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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
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
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
I don't think anyone here thinks he's in any trouble.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
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.
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....
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.
Their source is the one they paid $5K to, not the poor sap/purposeful leaker who left the iPhone in the bar.
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."
So developers shouldn't work at BWM, Daimler, any defense contractor in the world, iPhone/iPad/iPod, Phillips, Siemens or any biomedical developer in the world?
The list of companies that make "closed, locked down products" is vast and in comparison, Apple is pretty open with the iPad/iPhone, else the jailbreak people wouldn't have been doing it since launch.
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.
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.
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.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
going to lose some job opportunities as a result of getting outed. Real dick move by Gizmodo.
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.)
Bliss would be Slashdot with the following sections turned off:
Idle
Main
Apple
AskSlashdot
Book Reviews
Developers
Games
Hardware
Idle (yes, this one should be turned off again)
IT
Index
Interviews
Linux
Mobile
Politics
Science
Technology
YRO
Idle (just in case we missed it the first two times)
THAT would be bliss... pure, unadulterated zen bliss.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
"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."
/. 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."
Ok, here's a car analogy since
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?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Slashdot with the Apple section switched off. Bliss!
Yeah, I tried that but the 7 remaining articles were not that interesting.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Apparently CA is almost nowhere as the law there requires you to turn over anything over $100 in value and wait 90 days.
Gosh didn't you watch the Brady Bunch as a Kid!!!
Oh and CA law also clearly defines what he did as theft.
And truly in almost NO circumstance does finding an object make it yours. In almost every state there are laws requiring you to wait a set period of time before you can claim lost or abandoned property. And in this case it was misplaced property which the finder can never make a legal claim on.
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.
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...
Am I the only one who thinks that the "found" is likely what didn't happen?
Exactly how hard would it be to take the thing in a dimly lit bar from a guy who is playing with it(who wouldn't?) while drinking a few too many beers?
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.
Not quite. According to California law you are required to report to the police if you find a thing that has been lost.
This is what it says in the CIVIL CODE SECTION 2080-2080.10
If the owner is unknown or has not claimed the property, the person saving or finding the property shall, if the property is of the value of one undred dollars ($100) or more, within a reasonable time turn the property over to the police department of the city or city and county.
Yes, it is absolutely his fault, and he was probably going to suffer harsh consequences already.
Unless some policy has been broken (e.g. not removing development phones from the lab) I don't see any reason to fire the engineer. In allowing the phone out of the Apple building Apple are taking a risk. Would you fire him if he'd been mugged?
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.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, the central issue is with that persons ethics. He finds a phone in a bar and *TAKES IT HOME* instead of leaving it at the bar for the person to come back to and retrieve it. He could have taken just the contact information and still left the phone there.
If you don't see the problem here, you might be a douche too.
It's a goddamned conspiracy! Drunken engineers leaving phones in bars-now that's how you do PR! We're THROUGH THE RABBIT HOLE, people!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
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
Yeah, but then I'd have to create an account, which I'm not going to waste my time doing.
Yes, that creating an account procedure is not to be attempted unless you have at least an MS in Computer Science and three weeks to spare.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Almost nowhere are you required to report such things to the police. If you find an abandoned item, it's yours.
Hey dude, I found your car!
And sold it to a somewhat shabby scrapyard for a few hundred bucks!
Silly of you to leave it on the street like that :-p
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.
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.
Yeah, hate to break it to you, but the law of the land is not "finders, keepers". The law requires the finder of a lost item to attempt to return said item to the owner, generally by turning it over to the police. After a period of time, which is set by law, unclaimed property is turned over to the finder.
The crime was not in finding the item, but in selling it to a third party. The third party can be liable if he knew or reasonably should have known said item was not the sellers, i.e. if one purchases a top of the line blu-ray disc player, new in the box, for $100 from a guy selling several of them out of the trunk of his car, one can reasonably assume that they are stolen. Failing to ask if the seller is the owner or an authorized agent is no excuse and can be seen as willful ignorance which, in turn, is evidence of guilt.
Refusing to return found property is theft.
Selling found property without following the found property laws is theft.
Demanding a reward to return found property is extortion.
Maybe you should check out your local laws and post them here. Or, if you are too lazy, post what state and city you live in and I will post them.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Yeah, I'm unconvinced of the whole story. How about emailing Steve Jobs directly? Jesus, if you know enough to contact Gizmodo and Engadget and try to get a bidding war going, you certainly are smart enough to write an email saying:
"TO: sjobs@apple.com
Subject: Lost iPhone prototype (?) found in Redwood City, CA
Mr. Jobs,
I recently came across a device which I believe may have been lost by your company. It appears to be a new iPhone unit, and was found at $LOCATION. I know contacting you this way is unorthodox, but I'm very serious, and I'd like to return the device to Apple if it is your property. Could somebody at Apple look into whether or not you're missing an iPhone prototype unit, and if so, contact me? I've attached a photo of the unit for you to look at, and I'm interested in returning this unit to you if it is in fact yours.
Sincerely,
A guy who's not an asshole looking for a cheap payday"
FFS, the man responds to user questions about "Will my iphone have a unified inbox someday?" Do you think he wouldn't at least forward that email to somebody on the iPhone team and say, "Is this guy for real? FOLLOW UP IMMEDIATELY AND FIND OUT IF HE IS!" Does anybody here really believe that Steve Jobs wouldn't have known that a prototype / test unit of one of Apple's biggest next-generation products got lost somewhere the day after it happened?
I noticed that too. Owell.
BUT, thinking on it, several things come immediately to mind:
1. Apple won't fire the engineer. that's bad press. They WILL however remove him from the engineering team and drop him into a job he probably doesn't like, forever. his job security is absolute, but his engineering career at apple is zero. that's the penalty for this level of "oops".
2. the poor guy's engineering career outside apple is also severely damaged by gizmodo's irresponsible release of his name. "carelessly lost a secret prototype that immediately fell into the hands of the press" doesn't look good on a design engineer's resume'.
3. "finders-keepers" rarely applies in the legal world. Not in California in particular. If you find something of value that you can reasonably assume was lost, you're obligated to turn it in. You may receive a finder's reward, but there's no requirement. Since he sold it for 5 grand he basically has no legal ground to stand on. he obviously knew it was valuable and lost.
4. buying something that you can reasonably assume is valuable and was lost is also illegal. Now gizmodo will be on the hook as well.
5. Apple was already going after Gizmodo and will almost certainly win the phone back as well as settle for some damages. or it may go to court if apple wants high damages. (would not surprise me)
6. Apple may further press legally to expose the identity of the finder of the phone. Gizmodo is not likely to have a leg to stand on here unless they somehow conducted a totally anonymous meeting and acquisition. (unlikely) We should be hearing the name of the greedy SOB sometime soon.
7. Apple may further press for legal action on the finder.
8. The finder really made a bad decision. Consider if he had instead: called/emailed apple and told them he found the phone and would like to have them come pick it up in person, not making any demands at all. (since he's not legally entitled to do so) Take lots of pictures of it and memorize it thoroughly. When they come to pick it up, they WILL be carrying an NDA for him to sign. Hand over the phone, and begin negotiations for the pictures and the NDA. All legal. He could have made a good deal more that way. Apple would have easily paid him 20 grand for the pictures and NDA signature. Instead, he's probably going to end up having to return the 5 grand for selling stolen property, ("theft by finding" I think is the legal term in CA?) and then face additional legal action.
Too bad all around, most everyone loses. Except maybe Gizmodo, which may come out ahead after all of this, depending on what sort of settlement Apple seeks.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
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.
According to John Gruber, this photo of Jobs's office was taken early yesterday.
Well, he *did* call random numbers... just not the obvious ones (how about work# of the guy who just left without the phone?) So let's throw out that argument.
Look, he remembered the guy's name and facebook page, that's why he's in this mess in the first place, right?
You're trying to paint this guy as some polite, moral character. In actuality it's some douche who found a lost phone, accessed his facebook account, attempted to look through all his photos, and then sold it to the highest bidder.
And for the record, I never called it blatent theft, I'm just calling the finder a dickhead. There's no law against being a dickhead.
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.