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.

Comments

What's the point?

[nbvb]

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.

Re:What's the point?

[phlawed]

Exposing the name of the guy likely isn't going to change Apple's reaction to the loss of the device.
But it sure harms the guy who lost it, and I think that was really, really rotten form.

Re:What's the point?

[Chyeld]

Because they are assholes and exposing him lends credence to their story, the story that pulled in so many hits that the entire Gawker group of blogs had to turn off comments for most of the day to handle the load being generated. The story that most of the non-Gizmodo sites were calling bullshit on because no one thought that it'd be plausible that they could come into possession of one of the phones in the way that they explained. The story that is likely to get get someone on their staff in trouble for being in possession of stolen goods, industrial espionage, and etc.

And, since they've realized this, they are doing their best to cover their asses by doing everything they can now to look like they were simply attempting to get it back to him rather than paying $5k to get an exclusive look at it.

Re:What's the point?

[lbmouse]

Exposing him publicly might just save him. Makes it harder for Apple to just sweep this under the rug and he might garner public sympathy. Who hasn't lost something?

Re:What's the point?

[McFadden]

Granted he's had a bad week, but it's also generated a reasonable degree of sympathy for the guy. I'd be surprised if Apple would want to court the bad publicity it would bring by firing the guy.
Make a mistake at Apple? Get fired? Doesn't come over well, especially when the public can now put a name and a face to him.
An anonymous engineer would have been easy to let go. This might just have saved his bacon.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the man who never lost a single thing in his entire life.

Re:What's the point?

[Wyatt Earp]

He didn't just make a mistake. He left a prototype in a bar while out drinking. That's flat out incompetence and he should be fired for it. I have zero sympathy for the guy, this growing trend of business people and government officials leaving sensitive equipment and data behind is just pure incompetence and being lax.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you still feel the same way if it was a laptop containing 200,000 SSNs or a few million credit card records?

No, but here's the thing: it wasn't.

In other news, a man dropped a quarter on a concrete floor. He should probably be severely reprimanded, because, hey, what if it had been a baby that he had dropped? Ever think of that?

Re:What's the point?

[N1AK]

[blockquote]He didn't just make a mistake. He left a prototype in a bar while out drinking.[/blockquote]

A prototype mobile phone which, assuming he was given it to test, there will always be a risk of losing. If my employer asked me to road test a phone, but I'd be fired if I lost it then I'd pass. If apple couldn't afford the risk of letting the device be lost, why did they give it to someone who has a chance of losing it in a public place?

Re:What's the point?

[Rary]

He didn't just make a mistake. He left a prototype in a bar while out drinking. That's flat out incompetence and he should be fired for it. I have zero sympathy for the guy, this growing trend of business people and government officials leaving sensitive equipment and data behind is just pure incompetence and being lax.

It's a prototype of a new phone. It's not a list of undercover CIA operatives.

Get some perspective.

Re:What's the point?

[h4rr4r]

So Steve Jobs thinks getting 9 women pregnant will get you a baby in 1 month?

If I heard that claptrap I would not be motivated just be forced to realize the boss is a total dumbass.

He'd Be In Trouble Anyway

[longacre]

Apple obviously knows who has these prototypes, and they knew this one was lost because they remotely shut it down.

Profit Motives

[tsj5j]

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.

Shame on Gizmodo.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

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.

Re:Shame on Gizmodo.

[Bigjeff5]

It actually probably protects him quite a bit, assuming this wasn't a marketing ploy to begin with.

Think about it, they know which phone it was because they wiped it the day after it was lost. More than likely the employee himself reported it missing (again, assuming it wasn't a marketing ploy) in order to protect what little chance he had to keep his job. Obviously they've known since day one who lost it, either way.

By publicly outing the guy, he is going to have a lot of people who think he should keep his job in spite of the mistake. That's what they call "public pressure". Now Apple could harm their public image by firing the guy, or they could improve it by keeping him on. That's a lot more support than a nameless employee is going to get.

You won't be able to tell if it is a marketing ploy, by the way, unless they fire the guy. If they fire him, it almost certainly is not a marketing ploy. If he keeps his job, it could have been a ploy all along, or it could just be Apple deciding it would be worth more than this guy's job for them to look merciful to their subjects... I mean employees.

Semantics, bah

[new death barbie]

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.

Re:Semantics, bah

[IndustrialComplex]

Because they abandoned it. At the time, they obviously didn't want it. They might have even left it there for you, and are simply changing their mind later. Either way, it isn't stealing because you never took it from them. In fact, you took it from nobody.
You found it. The decent thing to do would be to just give it back, but it's not uncommon to ask for a finder's fee before returning it (though it is uncommon if someone lost it for such a short period of time).
Seriously, what kind of dumbass is this guy? You still found it, you didn't steal it.
"Right" is subjective, but I'd agree that giving it back is the decent thing to do. It still isn't theft.

You are so completely wrong I don't know where to begin. Are you basing your opinion on the case of Finders v. Keepers?

First, it doesn't matter if it is unattended, it is not your property. You removed it from the place the owner placed it. That IS theft. There is leeway for the owners of an establishment to move the item to a lost and found area, but it certainly does not become their property it remains the property of the person who owned it and left it on the table/bar/etc. Depending on the jurisdiction, you can go through a process to dispose of the item (Sell it, trash it, keep it, turn it over to the state, etc) Most jurisdictions clearly define the process and what you are required to do.

Is your justification based on the size of the item in question? That doesn't matter and doesn't alter the ownership of the item.

If someone parked a porsche on the curb and left the keys on the front seat, do you think you wouldn't get charged with grand theft auto if you simple "moved it to get it out of the rain"?

I can see you are trying to justify the theft here, but in the end Gizmodo IS in posession of stolen property.

Re:Still not convinced

[click2005]

Off the top of my head...

People who are undecided might wait for the Iphone G4 instead of whichever Android phone is best at the moment.

It lets them gauge market interest in certain features (or missing features) while still allowing them to change the specs
because it was just a prototype.

It gets the Iphone more press for something other than the 'its locked down' or 'this app was rejected' stories.

And if any of you doubt that they're wankers

[Bertie]

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.

Re:Nothingtoseeheremovealong

[Ctrl Alt De1337]

It's true that Apple often leaks things for PR, but it doesn't do it like this. It plants things in publications like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times by calling up journalists, giving pointed hints, and leaving no paper trail. That way, both Apple and the publication have plausible deniability about everything: for Apple, it was just some rumor, and for the papers, it could have been a misunderstanding.

Apple sure as hell leaks things, as every tech company does in some way, shape, or form. This, however, is not how it operates. Specs and price points get leaked, not actual hardware. The iPhone is its big baby, and Steve prefers to have a big reveal on stage in San Francisco when announcing his precious new devices.

Re:Still not convinced

[SoupGuru]

So, unlike you or me, he didn't think of just returning it to the bar knowing that if the person had lost the cell phone, that would likely be the first place he'd come looking?

Re:Nothingtoseeheremovealong

[Low Ranked Craig]

There seems to be a lot of bad information surrounding this and as usual Slashdot is going off half cocked without the full picture, let alone RTFA. Gizmodo is not my favorite site, and frankly I think some of the editors over there are assholes (Jesus, I'm talking to you) but some of them are pretty good like Mark and Rosa. Anyway:

First, they didn't out their source: This guy isn't their source, he's the guy that lost the phone. Their source found the device and contacted Apple to attempt to return the device but in typical large company fashion, the people at Apple who knew the device was missing never got that message from the people the guy talked to, and Apple basically blew the guy off.

Gizmodo paid their source for the phone after Apple failed to respond to him. So the guy found a phone, tried to return it to the owner, the owner didn't respond so he sold it. I don't see a problem here.

Gizmodo found out who the guy who lost the phone was and contacted him. Whether or not they had permission from him to publish his name is unknown, but they did talk to the guy. I don't see the entire point in naming names here, but the dude did lose the phone and it is his fault (unless you believe the Apple did it on purpose theories) so while I probably wouldn't have released his name, I don't really have a problem with it as it seems to be a legitimate if somewhat tabloid story.

And finally, after publishing the story, Apple contacted Gizmodo to return the phone and they complied. http://gizmodo.com/5520479/a-letter-apple-wants-its-secret-iphone-back.

So, in the end Apple got their device back, we got to know what the next iPhone will look like, and Gizmodo made a shitload of money from all the traffic the story generated. I just hope that guy gets to keep his job. If not Gizmodo should hire him.

Even if it was a deliberate leak, this employee is

[sdnick]

going to lose some job opportunities as a result of getting outed. Real dick move by Gizmodo.

Re:Nothingtoseeheremovealong

[pnewhook]

Gizmodo or the guy who found it didn't report the device to the police so its stolen. And if they paid someone for the device knowing it wasn't his property, then thats fencing stolen property. Additionally Gizmodo had no newsworthy reason to publish the guys name.

I'm hoping criminal charges get laid here.

Re:Nothingtoseeheremovealong

[iamhassi]

"So the guy found a phone, tried to return it to the owner, the owner didn't respond so he sold it. I don't see a problem here."

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."

If you find something that's not yours you are suppose to try and contact the owner and if you can not, give it to the police. Anything else and it's theft. How else can it work? Are we suppose to trust thefts to be honest?

Re:Nothingtoseeheremovealong

[nobodyman]

Their source found the device and contacted Apple to attempt to return the device but in typical large company fashion, the people at Apple who knew the device was missing never got that message from the people the guy talked to, and Apple basically blew the guy off.

This is what their source claims but personally I find this suspect. What if his "trying" involved calling tech support and saying "hurr hurr I have an 4g iphone"? because that's what it sounds like from the article:

No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number.

He thought that eventually the ticket would move up high enough and that he would receive a call back, but his phone never rang.

I see, so he randomly dialed some numbers and then dialed tech support. Way to go all out, buddy. How about actually contacting the owner ?? After all, he had access to the owner's facebook account as well as his home/work phone number before the 4g was remotely disabled. It seems like an obviously half-hearted attempt because the finder did not want return the phone but wanted to appear like he did.

I don't see the entire point in naming names here, but the dude did lose the phone and it is his fault...

Yes, it is absolutely his fault, and he was probably going to suffer harsh consequences already. However, Gizmodo decided to heap public humiliation on top of this. He was already going to get fired, but now he is a laughingstock who will have a seriously hard time getting another job in the industry because of his newfound name recognition.

This guy was already screwed but Gizmodo decided to utterly destroy his career and reputation -- all for a few more clicks. Total dick move.

Re:Slashdot:

[bonch]

So, I subscribe to Slashdot's RSS feed, and here are the articles:

Hidden Cores On Phenom CPUs Can Be Unlocked
Study Finds Fast-Food Logos Make You Impatient
Gizmodo Blows Whistle On 4G iPhone Loser
What Will the Browser Look LIke In Five Years?
History Repeats Itself, Mac & the iPad
BitTorrent CEO On Net Neutrality
Amazon Fights For Privacy of Customer Records
The Nuts and Bolts of PlayStation 3D
Quantum Cyrptography Now Fast Enough For Video
An Early Look At Next-Gen Shooter Bodycount
IE8's XSS Filter Exposes Sites To XSS Attacks
Source Code To Google Authentication System Stolen
What Is the Future of Firewalls?
Adding Some Spice To *nix Shell Scripts
SEC Proposes Wall Street Transparency Via Python
Roger Ebert On Why Video Games Can Never Be Art
Fatal Flaw Discovered In Invisibility Cloaks
Network Solutions Sites Hacked Again
EU Piracy Estimates -- Just How Inaccurate?
Why Computer Science Students Cheat
US House Passes Ban On Caller ID Spoofing
Palm WebOS Hacked Via SMS Messages
George Washington Racks Up 220 Years of Late Fees At Library
Why Aren't SSD Prices Going Down?
Cows On Treadmills Produce Clean Power For Farms
This Is Apple's Next iPhone

A whopping three Apple articles out of the last 26, and two are from a developing story about a lost iPhone prototype. You people claiming Slashdot is full of Apple articles are full of shit. If you don't like Apple stories, use that thing on the right side of the window called a scrollbar and scroll past them.

P.S. Nice sockpuppeting in your own thread, AC.

Re:Slashdot:

[HaZardman27]

They're shiny!