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Gizmodo Blows Whistle On 4G iPhone Loser
Stoobalou writes "Not content with its iPhone scoop, Gizmodo has probably ruined the career of a young engineer. The tech blog last night exposed the name of the hapless Apple employee who had one German beer too many and left a prototype iPhone G4 in a California bar some 20 miles from Apple's Infinite Loop campus. Was that really necessary?"
It also came out that they paid $5K for the leaked prototype and that Apple wants it back.
News For Apple, Stuff That Apples
Leaks? Typical Apple marketing.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
You know, I find that completely over-the-top.
If the story is accurate, then what's the point of exposing the poor sod's name?
What purpose does that serve? The guy's obviously had a rough week; why pile on and make it worse?
It's likely that he's going to be terminated (from his employment, not physically), if he hasn't been already. I'm sure there's some "handling company materials" guideline or somesuch on the books at Apple that will be enforced.
So why expose him publicly?
I don't get it. This just seems like nonsense to me.
I'm still not convinced that this isn't a marketing ploy. I mean really, you get entrusted with the Next Most Awesome Device Ever, go out for drinks, show it off to your friends.... you wake up the next morning and you don't have it.
My wife has called bars, stores, restaurants, and cabbies to track down her crappy LG. You're telling me this guy never thought to call the bar the next day? Or that the bar sold it off before the guy could claim it?
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
poor bastard.
The summary is kind of slanted. Apple already knew who had lost the phone - they knew from the day after when they wiped it - Gizmodo just made that name public and did so in a fairly classy way. As a lot of comments on Gizmodo have pointed out, the public naming of the engineer isn't going to do anything more to hurt him, and could protect him a little from Steve Jobs firing him.
Apple obviously knows who has these prototypes, and they knew this one was lost because they remotely shut it down.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
Because they exposed the guy who lost it, this will pretty much ensure that anybody carrying a prototype will never, ever let it out of their sight, meaning they'll probably never get their hands on a prototype like this again. The smart thing to do would have been to quietly encourage temporarily "losing" these prototypes behind the scenes by some means.
I don't think anyone here thinks he's in any trouble.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
as in : WHO CARES?
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Most developers are tweakers by heart anyway, and should not work at a company which produces closed, locked down products.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
By providing the name, and validating his employment they gain further evidence that it is the next gen iPhone. They could've just said they checked it and it would've basically had the same result without public humiliation. This is a pretty bad oversight and I'm surprised it hasn't been removed already.
~Mekkah
You don't think having to tell Apple he lost a prototype and having the thing show up on Gizmodo had already outed him?
Apple either already knows who it is or would have known shortly anyway. It's not like Apple isn't keeping track of who has its prototypes.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I think the site has done a good job on the analysis.
Gizmodo was a greedy site who wanted more hits, the author's an asshole who just wanted to cause more trouble for that guy for kicks.
Sure, he lost a prototype, but does he deserve his career ruined at other firms too? Definitely not.
Especially problematic in the tech industry where employers are sure to run a Google search on prospective employees.
Blog post, about a blog post, about a blog post.
Somebody get Xhibit on the phone.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Man this seem to happen daily... don't you hate it when it happens to you?
This needs more cowbell!!!
I don't care if it's an iPhone, a new version of the Nexus One, a new USB enabled stapler or what have you, this is really really scummy of Gizmodo and I hope they burn in hell.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
i feel like taking leaks on apple products....
Gizmodo are jerks and I will no longer go to their website. Outing this guy in the fashion that they chose is just reprehensible.
I find it hard to believe that Apple would just hand these things out without keeping track of who had them. It probably didn't take too long to figure out whose phone was missing once the first photos were published.
Double Bad Here -
The engineer breaking company confidentiality was out of line. Getting fired will probably be the outcome.
The "journalist" (such as it is here) revealed a confidential source. That said, they will never get anyone else to talk to them off the record.
Both did the wrong thing.
People on the outside of Apple don't like the "hush hush" way they do product development, but that's part of how Apple functions. If I was getting my paycheck there (and I am not, but friends of mine do!) I would keep that stuff internal as the company wants.
"Loose lips sink ships" - Good thing its not a defense contract, and just a next generation piece of consumer electronic gadgetry.
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
This is a phenomenally stupid move on gizmodo's part. They violated one of the most important rules in journalism : keep your sources safe. Let's see how many anonymous tips they'll get now.
If you let one of these Apple engineers off the hook for their crimes against humanity, then you've got to make exception for them all. It's a slippery slope. First, Apple engineers today; tomorrow, lawyers and political figures. That's a social travesty we can not allow.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Okay, I find something, I know who it belongs to, and I choose to keep it, rather than return it.
How is that not stealing?
What if... the guy left the bar, so I took his phone. He got to his car, realized his mistake, and came back to get it, but it was gone? Did I 'find' it, or did I 'steal' it?
What if the guy left it for a few minutes to take a leak, and I took it then?
Sure, the engineer screwed up, but legal or not, it ain't right to keep the phone.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
Stop with the Apple slashvertisments already. it continues like this, soon /. is i., news for fanboys, stuff that really doesn't matter.
Sensational headline is sensational.
I'm sure Apple already knew who it was. They knew who had them all they had to do was ask to see them.
I find being offended by me offensive.
If the employee has any sense of responsibility, he immediately reported the loss to his boss, and the situation was already being dealt with. Hopefully sympathetically.
If he didn't do that, well, he does deserve to be called out as untrustworthy. Maybe that's not Gizmodo's job, but I wouldn't feel too sorry for him in that case.
Their source is the one they paid $5K to, not the poor sap/purposeful leaker who left the iPhone in the bar.
iPads run countries, iPhones get lost - Yeah right!
I expect a minimum of 20 more iPhone stories before the iPhone 4/HD/Whatever comes out in June. I say this as an iPhone owner. We're going a little overboard here.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Who'd want their google portfolio to read, "I left my employer's super-secret prototype on a bar stool." If this is a marketing ploy, I hope the guy was well-compensated. Or his name is fictional.
Wow. A lot of commenters at this point clearly haven't followed the story in any way and have no idea how the whole thing actually happened.
I'm not gonna take sides, and not gonna clue anybody in; I'm just saying maybe some folks should read the relevant material first, because most of the debate so far has been around the rightness or wrongness of imagined scenarios rather than the actual one.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
Is the guy's career ruined or did he just get a pay raise for this unofficially sanctioned and hype generating leak?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
It *IS* a marketing ploy. There is *NO* reason why the apple and iphone names/logos should have been imprinted into this device if it is a prototype/testing device. Without the logos and with a good locking mechanism (as stated by others) this should only have appeared to be some knock-off device. As usual, all the stupid media (including /.) picks up on this and apple gets free publicity. Duh!
Has anyone considered that this is a flat out publicity stunt to get mouths watering in light of the release of the HTC Droid Incredible. Quite frankly, this stinks like a PR department.
"It's all been said before."
Gizmodo is wrong for exposing this guy's name. He made a mistake anyone could have made. There's no reason for him to be exposed like this. I take no pleasure in reading the article they wrote about the new phone knowing that this poor guy paid for the scoop with his career.
Also, it upsets me because it illustrates the untrustworthy nature of people in general. The decent thing to do would have been to give the freakin' thing back to him and not take advantage of his mistake, but whoever took it decided to make some $$$ off of another's misfortune.
I realize I might be one of the few people in this world to have ethics and freakin' morals but this is just a ridiculous breach of what I would call human decency.
GC
In this day in age, you can never discount marketing ploys, but Apple doesn't usually do this. That said, Gizmodo, by disassembling the phone, broke the law regarding misappropriation of found property and they showed themselves as classless and unethical... anything for a scoop. I hope if they lose some property, the finder treats them with more respect.
What the hell does that last link have to do with a collegehumor video?
I think they also want to make it clear to everybody that they are not paying for stolen goods. Perhaps if they tell everybody the drunken birthday boy story, people will not get a bad taste in their mouth when they hear that Gizmodo paid 5k to get access to that phone.
Losers whine about their best, Winners go home to fuck the prom queen
Gizmodo is, in whatever form, still making its revenue from news. And news-publishers, besides some very serious newspapers, will KILL for news. Which Gizmodo just did. Sad, very sad - but business as usual in media-shark land.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I'm still not convinced that this isn't a marketing ploy.
Yes, but you're missing the point. This story is 100% marketing, just not likely from Apple directly. It's marketing for Gizmodo, it's marketing for technology, it's marketing for hype in general. It's exactly what the link says it is: "First pictures of what is most likely the next iPhone." It's all designed to get you excited and interested to click links and buy things so people get paid. But no, I don't think Apple's marketing department was like "I'm going to leave this bar now, and hope that nobody finds my super-secret phone prototype, wink, wink, wink." That's just silly.
My understanding is that Apple makes some bonuses contingent on no leaks having occurred for a product rollout. Someone talks, no one involved with the project gets the bonus. If that happens in this case, he may need police protection.
Assuming that this guy is an otherwise valued employee, as a manager or co-worker, I would make the case to keep him: Fire him and the product release story will be about the guy who got fired. Keep him and he gets mentioned, but he will never lose anything of any value ever again.
He doesn't get a bonus, he does get every other shit detail until Scotland plays the U.S. in the World Cup finals (your teams may vary), and the standard for "met expectations" gets moved up a notch to "makes his manager and co-workers look insanely great every single moment of every single day."
But, I don't run a multi-$Billion corporation.
Just look at the note they wrote the guy:
"Hey man, I know things seem really tough right now. We had mixed feelings about writing the story of how you lost the prototype, but the story is fascinating. And tragic, which makes it human. And our sin is that we cannot resist a good story. Especially one that is human, and not merely about a gadget — that’s something that rarely comes out of Apple anymore. But hopefully you take these hard times and turn things around. We all make mistakes. Yours was just public. Tomorrow’s another day. We will all be cheering for you."
I mean, honestly, come ON.
If the story is accurate, then what's the point of exposing the poor sod's name?
You mean Gray Powell?
I'm sure he'll do just fine. After this kerfuffle, any hiring manager can be reasonably certain that this was a mistake that is unlikely to be repeated.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Jesus, what were you thinking?
I am assuming that this prototype has some sort of serial number. I am also assuming that a person with permission of have a/the prototype have to sign it out. So whether they have one prototype of fifty they know who has what. An elementary investigation would quickly show which prototype was missing and who lost it. Gizmodo did nothing to harm his career. If Apple punishes the engineer, the engineer has one person to blame, himself.
This guy just can't catch a break. First he loses a prototype G4 iPhone, then Gizmodo publishes his name, now Slashdot calls him a loser. What's next? Does his dog run away?
You picked the wrong article to bring this up in. This isn't an iPhone story, it's a story about Gizmodo being asshats.
But... while we're on the topic: So long as Apple stories generate comments Slashdot's gonna keep posting them. Lots of the comments I've seen in this thread and on the last one were "mememememe not another Apple story!" It's like watching a guy write a 3 page email about how painful his carpal tunnel is. If you guys are really sick of 'Apple Marketing', maybe you shouldn't be rewarding Slashdot with ad views and generating content for them to serve even more ads. You all already know that bitching on Slashdot won't change the editors' minds. Silence is your best option.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Now the world knows/assumes that a top Apple hot-shot engineer is, or soon will be, on the market.
No doubt this guy is getting a lot of lucrative offers now.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Perhaps the folks at Gizmondo thought that by releasing the name of an individual that is, I'm sure, already known to Apple to the public that he might in some way be protected (or at least his job) by a large following of people (customers) who think that everyone makes mistakes. If the name were never released, the guy would be fired and would never be able to speak about why it happened publicly due to the NDA he is very likely already operating under. Now, if the guy gets fired everyone will know why and people can make their own determinations as to whether or not they with to take that out on the company through redirected consumership.
in house they already new who lost the phone, as prototypes are carefully controlled, and a simple inventory check must have revealed who has a missing phone. thus, gizmondo didn't expose any info here that wasn't already known inside Apple.
companies take such prototype control very seriously - and usually you're fired immediately for such a breach of your contract
around 2000, I knew of a guy who was fired by Nokia just for taking a prototype phone with him, outside of the office. this alone is reason enough - let alone taking it out in public, like in a bar, and then losing it...
he was accessible enough on linkedin
This has to be bogus, Apple only made a few of these prototypes and an engineer would not have one out on the town without Apple being well aware that it could get spotted.
stuff |
Get off it. You must realize that Apple already knew who lost the phone. (Prototypes are both expensive and sensitive; I guarantee they knew who had one. They remote-killed this one, so they knew it had been lost, so they knew specifically who had lost it. I hope we're all smart enough to know that his relationship with Apple is unaffected by the public release of his name.
What, then? TFS must be claiming that for some reason the next potential employer is going to care about this incident. That is what we in the business call a ridiculous assertion.
He made a mistake anyone could have made.
No. “Anyone” could not have made this mistake because Apple does not just trust “anyone” with their top-secret prototype designs. They only trust people who they are certain will treat it with the caution and security necessary to ensure that their top-secret prototype designs remain top-secret.
The decent thing to do would have been to give the freakin' thing back to him and not take advantage of his mistake, but whoever took it decided to make some $$$ off of another's misfortune.
If you read the Gizmodo story it’s actually a pretty reasonable series of attempts. He didn’t have time to try to contact the guy who lost the phone before it was bricked and he lost the contact info, he made efforts to contact Apple but ran into a stone wall of employees who were either ignorant or purposefully tight-lipped, and finally Gizmodo bought it from him. Gizmodo, of course, will be returning the phone just as soon as Apple officially states that it is, in fact, their prototype phone, since that is the basis of their claim on it. If it is their phone, it will be returned. But only if it is their phone.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Because Gizm0do and others that jumped on that story were taking heat for the device being fake. So rather then waiting a few weeks to say I told you so when the announcement comes they felt better about themselves by saying "look! we have a name". Ya, they suck! yeah, I've no plans to visit the site again anytime soon.
MobileMe has the ability to check the GPS location of your lost phone, remotely. It is hard to imagine that, if this wasn't a controlled leak, Apple's legendary witch hunters wouldn't have been all over the guy who found it long before he could sell it to Gizmodo.
For the rest of us, getting charged $100/year so you can get what the Latitude app - that Apple just happened to reject - does for free is abusive enough that we don't all pay it. For an Apple employee who likely gets it free anyway, on a test unit, given their legendary zeal for protecting against leaks? It's pretty much inconceivable that they didn't have MobileMe running. If they had MobileMe running and it was a genuine loss not a marketing ploy, it's pretty much inconceivable that their witch hunters didn't turn up. Everything screams of a staged loss.
Someday Slashdot will have an option to allow the user to control what story sections he or she sees and doesn't see on the front page.
Wait, what?
Someday sammyF70 will discover that Slashdot has an option to allow him to control what story sections he or she sees and doesn't see on the front page. I wonder how many of us will live to see that day.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
I guess they know to whom they issued the new prototypes so they can just ask these people to give them back to find who lost it after the story came out on Gizmodo.
Am I really supposed to believe that since they knew the phone was missing, and they locked it down to prevent further use, that they didn't already know who the phone belonged too? The only people who didn't already know the name were us.
The "Apple wants it back link" takes me to a College Humor Video that seems to have nothing to do with Apple?
No sig for you!!
I would guess life kind of sucks right now for the guy, but if we play this out to its logical conclusion the guy is psuedo-famous and might even benefit.
Apple already knew who he was and, assuming he wasn't supposed to accidentally leave his phone in the bar, is likely to fire him or at best not promote him.
Now, everyone in the world knows about him or at least about what he did. That's something.
Palin got a tv show on less skill.
This is just Apple Marketing their product. Leaving a phone in a bar leads to good copy. Their lame upgrade to their own product, now has some sizzle, that adds value to the marketing of the product. Now the 4g is compelling, when before it was just an upgrade. Selling us the same product again and again, boy that sounds like M$.
It seems unlikely that this is an accident. If you are an apple engineer walking around with a prototype, you would be super paranoid about it. You wouldn't be walking around town with it, and clumsily leave it at a restaurant, and not bother to go back and look for it after you realized you lost it. It makes me think this was staged to look like an accident, but in reality was intentionally designed to leak the prototype to the media. Possibly because Apple doesn't want people to be surprised that the new model looses it's curved sleek edges for the sake of battery removal. Regardless of the reason, I think it was intentional. Anyhow, the people at Apple are masters of drumming up media hype for it's products, by leaking information in advance of a product release. And with this one being left behind, Apple has certainly achieved that. So regardless of whether this was a marketing ploy, or a honest mistake, it has given apple additional media coverage for free. It's kind of a win for Apple.
Now if the guy really did loose the phone, Apple clearly knew who it was, or else they wouldn't of wiped the phone. So Engadget didn't reveal anything that apple didn't already know. But I feel bad for the guy either way. Now people outside of apple may be thinking this guys an idiot for loosing a prototype. It could even affect this guys ability to get a job someday after leaving apple. At the very least, he likely feels embarrassed for having his name plastered all over the internet as the "guy who lost the iPhone prototype". I don't think Engadget should have published his name.
-Keith Virge
How Apple Orchestrates Controlled Leaks, and Why:
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/01/06/1330240/How-Apple-Orchestrates-Controlled-Leaks-and-Why
going to lose some job opportunities as a result of getting outed. Real dick move by Gizmodo.
Steven Jobs won't fire him. He just found his next organ donor. He will keep him Safe and healthy until the next "engineering project" is launched.
The phone was rapidly bricked which means after he goofed, he did the right thing: he reported it to Apple. I wanted to know the details of the $10,000 trade and the article was far too thin on that part of the story.
I stopped visiting /. at the end of March due to all of the Apple crap that was being posted. This is my first visit back in 3 weeks, and it still hasn't changed.
I had been going to reddit instead, but their site is so fucking slow now that they're using Amazon EC2, and I get server errors 10% of the time.
Digg is just plain fucked. It has gone even more Apple-stupid than /. has.
Hacker News has become nothing but "entrepreneurs" spouting out buzzwords and their latest bullshit theories.
OSNews? Oh, geeze, it's gone totally downhill since that Thom guy took over as editor. At least Eugenia had some computing background and knowledge.
Where can a man go to get some quality, non-Apple tech news and discussion these days? WHERE?!?!
The tech blog last night exposed the name of the hapless Apple employee who had one German beer too many and left a prototype iPhone G4 in a California bar some 20 miles from Apple's Infinite Loop campus.
iPhone G4? So Apple's using PowerPC processors in their phones now?
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
It is fine that the engineer will suffer a career set back. The free flow of information need never be blocked. Restricting the publication of such an error may harm the engineer but it may be of great benefit to employers both directly and indirectly. Screening out security risks is not a negative.
so, gizmodo paid for property that they knew didn't belong to the seller. isn't that illegal? knowingly purchasing stolen goods? it doesn't matter if the phone was "lost" or "stolen" from the get-go, the second you decide to keep something that is not yours, that's stealing.
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything"
90 hours/week... This guy is insane and should get a better job.
Here be signatures
does anyone think that $5k was a little cheap? not that i personally think it's money well spent, but considering the hype over new apple products and the ad revenue that can be generated from a scoop like this, i would have expected more.
Finally, someone who doesn't think this guy is the victim. HE IS THE WEAK LINK!! (I wish I had mod points. Sorry.)
When Apple said "here, carry around this priceless prototype phone and test it out" they most assuredly gave him a lecture on being careful and not losing it.
And he got plastered and lost it.
If I were Apple, if I didn't fire him outright I sure as hell wouldn't trust him anymore. So on second thought, if I can't trust him anymore, adios.
And if I were hiring developers for a secretive project, I sure as hell wouldn't hire him either.
Gizmodo* did us a favor by telling us his name. Now his prospective employers know he can't be trusted to hang onto things entrusted to him.
(* Gizmodo is totally not innocent IMO, but a discussion of Gizmodo's actions is not the point of this comment.)
You are utterly correct, I would just like to make an addendum.
Please, by all means, keep bitching. Nothing is funnier to me than the whining of nerds.
I highly doubt that Apple will fire this poor schmuck... Can't do that, that's bad PR! So instead they will stick him with the most disgusting job they can think of to make him quit. Well, at least that's how some of the companies that I have worked for do it. Makes sense, too. Don't have to pay unemployment to the guy, no bad PR by the guy screaming "They fired me because a mistake!", no lawsuits. It doesn't get any easier than that! Just remember, if you are ever in a great job and suddenly find your self one day cleaning the sewage lines at your company's remote Alaskan location, you probably screwed up REALLY badly!
After posting the name of a leaker, im guessing Gizmodo wont be getting very many new leaks in the future. would be leakers will think twice before leaking something out to them. Great way to ruin your tech blog's reputation
oh .. Actually I like to read news even about Apple ... Sometimes I even go out and eat at McD ... not just every hjour, every day.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
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Ever seen this one? Yeah .. I thought not.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
ot content with its iPhone scoop, Gizmodo has probably ruined the career of a young engineer
While I'm all for journalistic responsibility, let's not put blame where it doesn't belong. Gizmodo did not lose the phone. They did not find the phone. They did report thoroughly on both (as well as the hardware) once the phone was available to them. If a career has been ruined, it's the engineer who did it to himself. Given that apple bricked the phone almost immediately, he reported it himself as soon as he realized it was missing. (Could you imaging waking up in the morning to THAT particular realization... ) Hopefully in light of that they'll realize that mistakes happen, and no career is ruined at all...
I find it very aggravating when people release (lose, expose, sell etc.) prototype electronics and they get exposed to the populace early. There is a lot of work by a lot of people that goes into these devices. When the devices are thrown to the wolves before they are ready bad things tend to happen in that the prototypes can include or exclude features and qualities that aren't intended for the end product.
If features are lacking, fit & finish isn't perfect, or someone doesn't like the color then the device can be killed by the media before it has even hit the shelves.
Alternately if the device includes features that are there for testing purposes or simply experimental and then aren't included in the end-product, the people get upset because the device they bought didn't live up to the hyped expectations.
In the end there is a reason that cars, cell phones, computers, and even lawnmowers aren't released to the public until they are ready for public consumption. Anyone that compromises the success of the device by breaking NDA's deserves everything they get or lose by doing so. Both for being an ass that potentially screwed over many peoples hard work for a little personal fame, and also for being a dishonest ass that broke a signed contract.
Ugh. Gizmodo is not at fault for Powell's impending career woes. He shouldn't have lost a prototype. It's wholly his fault.
How did Gizmodo out him? I mean yes, they disclosed his name to the public, but there's no danger to the poor guy from the pubic. Gizmodo had nothing to do with outing him to Apple, his employer. You saw the barcodes and ID numbers on the product? Apple doesn't let its top secret prototypes out the door without knowing to whom they've been assigned. It was inevitable that Apple would discover Gray's identity once photos of the exterior were released or the phone was returned to Apple. Gizmodo bears ZERO responsibility for what Apple does or does not do to Gray. Apple didn't need Gray's help for that. Heck, Apple knew about Gray before Gizmodo ever ran an article. Why do you think the phone was bricked by the time Gizmodo got it? Guarantee you that either Gray voluntarily fessed-up or there's some mandatory "show me your top secret device" daily check run by Apple. Apple knew it was missing long before Gizmodo got the phone, and they knew who it had been assigned to.
I'm surprised that the only two scenarios coming up are either that the guy lost it accidentally or it's an Apple publicity stunt.
Remember that the person who turned it over to Gizmodo got $5k for it. What if that person was actually a friend of the Apple engineer and this was cooked up by the two of them?
I mean, if you have a decent moral compass and you found lost personal property in a business establishment, wouldn't you leave it with the manager there?
Supposedly the finder waited around for a long time for the owner to come back, but the owner, who had been carrying this secret Apple property and was probably used to looking at it several times an hour, never realized it was gone during that time?
These failings on both of their parts seem too large to be believable.
going to lose some job opportunities as a result of getting outed. Real dick move by Gizmodo.
Why would he lose his job? Mistakes happen. Costly mistakes happen. This man is the one single person in the whole Apple company who will never, ever in his life lose another iPhone. Why fire him when the company just paid a lot for his education?
Next time you make a mistake have your boss call up Gizmodo and do a story on it. Then lets see how you feel.
Amazing how people have a hard time putting themselves in other people's shoes.
The phone was wiped remotely...clearly Apple knew which engineer lost the phone. By making the guy's name public perhaps Gizmodo saved his job.
Eh, probably not, it's not like Jobs cares about public opinion...
I think this "poor guy" sold the phone to Gizmodo for 5k. He's a douche who deserves to lose his job (and make way for someone like me who needs a job). I don't feel sorry for engineers who get drunk and lose their company's prototype in a bar.
The 4G iPhone that Apple bought from the guy who found it had already been bricked remotely by Apple. So they knew it was lost and they had to know who lost it. Gizmodo didn't out him. His carelessness did.
Yeah, actually, that sits on the top of my page unchecked. I have adblock so it's six of one, half dozen of the other. I also don't bother enabling the karma bonus because that just seems like masturbation.
Did you have a point, or did you just want to chat?
IMHO, not only the incident was not harmful for Apple, but it was a good 3 day publicity(if not more), so the stunt theory applies.
We already knew the OS, we knew the device updates that were going to come, so what new was revealed? The flat back? big deal. 3 months before release and all we saw was a new device shape.
Apple knew the device and who lost it, so exposing the source publicly was a good move.
Only for a source leakage would be "immoral" to reveal the source.
Oops, I meant to say that the 4G iPhone that Gizmodo bought...
Are you saying that when you check that I don't see ads?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
PatHMV: Gray?
Jules: What country are you from?
PatHMV: What? Gray? Wh - ?
Jules: "Gray" ain't no country I've ever heard of. They speak English in Gray?
PatHMV: Gray?
Jules: English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
PatHMV: Yes! Yes!
Jules: Then you know what I'm sayin'!
PatHMV: Yes!
Jules: Describe what Marsellus Wallace looks like!
PatHMV: Gray?
Jules: Say 'gray' again. Say 'gray' again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say 'gray' one more Goddamn time!
I lost my phone in a bar in Wisconsin and found it three months later in my bedroom in Vermont. I wish it had GPS, it could have told me where it had been.
This sig washed every five years whether it needs it or not!
I "find" stuff all the time. It's like... recycling. Just the other week, I "found" a sweet bike in the park, just leaning against a tree near some total douches playing with a frisbee. Bonus, the seat was still totally warm when I jumped on and pedalled hell for leather away. And talk about the great price that I got when I sold my newly "found" bike down at the local pawn shop!
Heck, I bet if I could get inside Gizmondo's office by "finding" an open window late at night, I could "find" a truck load of great stuff just lying around unattended, free for anyone to take!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It seems that a LOT of people care looking at the comment count so far...
Just because you are a sociopath does not mean everyone else is.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Oh my god, would people stop posting the retarded claim that Apple purposely did this. When Apple does controlled leaks, they do it by phone, not even email. There was even an article describing what they do.
This isn't a marketing gimmick. This is real. This engineer may even lose his job.
No self-respecting Apple would be caught with a Leek in broad daylight.
Why is this a big deal? Let me guess, the G4 unit is gonna have hmm... let's see, maybe a new ASIC design [smaller features, lower power], uh, faster processor? maybe more ram? BIG FUCKING MYSTERY.
same here, which means I don't care about giving /. any page views, which also means I can bitch about Apple Marketing being invasive ... all day long.
Did you have a point beside being an obnoxious little troll?
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Exposing the Software Engineer was a Total Fail but Apple should have prepared for this contingency and built in a self destruct.
Yup, and that's why I call bullshit. This guy had the name, home/business phone number, and facebook account. Yet he didn't leave a message on any of those options? Supposing the phone is bricked he *still* has the facebook option.
It seems pretty obvious that he didn't want the phone to be recovered, but made a half-hearted attempt to cover his ass.
127.0.0.1 gizmodo.com www.gizmodo.com
Yeah, because allowing your employees to take top secret standalone devices in public is the best way of keeping something secret.
Stop the ranting and learn to read. This guy wasnt a "source". He was the poor slob who lost his phone. The guy who found the phone and was paid $5000 for it would be considered the "source" in this matter.
Adolf Hitler rant about missing iPhone in 3...2...1...
Hi,
selling a thing lost by someone else or buying it and then breaking it, all this would be punishable by law here in germany. A state attorney could use terms like "theft", "fencing" and "malicious mischief".
Are the laws so different in the U.S.? Taking pictures of something you found is OK. But keeping, selling, buying (when knowing it has not been legally obtained) or intentionally breaking it, could get you in trouble.
Besides: IMHO it's bad manners.
CU, Martin
Very unprofessional - and very, very short-sighted of Gizmodo which has now damaged tech journalism.
Thought experiment: What was gained/lost in this exchange?
People now know Gizmodo will out your name if they can find out who you were. Instead of just saying, "we know the employee's name and have verified they are in fact an employee of Apple" - that should have sufficed to add all the credibility they needed and a touch of class. Instead, they out the guys name publicly in a move that smacks of high-school nerd dramatics "SEE! We're so clever in our hackery that we can even get the guy's name and publish it all over the inter-webz!"
Results:
They look like a dangerous news outlet. If someone does have a big tech story that requires confidentiality, they'll look at Gizmodo, and possibly tech journalism in general, and think twice about talking to someone that is an outer of names. I certainly wouldn't trust my privacy to these guys now - even if it's the case that I go to them. They have come off very unprofessional and amateurish. Welcome to The Inquirer-level journalism standards Gizmodo - you just hurt your own industry.
You miss the point. The problem is the outed him to the public, not Apple.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
And releasing the name is definitely uncalled for. That's why I don't visit Gizmodo.
name calling? how cute.
if you feel so strongly about Apple news, why don't you go to the first post and post THERE? it's stating exactly what I said, just in other words.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
They want their phone back... http://gizmodo.com/5520479/a-letter-apple-wants-its-secret-iphone-back?skyline=true&s=i
going to lose some job opportunities as a result of getting outed. Real dick move by Gizmodo.
Why would he lose his job? Mistakes happen. Costly mistakes happen. This man is the one single person in the whole Apple company who will never, ever in his life lose another iPhone. Why fire him when the company just paid a lot for his education?
Because if they whip him and crucify him and publicly humiliate him, everyone at Apple will never, ever lose another tech prototype, ever. Without the outwardly visible pain, nobody else will worry too much about taking care of their stuff.
John
This guy was already screwed but Gizmodo decided to utterly destroy his career and reputation -- all for a few more clicks. Total dick move.
At the heart of the problem isn't Gizmodo or the programmer, it's Apple and their idiotic secrecy. There is nothing particularly interesting or compelling about this device. There is no reason to keep it so secret. And if there were, they shouldn't let people take it out of the building.
But, of course, that's where the story doesn't add up. Apple regularly raids their own employees' iPhones and workplaces. Do you believe for a moment that a 27 year old programmer gets to stroll out with a super-secret prototype and nobody notices? The thing has GPS tracking and plenty of other features.
No, the whole thing is just another Apple marketing scam to drum up business and buzz for an otherwise entirely boring device.
That's bad form Gizmodo. Hows a complete lack if professionalism and integrity.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So ... Apple cooked this up knowing that we would think it was a marketing ploy if they didn't fire the guy, but then knowing that we would still suspect hijinks even if they DID fire the guy, and so they would fire the guy anyway just to throw us off the scent, which of course would not work because we would suspect them of concocting a clever marketing gambit no matter what. Right? The dude is screwed.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
I like the Apple stories because they inform me of technology I can either live without or obtain elsewhere cheaper. It's the app for that.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
So... what, you're too weak willed to just scroll past it?
i hope its not your tin foil hat youve taken off
Main Entry: loser
Pronunciation: \lü-zr\
Function: noun
Date: 1548
1 : a person or thing that loses especially consistently
2 : a person who is incompetent or unable to succeed; also : something doomed to fail or disappoint
It can't #1 because Apple wouldn't let an employee who loses prototype consistently handle the latest and greatest Jesus phone.
It also couldn't be #2 because he managed to become Apple's #2 most well known employee overnight. Even if Apple fires him, he'll have thousands of job interviews lined up (though most will end with "We're not actually hiring, I just wanted to shake the hand that touched the iPhone 4G").
welcome our Apple overlords
I wondered the legality of this whole situation myself. As it turns out, the item would be considered "mislaid property" and what the person who found it was supposed to do was leave it with the property owner (the bar in this case) on the theory that the person would return to reclaim their mislaid item.
Given that this didn't transpire, the finder of mislaid items is the new owner, unless the original owner returns to claim it. The law also talks about the new finder making a "reasonable effort" to return the mislaid item.
The finder did apparently did try to contact Apple... but has since sold it to Gizmodo. Apple has made a formal demand for the property being returned to them, so it will be... but the damage has already been done, to an extent. I wonder if Apple has any recourse at all.
Here's the CA penal code on the matter: Lost and Unclaimed Property. Article 1. Lost Money and Goods.
Opportunity through obscurity? Can't count on it. ;)
Put identity in the browser.
If I'd had the opportunity to be working on integral components of one of the most recognizable devices on the goddamned planet at the age of 27, I sure as hell would've been working 90 hours weeks too.
Or do you not understand the concept of "resume building"?
Blogs and websites like to claim that they are as legitimate as broadcast and, dare I say it, print journalism
I hope when you mean legitimate broadcast journalism, you mean NPR and BBC, right?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Meh. G4 is so 1999. I'm waiting for the Core2 iPhones.
This guy will not lose his job. gizmodo and engadget will be allowed to attend future apple events which will be all the proof we needed to know this was an apple PR stunt!
"...handle it internally with young [name redakted]... "
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
90 hours/week... This guy is insane and should get a better job.
Maybe he already has an incredible job, which is the reason he works 90 hours/week in the first place.
I mean sure, for the next 2 days everyone who reads slashdot or apple blogs will know who this guy is. I don't see how this could possibly ruin his career though. In a week his name will be forgotten. Besides, I would bet that 4 out of 5 IT hiring managers will never have any idea who this guy is. Even if you did, the guy was good enough to get a job at Apple, so he's probably fairly skilled. Why wouldn't you hire him? I would just make sure to keep sensitive prototypes out of his hands though....
Yeah, right, because we all know that Apple really doesn't really care much about security, so they probably don't bother to keep track of the individual prototypes and who has them. They'd surely never have known whose phone it was if Gizmodo hadn't told them.
No, since that's the only point to Slashdot.
Incidentally, considering your point, you either replied to the wrong person or you really need to learn how to direct your bad feelings.
What is it that you do not understand, this is NOT apple news. Did you even read the summary?
Wow, really showing off your social skills there. looks like Lumpy, and others here, nailed it on the head.
Stop foaming at the mouth when the word apple appears on your screen, or take your meds.
Seriously, they have no journalistic integrity. Not that they really are journalists but they're pretending to be so they should act the part that they causing a huge shit storm to get even more hits. I hope the guy who gave up his name loses his sack in some weird accident involving a clown.
Quick question:
Why do Apple employees carry around such prototype devices? If the phone is such a secret, it should stay at the lab, no employee should have it with him at a BAR, where phones, wallets, virginity and other things get lost regularly after alcohol consumption!
Just my question, really .... if it is a secret keep it under a damn lock. Now to the guy who lost it: I never lost a phone and I would be extremely careful with a top secret prototype phone, so what else is there to say?
This douche-bag's sheer stupidity is the thing that makes me suspect a marketing ploy.
Why are so many of you on this moron's side?
He didnt make a mistake, he made a stupid decision.
There are a lot of people going on about "well things get lost" and "if it was you you wouldn't think it was funny". I lose a lot of shit, especially when I'm drunk, thats why I don't bring my collection of faberge eggs, briefcases full of diamonds, next generation-unreleseased-superhype devices or any other $irreplaceableItems out to the bar....i might get drunk and forget them.
If we are to believe the idea that "maybe it was being tested in bar scenarios" its more than possible to be at a bar without being too drunk to know where your shit is at, and test a phone, getting drunk while doing "work" is just plain irresponsible(most of the time anyway).
If your employer trusts you with a hush hush device, and its your birthday, knowing you will be getting sloshed, why not leave it at home? If he couldn't resist the urge to show off this stupid thing, or just wanted to have it near him on his most special day, then he's an idiot and should be fired, and no one should hire him. No matter how good his code is, he doesn't seem to be able to make the rational, adult decision to not bring his company's stuff out when he's getting fucked up, the dude is a huge liability. Are we supposed to believe that this is the first time this guy got drunk? That he's never heard lady gaga's "Just Dance" and the idea of losing a cellphone at a bar is outside his imagination?
lastly, who the fuck leaves ANY cellphone (even well past shitfaced) on a barstool, nevermind one thats not supposed to exist? I call shenanigans.
conspiracy theory {
Maybe Apple told Gizmodo the only way they wouldn't sue their pants off is if they disgraced this fool who lost the phone in the first place...
}// conspiracy theory
A lot of people are saying that the guy that found the phone should really have turned it into the police, and that would make sense if he found it on the street. But he found it in a bar, which surely has a lost and found box of some sort. If you really wanted to get the phone back to its owner, why wouldn't you give it to the bartender in case someone comes looking for it?
It *IS* a marketing ploy.
So marketing now involves ruining an engineers career?
I find that incredibly unlikely, no matter how much money you offered an engineer they would not want their name drug through the mud like that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm never reading gizmodo again.
as in : WHO CARES?
you do, else you wouldn't have taken the trouble to post
Something tells me Apple wouldn't post his name and picture on the internet.
Not job, job opportunities.
For example, he may still be employed with Apple, but he'll no longer be a part of any project consisting of developing new gadgets.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
This guy is not only a grade A bastard he should be trusted even less than the person who coughed up the I-phone. The kid who leaked the I-phone did it on accident. He was careless. Gizmodo intentionally burned their source even going so far as to post screen caps of his facebook page and his picture on one of the most widely read tech blogs on the internet. Not even the lowest of tabloids will reveal a source like Gizmodo did. Gizmodo in general should be shunned and that bastard Jesus Diaz in specific should be fired and no media outlet should ever hire him again.
It's a phone. You throw away your entire social life to work on mobile... phone...
Good luck building your resume... I, for one, would like to look back on my life when I'm on my deathbed thinking I had the time of my life, met awesome people, did awesome things and had a lot of fun.
This guy would probably look back and think: If only I didn't waste my youth designing a mobile phone with the logo of a shiny piece of fruit on the back so that I could afford to live somewhere with a bigger backyard.
My $0,02...
Here be signatures
Awesome job: it stresses you out so much that while sleep derived you forget your mobile phone that is sooooooooooooo special to you that you can't even remember to put it back in your pocket after you made a call.
Here be signatures
I agree completely about the dick move but I don't think it was an intentional leak. Gizmodo sucks for doing what they did to the guy.
I won't be going back to Gizmodo. That kind of behavior is just unacceptable. It's low. It's despicable.
I really can't believe they thought it newsworthy to ruin the guy's career like that. All I hope is that their own personal details get splashed all over the web.
Given that he was out getting pissed on good German beer, I think it's likely that he hasn't "thrown away his entire social life" to work on a mobile phone. The hours are long, but if - as an engineer - the work is something you enjoy, then why not work your ass off when you're young and don't have the responsibilities of a home, family, etc. to keep up with as well?
And that can't be done while working on one of the hottest tech products around? Some people actually enjoy the work they do, work with awesome people, and would call "being a major contributor to a device that tens of millions of people around the world use for hours every day," "pretty awesome."
You seem to view work as something which must be dull, boring, and soul-crushing. I feel sorry for you, if that's the type of work you do.
Of course Apple wants their secrets back, its Apple. not as much of a secret anymore, but still.
I reserve the right to have a physical object so I can sell it later, and recover my money.
Nonsense. Apple already knew who it was. He probably self-reported that night or the next morning, which is why it was bricked almost immediately.
OP is a tard, there is no way in hell Apple didn't already know who lost the phone, and it is Apple's own penchant for secrecy that kept them from getting the phone back right away. If they'd just re-activated it and called it, they may have gotten the phone back within a day or two.
The best part is the engineer in question now has a tort claim against Gizmodo for destroying his lively hood. There is a clear case history on stuff like this, if they deliberately and with malice harmed his career then they are going to owe him a lot of money. The story in question is a deliberate attack on the engineer and given the persistence of the internet the engineer in question will have a hell of a time ever finding another job and that's a civil tort claim in the waiting.
The engineer in question has probably already started talking to lawyers and in the state of California the law heavily favors the employee that was harmed. Gizmodo was very very stupid in trying to cover up their handling of stolen property. Not only will they face criminal charges along with the guy that sold it to them but they face a major civil tort. It was very foolish to run that story without passing it through some lawyers. Being the press doesn't shield you from stolen property laws or torts for destroying someones career.
This is guerrilla marketing. This isn't hurting anyone. I suspect some folks in Apple's PR and Marketing departments are going to be laughing all the way to the bank when they deposit their bonuses. This has generated a huge amount of free publicity for the next gen $Phone.
I thought the iphone manufacturing cost is less than $100, so this could be Gizmodo's defense.
And that can't be done while working on one of the hottest tech products around?
If it is your own product? Than yes. If you are just 'part' of a team and you do not get artistic freedom? Then, at least for me, that would be a giant no go. Well... not a no-go, just not worth of doing 90 hours/ week. Imagine you would instantly sleep when you go to bed (8 hours), you work from monday till sunday, all freaking year-in-year-out, and with only 3 hours of spare time per day and not counting time to travel. You might want to rethink about it now? Also not counting ANY breaks. So you'll pretty much sleep at Apple...
And that can't be done while working on one of the hottest tech products around? Some people actually enjoy the work they do, work with awesome people, and would call "being a major contributor to a device that tens of millions of people around the world use for hours every day," "pretty awesome."
Of course. However I would never trade my life for not being recognised for something I am not solely responsible for and my name would never be known for and thus not recognised.
My brain works a little different. My pressure is fixing what is in my mind not right. If I see a plastic MP3 player from cheap ass company X, the first thing I think is "Why the hell not shape it like this, rearange that, name it Y and change the freaking [insert_something_here_followed_by_:]tronics name into Z.
Working at Apple would never put me in such a position.
You seem to view work as something which must be dull, boring, and soul-crushing. I feel sorry for you, if that's the type of work you do.
I do actually currently doing such a thing, but only for half a year to earn money to go something in my country that is considdered university grade in the USA.
Here be signatures
This has to be trafficking in stolen goods at a minimum, no? You could make an argument for industrial espionage too. This could get even more interesting if charges are filed. IANAL
I think they are being DOSed.
Sweet sweet natural internet justice . . .
Hey, I was only kidding. You don't have to MOD me "Troll" . . . again . . . .
According to John Gruber, this photo of Jobs's office was taken early yesterday.
I though I was the only person on the technosphere who found Gizmodo's behavior in this distasteful. They bought what has effectively stolen property, vandalized it, publicly gloated about it, and capped it by a violation of privacy. Real class.
Is it important that this wasn't a "leak"? This dingdong who leaves his phone out was not risking anything to get the information out there. He was a dumdum who left his phone at a bar after getting too loaded and showing it off to some honeys. Why is it so important to protect his identity? But they do seem to be protecting the identity of the true leaker, the guy who found the phone, realized what he had, and gave it to the news outlet that would be best suited for publishing.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
I'll be less likely than I already am to buy future Apple products.
Of course they are within their rights to fire him. But assuming he was authorized to have a prototype off-campus and in public use, Apple had to accept the obvious and common risk that the device might be lost. People lose their keys, wallets, purses, and cellphones all the time.
No it wouldn't be illegal to fire him, but I would consider it immoral as they put an employee in an obviously compromising position without reasonable protection. And I won't do business with companies that treat their employees as wantonly as that.
The mouth breathers at Gizmodo (presumably) possess assholes (one, each) but they *are* window-lickers.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
"Good thing its not a defense contract, and just a next generation piece of consumer electronic gadgetry."
As I said in another thread, assuming he was authorized to have the unit off-campus and publicly use, your comparison is invalid. A defense company would specifically prohibit taking hardware out of a secured area. So if a unit was lost, all people who might find it are also authorized to see it and would probably return it to the correct person. Apple must accept the risks of allowing use of prototypes in the wild, and not punish him any more than they would for accidentally losing any other piece of company equipment with a similar retail value
i can just imagine it ... a bunch of guys at gizmodo getting all giggly as the ad revenue rolled in from all the hits .."hey, let's publish the guys name ...", "ya, lets do it" ... followed by big i'm so smart smiles ... juvenile idiots
This would have been the responsible response.
Drinking while using an iPhone is a crime in the state of Arizona. Seriously, the Apple employee should have been more responsible in the end it's his fault for loosing the prototype. I wouldn't allow a drunk network engineer to work on a core router.
[...] three [...] out of the last 26. [...] You people claiming Slashdot is full of Apple articles are full of shit.
Full of shit I might be, but do me a favour and count how many stories there are about any other company. Oups.
How is it immoral? He made a mistake. People get fired for mistakes. It's not very compassionate but it's not immoral. And remember Apple is a business and this kind of thing happens all the time in businesses. If your best account manager tells an off-color joke after hours that offends your biggest client and they want his/her head, do you fire him/her? It may not be nice but it happens.
Apple didn't put him in a position to lose the phone; the employee made a number of choices including taking it out to bar. The employee could have left it in a car, at the office, etc. The employee could have not had as many drinks and have been less inebriated. The employee could have not accepted having a prototype. These are choices the employee made.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I agree that this was a dick move by Gizmodo. But... at least now that the name is in the open, Apple will not be able to fire him in the near future. They may be the behemoth of doing whatever the fuck they want, but this would be _bad_ PR.
I like the Apple stories because they inform me of technology I can either live without or obtain elsewhere cheaper. It's the app for that.
I agree, If I want a new stylish, shiny overpriced, under powered piece of #%@$ I just check for Apple stories. It makes me feel all warm inside..
The more interesting name would be the name of the guy who found it and sold it to Gizmodo for $5K... Who cares about the guy from Apple who lost it, he's just a poor sap.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Something tells me Apple wouldn't post his name and picture on the internet.
This whole thing is no big deal. Yes, being outed by Gizmodo might have had serious consequences for the guy if Apple hadn't already known who lost the prototype. But they did know. They had bricked the phone remotely before Gizmodo acquired it. At the most, Gizmodo is merely an embarrassment for him. He's a big boy--he'll get over it. Gizmodo is just covering their ass in case Apple tries to claim that this was stolen property instead of something lost due to an employee's carelessness.
Regardless of what people think off the top of their heads. When you find a phone in a bar, store etc. you ask if the place has a "lost and found" and turn it in. It's likely the owner will come back for it. You don't take it home and play with it. Also selling it to a website is not particularly ethical, knowing that it is a prototype. On Gizmodo's side, they didn't know that the phone was not stolen and took the seller at his word, then went ahead and instead of calling Apple to return what didn't belong to the original guy, or them, they took it apart and reported on it. It's always fun to read about these 'leaks,' but in this case there were clearly some unethical things done. This hurts everyone except Gizmodo and the seller. It was selfish on both Gizmodo and the sellers part to put the report and pictures online. I did go look at the pictures though, and now I feel badly for supporting Gizmodo by checking it out and adding to the page count.
I rememeber my first class of Modern Physics Lab at college. This class was held at the 5.5 MeV accelerator of the university. The professor enters into the room and says we are going the calibrate the machine, Maria. Then he puts his hand inside his pocket and brings out a small cilinder with plutonium. Since this day I understood something is wrong with experimental scientists.
Sacrificing Gray Powell
While the outing of Apple engineer Gray Powell was inevitable—his name was going to come out anyway, and there is a real if slight chance that foisting him into the public eye might help him keep his job at Apple—I think the way we did it was incredibly tacky. I've said my piece to my co-workers, but I bring it up here because it's important for another reason.
Do you really think Apple would hang one of its engineers out to dry like this? Gray Powell is a real person—hell, he's just a kid—who will now spend the rest of his life or at least the foreseeable future of his career living down one of the biggest gaffes in tech history. Apple may be cruel, but I don't think they're that evil.
Otherwise, what business of it of yours if someone files charges? What did those organizations and people ever do to you, personally, to make you want them to go to jail or face a punitive fine?
The funny thing about criminal justice is that's it's not about vindicating the victim. It's about defending society from lawlessness. That's why we have criminal prosecutors who are employees of the state to press charges instead of requiring that victims or their families hire a private attorney to go after criminals personally.
All people should have an interest in seeing thieves caught and apprehended, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to see justice done, even if you aren't directly affected. On the contrary, it's rather self-centered to insist that no one should have an interest in any wrong-doing that doesn't directly affect that person, and your accusations of fanboyism just for wanting to see the law executed is a sad and puzzling reaction.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Comment removed based on user account deletion
same here, which means I don't care about giving /. any page views,
Uh, yes you do. Apple stories bring in lots of comments, which means they bring in lots of ad views, which means Slashdot has an incentive to keep doing exactly what you're bitching about. It doesn't matter whether you use ad-block or turn off that switch or not.
...which also means I can bitch about Apple Marketing being invasive ... all day long.
...which is fine if you don't mind the fact that you're feeding the situation you're bitching about. Your ignornace of how ad-views affect you regardless of blockage doesn't suggest you would be.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
People make mistakes all the time, it is part of the human condition and is a requirement for our learning process.
People should get fired for serious errors in judgment that a reasonable person wouldn't make, or that they were previously advised against, or obviously deceitful acts. I wouldn't do business with any company I know that as a policy fires employees that make occasional and foreseeable mistakes that aren't associated with defects of character, or just treats people (including vendors) inconsiderately.
I am assuming (I think reasonably given the device was in a well manufactured disguise) that this engineer was authorized (and probably encouraged) to use the device as a normal customer would, including taking it off-campus and operating it in public. That would include taking it to a bar.
I see no evidence that he got unreasonably inebriated, or that his inebriation lead to the loss. I not infrequently leave things on restaurant tables that I have to return to get. Though I usually get no further than my car.
Yes the employee chose to accept a prototype offered by his employer. But the employer (who offers a service like mobile me and remote wipe) should know that loss of a cellphone happens frequently. If they want employees to use the prototypes off campus, the company must be willing to accept the occasional loss (and some interesting press attention) of a prototype, or they should provide better camouflage that can't be distinguished from the current version in any way, or they should forbid their employees from taking prototypes off campus.
To offer prototypes for user testing to employees off campus, and then dole out serious consequences when they are lost is not reasonable or acceptable in my opinion.
you definitely have too much time on your hands.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Almost nowhere are you required to report such things to the police. If you find an abandoned item, it's yours. Anything beyond that is good-Samaritan territory. Now if it's discovered in this case then you MAY have some legal recourse on getting the property returned to you, but you'll never - EVER be able to pen theft on anyone for not reporting it to the police.
Perhaps you don't live in the US, but your second sentence is simply not true at common law, and the first sentence isn't true by statute in many US states.
At the common law, you can claim an item if you find it, but your rights are only secure against everyone but the original owner. In many jurisdictions, if you know who the original owner is, then you are not a "finder," and keeping the item is just theft. Even if you don't know who owns the item, many jurisdictions hold that you have certain duties to the original owner until their claim is extinguished. You can't convert the item for your own use (e.g. by disassembling it), and you can't deliver the object to another but the original owner (e.g. by selling it to Gizmodo). It's not actually yours until the statute of limitations runs for the owner to bring suit against you to get the item back, and if the owner is able to prove their claim in the meantime, you have to give it back.
On top of that, over 20 states have laws requiring some additional duties by finders to report or return items. You can find a list here. Here's a few of examples:
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
"you definitely have too much time on your hands." ... said the guy bitching on Slashdot.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're confusing "it's not fair" with "it's not immoral." It wouldn't be fair for Apple to fire him for one mistake. It wouldn't be very compassionate. But again, Apple is not in the business to be fair or compassionate. I hate to break it to you but many companies would fire an employee for making one mistake. If you're not going to do business with Apple, you're not going to do business with many companies. The only difference is you know about this incident with Apple; you don't know about other incidents with other companies.
Also it is highly subjective as to what are "serious errors in judgment". Unfortunately in the real world, these are decided by superiors. What you might consider small mistakes are large ones to your bosses. Not fair but that's life.
How do you know that the employee had permission to leave the campus with the device? These are assumptions. What is not an assumption is that as an employee of the company the employee is responsible for the company's property in his/her possession. In this case, it a very valuable and secret prototype of their next product. The employee has sole responsibility to protect it. The employee failed to do so.
This isn't any regular cellphone that Apple got for the employee at the local Apple store; this is their next unreleased product. The employee should know he needs to guard it closely as it can be considered trade secrets. This would be no different than an employee getting fired for losing a laptop full of company data. Again, not fair. But that's business.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I subscribe to Gizmodo's RSS and read it daily. However, they often take the time to get off the usual topics they cover to rant and rave a one-sided argument using trigger words to incite the worst in people (i.e. cops and use of force is a big one, of course I'm in a family of cops and I'm biased there). I guess it's what makes them journalists. In this case, Giz is having a toe-curling orgasm as they fly closer to the sun having that exclusive story on the new iPhone (not to mention national TV coverage) and their advertising rates go up with the site traffic. I haven't seen them get a hard on like this since they were featured on CNN (?) after pointing out a panelist on a political talk show of the said network was looking at ballgame play-by-play on his laptop during the show. I feel bad for the guy. He made a mistake many of us have made before. I've left my phone on a restaurant table and even a bar. Simple albeit costly for him.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Title says it all...
It's unbelievable someone might leave such a "strategical" piece of technology so easily, unintentionally I mean...
I would have done it (on purpose), if I was called Mr. Apple, but I'm not...
Shouldn't the title read "iPhone Looser"? This is slashdot after all!
Ok, here's a car analogy since /. loves car analogies: "Well, I was at this bar and found these car keys, so I drove the car around and tried to find the owner. After a few weeks I couldn't, so I sold the car."
You didn't find the car, you found the keys, which you then used to take something that didn't belong to you and was not lost. Like if the finder of the phone had used the information within it to transfer money using the owner's internet banking.
Fair (in a rigorous sense) and immoral are too close to the same thing to be worth arguing over. Apple is in the business to make money. In Western culture we have become entirely too permissive of the ends justify the means. If enough people refused to do business with companies that don't display corporate ethics compatible with human ethics, then the drive to make money would be synonymous with the need to display those ethos and the world would be a better place.
I happen to work for a Fortune 500 company that is internationally known for the way it treats its employees, customers, and vendors. I could make more money working for many other companies, but I stay with this company because its philosophy is compatible with the way I think we should treat others, and how we should expect companies to treat people.
You are right, I don't do business with many companies, and I also know there are many things that go on in companies, including very occasionally in my company that I think are wrong or don't agree with. But I make it a point to read business press and make determinations on whether a company continues to be worthy of my wallet. But the inevitable incompleteness of my efforts will not dissuade me from making a college try. As the Dali Lama has said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."
Since none of us work for Apple, or we are very stupid for talking publicly if we are, we are all making assumptions. As I said before, I think my assumption is reasonable given the disguise, and the fact that the phone was accessible to a relatively lowly and new baseband engineer without having effective and rigorous asset controls, and the lack of dissuading attributes like having it in a large and ugly case, rather than a production ready case.
Yes again assuming the device was authorized to be off campus and in use, then while he did lose a prototype that one could reasonably expect Apple would be keen to keep secret because of their history, it also isn't reasonable for Apple to expect such perfection from an employee in the use of a commonly lost consumer device. And their corporate security department was either negligent in authorizing the use of the device off campus with the current protections, or they were negligent in not having better precautions for keeping secret prototypes on campus.
A company that would have a laptop with secret or protected enough information to fire an employee for losing said laptop, would also be negligent for not having the laptop hard drive encrypted to the point there would be no reasonable expectation that a private person could retrieve the information. In fact this is demonstrated in PCI and federal regulations that don't require the disclosure of a customer data loss if the device lost was encrypted to the required standard.
In the end we are arguing in circles. I don't find your justification particularly moving, and I can tell the feeling is mutual. I think we should agree to disagree about the standards we should hold companies to, along with the standards a company should hold employees to.
If this guy has any personality and Charisma whatsoever, Apple needs to put the guy on the talk show circuit IMMEDIATLY. You know everyone in the world wants to talk to this guy right now. Get him on the Daily Show, Colbert Report, Leno, George Lopez, Letterman, etc.
If Apple fires him, they'll just come across as a bunch of paranoid corporate bastards. But if they make a big joke out of it, they could make the guy a mascot. He could be bigger than Steve the Dell Dude.
..I'd leave the guy in his job. Then when I do the official next gen iPhone launch and start the build up to announcing the details of the product, I'd then pause and say "Actually, I know someone who could do a better job than me at this. He got so much publicity last time..." and then bring on the tool of an engineer that lost the phone to help in the presentation.
Jobs looks good, Apple looks human, good publicity all round, and the engineer gets his career rehabilitated.
MARKETING PLOY
Even if they fire the guy, there's a probability that the guy was leaving the company any way for another reason and they used this an a chance to make a really stupid sounding marketing ploy seem credible.
Come on people, this is apple, they get off on pretending shit gets leaked.
If I make a mistake at my job, depending on the severity, I'd go to jail or worse. I can put myself in his shoes and say that if the only thing that happens to him is he loses his job, that's getting off easy.
don't hate because they got the story and you didn't
Busted.
Ummm, box of bolts.
Who cares?
And, WHY?
It's only going to be another box of bolts that may (or may not) live down to their advaertising/ Yawwwn.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"