesm
> You haven't voted on any of the stories currently on the frontpage.

You do realize you're effective saying here that you monitor the personal
voting record of users, and that you're willing to disclose that record
without their permission?

Also, his whole point was that he didn't vote for those stories. There may be
others that he did vote for but that didn't make it to the front page
_because_ of all the apple drama.

~~~
profquail
There's a big difference between 'monitoring' the personal voting record of
users and being able to look it up in the server logs to back up a claim. I
doubt that pg would carelessly disclose the voting records of users without
their permission (or even with it).

~~~
dejb
Actually I think it would be fascinating to view the voting records of
everybody. Maybe in a log file and then numerous people could analyse the
data. I'm sure some interesting patterns would emerge. Nice to go over it in 5
or 10 years time when some of the factual disagreements have been settled.

------
enjo
I completely feel for the guy. I've been trusted with a few prototype phones
in my life, in most cases prototypes from companies I didn't directly work
for. I once left one behind in a bar in Idaho Springs Colorado (a Sony
Ericsson P910 I think)... this at a time that a phone like that was an
absolute marvel (particularly in the U.S.).

Thankfully in my case whoever found it was a saint. I called, the bar had it
and I picked it up. End of story. I'm a pretty responsible guy, I just screwed
up that one time.

I wish this had all ended the same way for this guy.

------
dotBen
Aside from whether Gawker was right or not to name Gray, it's reasons like
this why I will never work in such a secretive environment like Apple.

It's not that I can't keep a secret, of course I can. But I think it is asking
a lot of someone to take a development/unreleased phone into the wild that
could be worth $millions to Apple and make sure it doesn't get lost.

Before someone says "Well he didn't have to take it to the bar" - well hold
on. As a product manager myself, I know first hand how important it is to
spend a large amount of time test-driving your product and eating your own dog
food.

To get really good ideas and feedback on a device like an iPhone, it probably
is required to take it outside of the office and actually use it "in the
wild".

I just don't think I would want to shoulder such responsibility, esp as we can
now see the public fallout from loosing it. You can imagine the private
fallout that is also occurring right now for Gray.

Some jobs are just not worth having, and maybe this is Apple asking too much
of its engineers and product people.

------
dasht
There are two big problems with all this fretting over Gray:

1) Um, he was allowed to leave the Infinite Loop campus (or wherever he works)
with the phone -- indeed, was presumably _supposed_ to. The risks of
accidental lossage are a calculated risk that Apple took a long time ago.

2) Is there any indication whatsoever that his mojo at Apple has been harmed?
If it has, that speaks far worse of Apple than it does of him.

------
lyudmil
I'm not sure Mr. Powell is paying attention to the continued coverage. If he
is, I'd like to offer a couple of words of encouragement.

I think Mr. Powell is the only one in this story who stands on firm moral
ground. He made a simple, honest mistake. All indicators point that he behaved
courageously, presumably coming forward and admitting the device is missing
since Apple shut it down remotely the next day. Yes, Apple management will be
upset and may decide to let Mr. Powell go, but he has fulfilled his
professional obligations to Apple and shown considerable courage in doing so.
Future employers hiring intelligently should realize that their employers will
make costly mistakes and someone who has demonstrated he openly takes
responsibility and is willing to work to fix the damage they've done should be
a valuable asset.

The actions of the person who found the phone are morally dubious. I don't see
how you could possibly justify "playing around" with a phone you have just
found while presumably waiting to return it to its owner. If this person is
interested in defending their actions I'd like some proof that they did not
shy away from contact with Mr. Powell (I assume he tried calling his own phone
when he found out it was missing) and that they did in fact call Apple trying
to get through to someone. I would also like an argument justifying their
disclosure of Mr. Powell's personal details to Gizmodo when handing over the
device. Something in the whole story seems a little fishy.

Gizmodo has clearly overstepped their bounds by publishing personal details
about Mr. Powell. It is clear they are getting traffic and therefore
benefitting from doing so at the expense of Mr. Powell. It is also clear that
this is mere gossip and therefore of no journalistic value.

Apple is a large, public technology company. Applying moral or ethical
principles in their case is nonsensical. What I can say for sure is that the
leaked content may not have as huge of an adverse effect as perhaps
anticipated. I already know a number of people who are committed to buying the
new device when it comes out. I know, Steve Jobs doesn't get to announce it
and blow everyone's minds at the keynote, but apart from that there may not be
much harm.

Last thing. Let's have a little bit of perspective here. We're talking about a
_phone_. And yet we have a person possibly stealing personal property,
violating someone's privacy by looking at content on the phone, selling the
device and the personal information to a media outlet, who then publishes both
publicly, undermining Mr. Powell's career. All of this so that we get to find
out about a new phone a little bit earlier. I haven't fleshed out a lot of the
ethical details in my head yet, but this seems like a lot of tech geek
douchebaggery.

~~~
ryanisinallofus
Gizmodo overstepped no bounds. They are allowed free speech and compared to
most reporting these days their story was actually accurate.

The ONLY person at fault here is the guy who found the phone and didn't call
Apple.

~~~
anigbrowl
It is (IMO, IANAL) illegal to pay money, record or share details of, or derive
commercial gain (via disseminating the story) from something that constitutes
a trade secret.

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00001832----...](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00001832
----000-.html)

I am not convinced a free speech defense obviates this. While people are
clearly interested by their report, that's not the same as it being 'in the
public interest'. As far as Apple's interest goes, their stock skidded 1% this
morning on opening, although it'll probably bounce back up when they release
their earnings statement later today.

~~~
tghw
Other companies get products leaked all the time, and no one blinks an eye. I
really think Apple will have a tough time calling the verification of
existence of an upcoming product "trade secrets".

~~~
anigbrowl
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_0...](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001839
----000-.html)

 _[...] (3) the term “trade secret” means all forms and types of financial,
business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information,
including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs,
prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes,
whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or
memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in
writing if— (A) the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep such
information secret;[...]_

You could argue over subclause (a) but I think that the concealment inside a
existing iPhone case would count. Certainly when Gizmodo obtained it they knew
what they were buying.

------
sunchild
I actually did the same. I rarely get disgusted enough to resort to
censorship, but Denton's craven, smug pageview whoring is just begging for the
ban hammer.

Also, putting comments down for the day reminded me that Gawker Media is
nothing without comments.

~~~
sunchild
Also, this ... [http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/04/20/teenager-beat-
iphone-...](http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/04/20/teenager-beat-
iphone-4g-scoop-months/)

------
jacquesm
Suggestion: add gizmodo to the HN banned domains list.

~~~
derwiki
This seems sort of absurd -- I don't think HN should ban any domains. If
people want to read something, it gets voted up. If they don't, it gets
flagged or not upvoted. Why should the subset of users who care about this
thread (I almost missed it) censor an entire domain for everyone else? If it
really bothers you, write a Greasemonkey script to mask certain domains.

~~~
jacquesm
There is an extensive list of domains banned on HN. For the most part they're
for different reasons though, but it's not like HN does not ban certain
domains.

In fact, pg explicitly banned the blog of vaksel for naming someone (and that
someone had in fact done something illegal). So if that was a reason for
banning a domain then this should be too imo.

------
thewileyone
Get a hold of an Apple prototype - Awesome

Tearing it apart to expose new features - Awesome

Posting it all online for the world to see - Awesome

Exposing the employee who lost the prototype - Major dick move

------
verdant
I hadn't heard about this incident until I read this link, and had to google
Gray Powell. This, at least in my case, caused some more attention to Gizmodo,
rather than less.

------
mattmaroon
This is absurd. Gizmodo owes no apology. They're journalists (however loosely)
and a journalist's job is to report the W's, including the who. It's a
relevant fact, and one of great interest, how an iPhone prototype wound up
lost at a bar.

They've been pretty clear the whole time that it was an honest mistake on the
guy's part. Could happen to anyone. They most certainly did not smear the guy
at all. I don't think they were rude about it at all, they were reporting the
facts.

In fact I'd say they were overly generous. Why the hell was he carrying a top
secret iPhone prototype to a place that exists solely to get you drunk? He was
careless, and it was his fault. If I were Apple, I wouldn't fire him, as I'm
sure he won't do that again, and I generally don't believe in firing people
for making mistakes. That's how you learn, and we all do it. But he'd not be
taking any prototypes off-campus for a long time.

I mean, the guy left an iPhone prototype at a bar. That's like a CIA agent
leaving a map to Osama Bin Laden's hideout at a McDonalds. A large part of his
job is to not lose the prototype iPhone, and he failed. To blame it on a bar-
goer is absolutely ridiculous.

The guy who found the thing allegedly tried to give it back. He's a better guy
than me, I would have called up Microsoft, Engadget, and PC Magazine and had
an auction.

Apple's institutionalized dickishness (further proof that corporate culture
comes directly from it's leaders' personalities) actually prevented him from
being honest. They deserved what they got on this one.

~~~
ubernostrum
_They're journalists (however loosely)_

If by "loosely" you mean "not at all", then I'd agree.

 _and a journalist's job is to report the W's, including the who. It's a
relevant fact, and one of great interest, how an iPhone prototype wound up
lost at a bar._

It's a relevant fact that it was lost at a bar. Publicly shaming the
individual, though? Doesn't add a damn thing to the story.

 _In fact I'd say they were overly generous._

I'd say they ought to be reading up on laws governing receipt of stolen
property.

 _They deserved what they got on this one._

Yes, as we all know: two wrongs will _always_ make a right.

~~~
mattmaroon
Gizmodo is much closer to journalism than anything else in the Gawker network,
though that's obviously a "skinniest kid at fat camp" compliment. I won't say
I'm a fan, but they do some good work on occasion.

Sometimes solid reporting causes shaming, such as when someone does something
wrong. It's unavoidable, if occasionally regrettable. Shaming is not unethical
in that respect, it's simply exposition of facts. It's no less relevant who
dropped the iPhone than who leaked Valerie Plame's name.

They didn't go out of their way to shame him. They didn't say "he check out
what this donkey did, I sure hope he gets fired for it". They in fact
mentioned many times that it could happen to anyone.

It's quite relevant who did it because it gives you a picture of how it
happened. It's also a great look into Apple's closely-guarded secrecy. Who
would have suspected that engineers are taking next-gen phones to bars?

It's also standard operating procedure in journalism to name who.

The reaction against this is nothing more than "there but for the grace of God
go I" which is not a valid reason to call for an apology. It's not that
Gizmodo did anything wrong, which they clearly didn't, at least not in naming
him. (Perhaps buying the phone crossed a legal or ethical line, but that was
clearly not OP's problem.)

~~~
ubernostrum
_Sometimes solid reporting causes shaming, such as when someone does something
wrong. It's unavoidable, if occasionally regrettable. Shaming is not unethical
in that respect, it's simply exposition of facts. It's no less relevant who
dropped the iPhone than who leaked Valerie Plame's name._

The story in this case was that an iPhone prototype was found after being
lost. The key thing here was the prototype itself, not the person who lost it.
Contrast with the Plame case, where the central question was who leaked the
information and why; your assertion simply doesn't hold up.

 _They in fact mentioned many times that it could happen to anyone._

Which supports the thesis that the identity of the specific person it happened
to is irrelevant to the story.

 _It's also standard operating procedure in journalism to name who._

When it's relevant or adds to the understanding of the story, yes. You've not
explained how it meets either of those criteria, though.

So I'll lay out the question clearly: what do we gain, in terms of
understanding this story, from having the guy's name repeatedly tossed out for
ridicule, that we wouldn't have without it?

And what do we gain from stories like this?

<http://gizmodo.com/5520669/it-was-gray-powells-birthday>

 _It's not that Gizmodo did anything wrong, which they clearly didn't, at
least not in naming him._

It's quite clear that they did several things wrong. This wasn't good
journalism; it wasn't ethical; parts of it quite probably weren't legal. If
you can't see the problems here, I'm not sure how much more clearly I can
explain.

~~~
mattmaroon
Yeah, clearly we don't agree. I take the "no stones unturned" approach to
journalism. You report every fact that might be relevant and figure out (or
let readers determine for themselves) what's relevant and what's not.

The story to me isn't that it was found, it's how, a big part of which is who.
I'm way less interested in whether or not the next unit has a front-facing
camera or micro-sim card than how Apple (a company with better IP security
than anyone) had one of their prototypes end up abandoned on a bar floor.

As someone who may one day be in a position where I'm developing a product
that requires secrecy, I want to know this stuff. All of it. I want to know
how Apple keeps their secrets so closely guarded, and especially want to know
points of failure.

It's clearly not as important as government intelligence leaks, but who leaked
is no less relevant to it's own story. I want to know who dropped the iPhone,
because who the hell has the next gen iPhone? And who would be careless enough
with such a thing to get drunk at a bar and leave it there?

It's very interesting that he's in his mid 20's for instance. That tells me
more about their organization than I previously knew, including that people
way lower on the totem pole than I would have guessed are walking around with
prototypes. (Or were anyway, that may have changed.)

Also I meant they didn't do anything wrong by naming him. They may have done
other things wrong (buying the phone perhaps). I'm not an attorney by any
means, and I'd guess neither are most if not all of the people here
speculating about legalities. I'm not particularly interested in that, though
I can see why some would be.

And as far as the birthday thing, that's why I said "loosely". It's moderately
amusing that the guy lost it on his b-day, but by far the least interesting
part. That's just good old Gawker flogging a dead horse and milking page
views.

~~~
ubernostrum
_Yeah, clearly we don't agree. I take the "no stones unturned" approach to
journalism._

Well, here's the thing. I work at a ("traditional"; been publishing papers
since the 19th century) news organization and I actually have the word
"journalist" in my job title (how that replaced "developer" is a story for
another thread). I spend as much time working with reporters and editors these
days as I spend working with coders (unfortunately, much of it in meetings,
but such is life). So I've ended up with a lot of exposure to a a particular,
I guess somewhat conservative, perspective on journalism, and that's what I'm
applying when I think about how this story should be handled.

So. Find out who it was and publish some information to give context? Sure,
that's useful. Ruin the guy's future as well as current career by making sure
his name's permanently associated with this? No; it doesn't help the story in
any way to do that. But then, Gizmodo's obviously operating on a very
different definition of "journalism" (more akin to the supermarket-checkout
tabloids), and it's not one that I really approve of because it ends up
putting the focus on the _least relevant_ information in order to drive up the
sensationalism and the pageviews.

~~~
mattmaroon
Well, Apple undoubtedly knows who lost the phone, so his current career isn't
any more ruined than it would otherwise have been. They bricked it wirelessly
so it's clear they knew what happened very quickly. My guess is he received
whatever disciplinary action they were going to mete out a long time ago.

One reason his name is worth publishing: to verify that this isn't a hoax, and
there've been tons of hoax iPhone leaks. This all allegedly happened sometime
around April first. When you say "an Apple engineer lost a phone" it's a lot
less convincing than "an Apple Engineer named X" because the latter can be
positively verified. In fact it sounds like people here know him (or of him at
least).

------
abronte
Has anyone heard if Gray is going to continue working at Apple?

------
petercooper
Did they change their article? I only saw it a couple of hours ago and it
seemed pretty soft towards him.. going as far as to say it wasn't really an
onerous fault and that he shouldn't be fired for making a simple mistake. It
certainly didn't seem negative enough to create the shitstorm currently going
on here and on Twitter..

------
jamesbressi
I am embarrassed to ask, but what does this do? (regarding this from the link)

"Until Gizmodo publicly apologizes to Gray Powell, this is going to be in my
/etc/hosts and in all of the DNS servers under my control:

127.0.0.1 gizmodo.com 127.0.0.1 www.gizmodo.com 127.0.0.1 m.gizmodo.com
127.0.0.1 gawker.com 127.0.0.1 www.gawker.com 127.0.0.1 m.gawker.com "

~~~
dazmax
It redirects those urls so you can't access them from your computer. It's the
simplest way to block a site.

~~~
jamesbressi
Duh! Thank you for wasting your time to answer me. I have no idea why that
didn't register. So now anything on his network will fail to load those URL's;
rather I was thinking there was something larger at play that was going to be
disruptive beyond his local. Don't ask why I was assuming this.

------
smutticus
I'm surprised about some of the comments here. There is no reason they needed
to post this guy's name. It simply isn't relevant to the story at all.

It's like they thought it was a good idea to kick someone when they were
already down. It's just petty.

------
esjr
I bet that the guy that lost the wallet, the stranger that found it and the
guy that put the picture of said girlfriend up on the interwebs, are now
having beers in that very same bar payed for by the girlfriend.

------
staunch
The Gawker network (which includes Gizmodo) is run by well known scumbag Nick
Denton. He's a leech and a bottom feeder. Don't hold your breath waiting for
anything positive out of him.

~~~
techiferous
"scumbag, leech, bottom feeder"

Describing actions that Nick Denton did that you didn't like would advance
this discussion, but I don't see any value in name-calling. I really don't
like these sorts of comments on Hacker News.

~~~
staunch
Those quotation marks don't mean what you think they do. I wrote that he was a
"well known scumbag" and (separately) "a leech and bottom feeder". Listing his
primary attributes like you did would be totally out of line.

Anyway, my comments would stand up in court. Truth is an absolute defense.
Nick Denton is infamous. Google him. He runs such gems as Valleywag, Gawker,
and Defamer. Self identifies as a "gossip merchant" and the title of his own
web site is "Nick Denton: The long and illustrious history of bile", which is
entirely accurate.

------
brown9-2
What I find even more amazing than Gizmodo publishing the guy's name is
Gizmodo feeling free to post pictures they found on his phone. What's privacy?

------
buster
Ok, i agree that the name shouldn't have been mentioned. But that's a lot
fuzz. It's not like Apple doesn't know he lost his phone. So, if he is to face
consequences, than it's with or without the article.

Seeing that Gizmodo called him, they probably even asked for the permission?

I can even imagine that companies are contacting him now, in case he loses his
job (who doesn't want to hire an engineer who works on the next gen iphone).

------
betageek
Much as it's not cool of Gizmodo to drag this guys name on to the front pages
I think everyone engaged in the Apple rumour mill is culpable in this,
especially Apple themselves.

Gruber over at Daring Fireball basically called Gizomodo out by implying the
phone was stolen. Apple love taunting the fan boys with the secrecy and
ratcheting up the tension - this is the result.

It's all very funny until someone gets hurt.

------
mjgoins
Might be better to use an ip address that won't actually point to a machine.
Pointing arbitrary names to localhost is probably 99.999 percent safe... but
better fully safe than sorry. rfc3330 mentions example ip addresses that are
reserved for documentation purposes. Might be able to use those.

------
barlo
The article states the phone was lost on the April 18th, but Engadget had the
same bar story and pictures on April 17th.

<http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/17/iphone-4g-is-this-it>

Does this not add up, or am I missing something?

~~~
robosox
You're missing something :-) the phone was lost on March 18th, not April.

------
MWinther
Isn't the only account of exactly what happened based on hearsay from some guy
who sold lost/stolen property to Gawker for $5,000?

------
prasen
if gizmodo had not outed him, it could have been successfully sued for theft.
Apple considers the phone stolen - an excuse given by powell to obviously save
his ass - and had giz not explained the events as to how they got the phone -
they would have got screwed. So yeah, everyone makes mistakes - but you've got
to learn from them :)

~~~
BigZaphod
So you're saying that because Gizmodo published some text on a blog that their
version of the story is now more true than Gary's may have been? You're
assuming Gary didn't simply tell Apple the truth when he lost it. Why?

------
kapitti
<http://www.bradcolbow.com/archive.php/?p=225>

------
mkyc
All else aside, calling the person who turned the phone over to Gizmodo a
thief might amount to slander, so Craig should be careful. This would be
something for a court to decide: e.g.
<http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/mca/45/6/45-6-302.htm> . Note "permanently".

~~~
danieldon
Why are you looking at Montana law when this incident occurred in California?

[http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2010/lost-and-found-
californ...](http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2010/lost-and-found-california-
law-and-next-generation-iphone)

It's not a secret that when you find lost property you either leave it with
the establishment in case the owner comes back looking for it, contact the
owner directly or, failing that, take it to the police. Instead of doing that,
he took it home, took it apart and sold it to gizmodo.

------
papachito
You must be new to the internet, the phone leaked, the story of how it
happened leaked, it was only a matter of time before the name of the guy
leaked, gizmodo or not, it's obvious that many people knew who it was.

~~~
deno
No, it's not obvious. Who knew? Do you know the guy that sold them the phone
for $10K? It's Gizmodo that we hate — they are suppose to be journalists of
some sorts, not bunch of kids on 4chan to which the poor standards you
described indeed apply.

------
zackattack
the gray powell tweme is pretty funny

~~~
zackattack
hey i don't mean that in a bad way

------
agranig
you are aware of the fact that 'accidantely' leaking secret information is and
has always been part of Steve's game, aren't you?

~~~
statictype
No. I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't do very many planned leaks and certainly not
to Gizmodo.

~~~
kgermino
Apple has been known to do planned leaks when it suited them. (The iPad leak
during CES is an excellent example) but its usually just letting a friendly
reporter know a few details from the specs, not 'accidentally' leaving a phone
at a bar or anything like that.

------
junelin
Press does what press does. It was his fault for being irresponsible.

~~~
eli
I don't think that's fair. What Gizmodo did would violate the ethics policy of
any serious news gathering organization. I don't consider them press.

~~~
albertsun
Cable/TV News fairly regularly pay subjects for stories.

~~~
epochwolf
But they don't release the names of people like this. I took a journalism
ethics class taught by the news manager of a local ABC affiliate, they would
never run a story like this. This is beyond disgusting.

Edit: This <http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone> is the
article I'm referring to. Purchasing the iphone was definitely illegal but it
isn't completely out of bounds for journalism.

------
ryanisinallofus
I wonder if Gawker get moral outrage over news about Paris Hilton?

------
lenni
I'm a bit confused. Did the iPhone also have pictures of this guy's
girlfriend?

------
cwisecarver
I can't believe how many of you are so wrong about this. Gizmodo is in
business to make money. They just made a lot of it and their article revealing
the hardware, which i'm waiting for, will make more.

The engineer is newsworthy. He contributes to the facts of the story. If you
want to be angry with someone how about the person who found the phone?

The person who knew the name of the owner and still sold the phone to the
tabloid. The person who had to click two virtual buttons to be talking to
someone who knew the owner and and could get the phone back to him. The person
who could have Facebook messaged the owner and returned the phone. But he
didn't. He sold a piece of obviously lost property to a tabloid.

He probably could have gotten a much nicer reward from apple anyway
considering their market cap these days.

~~~
enjo
He's also going to be going to jail.

Watch.

------
albertsun
This outrage is misplaced and the example he uses comparing the iPhone to a
naked picture is ludicrous.

Of all the attacks we have against people's personal character by blogs and
the old and new media, attaching this guy's name to the phone he lost is
practically nothing.

It's just business, not some attack on his character. As an employee of Apple,
Gray Powell represents Apple. His name is part of the story. Due to a mistake
of his Gizmodo scored a huge coup and got their hands on an unreleased iPhone
and a big story. Good for them.

------
khelloworld
Gizmodo not only ruined it for Apple and the engineer, it also ruined the fun
for Apple fans like myself anxiously looking forward to the rumored-filled
days just before the next device unveiling in June. :-/

~~~
gte910h
Wait, you like accidentally buying stuff that's about to be replaced with a
better model?

~~~
Psyonic
No, but he likes watching the internet explode with speculation that the new
iphone will cure cancer and world hunger, at the same time.

~~~
khafra
Speaking of speculation, I've heard some that this was a planned move by Apple
to overshadow the HTC launch.

~~~
Psyonic
Ya I've read that as well. It seems a very un-Apple move, but the timing is
also weirdly coincidental. Not sure where I stand yet.

