
IPhone, Gizmodo, and moral clarity about crime - mbateman
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0504/iPhone-Gizmodo-and-moral-clarity-about-crime
======
_delirium
I think "moral clarity" over this kind of thing was lost decades ago, when it
became common for companies to buy/borrow/find prototypes, and rarely
prosecuted. It's common knowledge among chip-design companies that as soon as
your prototype board hits the fab (unless you're someone like IBM or Intel
with your own fabs), it's going to be in your competitor's hands: NVidia and
ATI operate on the assumption that as soon as a chip's sent to Taiwan, it's
going to their competitor too. Nobody is ever prosecuted for that, either, on
the side of the seller or on the side of the buyer.

Yes, technically selling found property is a crime, but morally, this looks
more like a trade-secret dispute between businesses than a normal stolen-
property dispute, i.e. the harms suffered are not primarily the loss of the
device, but of the secret information. And I think people are pretty jaded
when it comes to inter-business trade-secret/corporate-espionage sorts of
disputes, because it happens all the time and nobody important ever goes to
jail for it, even though there's a lot of wink-wink in which executives are
aware of it.

The main difference here seems that it was made public instead of kept secret,
and the people doing it were amateurs. If Gizmodo were a consulting firm
instead of tabloid, paid $5k to see the prototype for a bit, took a bunch of
photos and information, quietly returned it or didn't, and then quietly sold
that info to one of Apple's competitors, we probably would never have heard of
it. (There's a whole little cottage industry doing teardowns of "found"
hardware.) I wouldn't be surprised if Jobs himself has purchased such
information at some point in his long business career--- taking care to
maintain plausible deniability of course.

~~~
illumin8
Your argument seems to be: everybody is doing it, so it's not morally wrong.

Would you feel the same way if it was your intellectual property that was
stolen? What if you spent the last year of your life in stealth mode, working
120 hour weeks and Gizmodo published your business plan on the web for
everyone to see?

~~~
_delirium
It's more like: this isn't morally wrong in the sense that stealing someone's
iPhone is wrong, but morally wrong in the sense that corporate espionage is
wrong, which is a whole different and fairly complex beast.

Mostly, I don't think it's any _worse_ when Gizmodo publishes it on the web
for all to see than when the tech companies buy and teardown "found"
prototypes. If people want a wholesale clampdown on that sort of thing,
applied evenly, that might be worth considering.

------
Groxx
I wonder... if Gizmodo had informed Apple of the contact, might Apple have
given them an exclusive deal further down the line for doing the right thing?
Were I Jobs, I certainly would (though I'm not); people who will look out for
you & yours are valuable to keep. That kind of better relations may have been
worth more than the phone scoop, and certainly better than the horrendous PR
snafu (it would've been the other way around, most likely: Apple fans praising
Gizmodo).

~~~
commandar
Interesting sidebar to this: Apple had completely cut Gizmodo out of
prerelease iPad access. In fact, the snub came literally as Gizmodo editor
Brian Lam was already on a plane to meet with Apple on it:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-screws-top-gadget-
blogs...](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-screws-top-gadget-blogs-no-
early-ipad-review-units-2010-4)

While I'm not certain Gizmodo wouldn't have still bought the unit given the
way Nick Denton has talked up checkbook journalism the last few years, I do
think that the fact that Apple had already cut off all access gave them little
incentive _not_ to publish. After all, tech blogging is pretty much an access-
reliant venue.

Their great miscalculation there is clearly that they weren't expecting Apple
to play legal hardball to the extent that they have.

------
zokier
Moral clarity about crime? I didn't see anything clearing my morals in the
article. Yes, it was illegal (and probably should be so too) to sell/buy
stolen prototype, but illegal and (morally) wrong are completely different
things in my book. I my mind, the scales are tipping on the "morally good"
side in this case, but I also think that Gizmondo should accept the quite
predictable consequences.

------
llimllib
The only thing that bothers me is the method of executing the search on Mr.
Chen. In this case, it's not like he has ever been hiding anything, so did
they need to bust in his door, execute a search warrant, and seize his
computers?

It seems to me that the facts of this case are all public, and if they want to
prosecute him, they could have done so without resorting to thuggish tactics.

~~~
mechanical_fish
In general, I disapprove of the increasing militarization of police tactics.
Far too many search warrants are executed by SWAT teams wielding tasers and
guns, and result in the deaths of innocent people.

However. Think about it for a minute. Just how should the police generally
execute a search warrant? If the suspect doesn't answer the door, should they
leave a polite note and come back several hours later once the suspect has had
a chance to smash the computers with a hammer, set fire to the paper evidence,
and flee to Barbados?

~~~
awa
Shouldn't it depend on the crime and the alleged criminal. Chen had already
returned the property to Apple so should have been given some credit for that
gesture during the search. Also, the crime was for buying stolen property at
worst, I don't think that should have involved knocking down doors

~~~
anigbrowl
At worst, the crime is economic espionage (more likely by Chen's employers
rather than him as an individual). This carries a sentence of up to a decade a
fine of up to $5m (although if this were the case here, the actual penalty
might only be a tenth of that).

------
tkeller
"if David were to steal Goliath’s slingshot. . ."

I just don't even know where to begin.

------
spot
> Finally, there’s the misguided idea, long espoused by many in the tech
> community, that “information wants to be free.” But whether it’s in the form
> of proprietary trade secrets embodied by Apple’s latest iPhone or
> intellectual property subject to seemingly endless illegal downloading and
> file sharing every second of every day, information is not free.

> It takes a lot of time and energy and money to write books, compose music,
> create movies, and design and market electronic devices like iPhones. Such
> information deserves legal protection, even when it’s been lost in a bar.

weird how he twists this to support an entirely different conclusion at the
end. also i don't think the real issue here is whether or not there was theft.
it seems pretty clear there was. the question is has the response to it been
proportionate and "by the book", or has steve pulled strings?

------
SamAtt
This author doesn't seem to have researched his piece very well. Take the
shield law argument. He says:

 _The problem for Gizmodo is that the shield law has a specific exemption when
the police are looking for evidence that the journalists (in this case, the
Gizmodo editor) themselves committed crimes, as seems to be the case here._

But almost every investigative reporter breaks a law when doing their job.
Woodward and Bernstein received documents that were unquestionably stolen.
That's receiving stolen property (not to mention violation of a bunch of laws
regarding state secrets)

The argument against Gizmodo is whether the story "served the public good" as
established by the precedent. NOT if they committed a crime themselves.

~~~
gte910h
He's actually wrong: The California law has no such exemption, the federal one
does though.

------
DrSprout
>By making an admittedly weak effort to return the iPhone to Apple, Hogan – in
the eyes of the law – committed theft.

That's the thing though. Gizmodo did in fact return the iPhone to Apple
without complaint, in a timely manner. Posting the information to the Internet
is an unorthodox way of asking Apple if they want their property returned, but
it ultimately has the same result.

If any crime was committed by Gizmodo, it is theft of trade secrets, not theft
of the device.

~~~
jshen
let's say someone steals your car. I buy it from them, then brag about it on
the internet. I then realize I've drawn the attention of law enforcement and I
"return" it to you in a "timely" manner. Is it theft? I mean, my bragging
about riding around town in your car is an unorthodox way of asking you if you
want it back.

~~~
Mazy
The thing is, in this case, Gizmodo didn't really know if it was stolen -
there was no way for them to know if it was a legitimate device or a knockoff
from China. After they posted it Apple confirmed it really was their device
and they returned it immediately.

~~~
glhaynes
Are they in the habit of paying $5,000 for things that they think are likely
Chinese knockoffs?

~~~
awa
They probably are in a habit of paying money for devices which look
interesting and aren't easily available in the US market. So if somebody comes
to them with a next gen mp3 player from China and they like it from the looks
they probably gonna pay good money for it.

------
msmith
Could Gizmodo have avoided legal jeopardy if they had used that $5000 to
secure an exclusive instead of using it to buy the device?

~~~
hackermom
Most likely, yes. Openly offering to purchase unreleased prototypes etc. is
pretty common in "tech/gadget" media, and does not constitute theft on the
buyer's side, which obviously is the case when in a _concealed_ fashion
fencing/trading something that you clearly know is someone else's property.
This is de facto international law.

~~~
Terretta
Unfortunately, Gizmodo's letter to Apple doesn't say they paid for an
exclusive. Gizmodo says they bought the iPhone:

"We didn't know it was stolen when we bought it."

------
mrvir
Who has the story about our software engineer? Talk about hangover after
birthday party...

------
clammer
This article makes a bunch of assumptions. The most important assumption is
that they guy who found the phone didn't make a reasonable effort to return
it.

Just because the phone says "Apple" on the back, doesn't mean Apple owns it.
My phone says that too, but I wouldn't want it sent to Apple if I lost it.
Also, my understanding was that the phone was bricked remotely. Not much you
can do to find the owner of a phone that doesn't turn on.

It would seem to me that this assumption must be proven true _before_ police
can take action against Chen, since unless this assumption is true, there is
no cause to invade his office.

I don't know what the facts are, but the they need to be set straight in this
matter before we declare anyone guilty.

~~~
anigbrowl
It doesn't just say Apple on the back. It's disguised with a removable case to
look like a previous model, has stickers on it with serial numbers, and the
Gizmodo staffers evaluating it are expert commentators on the gadget industry.

Now you could say that the Hogan fellow who found it is naive, and it's
apparent that a lot of people were not aware of finders' legal
responsibilities in California; ignorance is not a legal defense, but that
means only that an attorney can't offer it as a reason to have a case
dismissed. A jury and judge might well regard his crime as a petty one and
find him guilty only of a misdemeanor.

But where Chen (and indirectly, his employers) are concerned, they really
should know better because the size and practices of the industry they report
on is _exactly_ what brings a sufficiently large audience to sell advertising.

