

Wired identifies iPhone 4G finder - apphacker
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-finder/

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gduffy
If these guys had thought a little more about it, it would have gone like
this:

1\. Brian asks the techy guys at Gizmodo for their help in identifying and
returning a strange phone to its rightful owner

2\. Gizmodo hires Brian as a consultant on the project for $5000, pictures and
notes are taken while identifying its owner and origin

3\. Phone is shipped back to engineer/Apple within 24 hours

4\. Gizmodo publishes a blog entry detailing the successful investigation and
return of the phone

:)

~~~
dfischer
4) Would probably be considered publishing trade secrets which is a felony.

~~~
mcav
I've heard discussion that it wouldn't be publishing trade secrets since the
phone was left (albeit inadvertantly) in a public place.

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maxharris
Brian Hogan is in serious trouble, but it's trouble he put himself into. He
damn well could have walked into an Apple store, or even Apple HQ (he lives in
the area), and dropped the phone off there, rather than looking for some
skeezy way to milk essentially stolen goods. So if he really did the things
that are written about him, he belongs in jail. Remember that ignorance of the
law is no excuse in legal contexts.

~~~
look_lookatme
You seriously, truly believe a person belongs in prison for selling something
he found? I don't understand the blood lust some people around here have for
this guy or gizmodo. Say what you will about ethics, this is certainly no
reason to put a person in prison. What a bizarre perspective you have.

~~~
davidmurphy
How would you feel if I found keys to a your home and sold them to a local
gossip blog to come take pictures? Maybe not the best example, but it conveys
the idea...

~~~
look_lookatme
Personally, I don't think you should go to prison.

If, say, this guy had conspired to break into Apple and steal this thing or
stalked the engineer and thieved it outright, then there is a difference. I
don't know and don't care if there isn't one by law, it's just not the same.

I think this guy made a bone head decision. I think Gawker did too. I also
think mistakes happen and that punishment should fit the crime. What do we
know about this crime and the damage it did? It's hard to gauge, but I don't
think it's so criminal that people belong in prison for it. This wasn't the
nuclear launch codes.

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jws
That set of facts doesn't look good for Brian J. Hogan.

Once he suspected what it was he made no effort to return the device, but made
a good deal of effort to sell it to a tech blog. Err... excuse me, his lawyer
wants people to say _share it with a tech blog_.

~~~
jrockway
Thought experiment: if I lost my phone in a bar, would you think to return it
to HTC?

~~~
mrshoe
Your phone doesn't belong to HTC, it belongs to you. The prototype iPhone
belongs to Apple.

~~~
jrockway
How would a "reasonable person" know the difference?

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rykov
From the beginning, I thought Brian's and Gizmodo's best defense would be to
say "We collaborated to try to find the owner through a large platform." How
well that will work with "$5k for exclusive access" is questionable.

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BRadmin
_...he believed the payment was for allowing the site exclusive access to
review the phone._

The attorney keeps stressing this like it's the cornerstone of their defense.
Are they trying to say that he was paid for access to review, not in exchange
for the (stolen) iPhone itself?

~~~
jrockway
A sticky point is the value of the phone. If he sold it for $5000, then he
stole $5000. If he didn't sell it, but was paid $5000 by Gizmodo to not tell
anyone else about it, then the value of the phone is in question. If the value
of the phone is less than $400 (and if you add up the cost of each component,
and take into account that it was remotely bricked, that is easy to argue),
then there is no particularly severe crime involved. A slap on the wrist, at
worst. If it's $5000, though, then jail time could become involved.

This defense is also good for Gizmodo. It's not illegal to pay someone $5000
to not talk about something to the media. It's the basis for pretty much every
employment contract in existence.

Like most high-profile cases, this is not particularly clear-cut. He didn't
walk into Apple headquarters, gun down a few guards under the watchful eye of
a security camera, take the iPhone, and sell it to the highest bidder. That
would be clear-cut "grand theft" (not to mention, murder). Instead, he found
it lying around in a bar, asked everyone in the bar if it was theirs, was told
no, the excitement and curiosity went to his head, and he ended up with $5000
for letting Gizmodo take some pictures of the thing. A crime? Maybe. But not
obviously.

(There is a lot of hate for this guy, but think about it. If you found a cool
electronic gadget laying around in a bar, wouldn't you play with it? And when
you found out it was a fucking top-secret prototype of one of the most
secretive companies in existence, wouldn't you be a little excited? And when
you're excited, do you always make the best decisions? If not, you don't
belong on HN.

Sure, the guy is a sleaze-bag for pocketing the five grand. But Apple is a
sleaze-bag for paying slave children build the phones in the first place. Two
wrongs don't make a right, of course, but it is helpful to treat both parties
with the same scrutiny; at least when we are using words like "sleaze-bag".)

~~~
37prime
How can someone even "pay" slave children to build anything? By definition,
"slaves" aren't getting paid at all.

Mandatory Futurama Quotes:

 _Fry: You know what the worst thing about being a slave is? They make you
work all day but they don't pay you or let you go.

Leela: That's the only thing about being a slave._

~~~
jrockway
So nobody has any actual commentary on my thoughts -- just outrage at one
exaggeration made in passing.

Oh HN, why...

------
smiler
Shame the $5000 he made will now be eaten up in attorney fees

~~~
davidmurphy
Shame he took $5000 for the phone in the first place...

