The 4G iPhone's Finder Reportedly Located

CNET is reporting that investigators have interviewed the person who found the unreleased Apple iPhone and began all the trouble. Wired reports that last week people "identifying themselves as representing Apple last week visited and sought permission to search the Silicon Valley address of the college-age man who came into possession of a next-generation iPhone prototype." "'Someone came to [the finder's] house and knocked on his door,' the source told Wired.com, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation by the police. A roommate answered, but wouldn't let them in. ... News of Apple's lost iPhone prototype hit the Web like a bombshell, but it was apparently an open secret for weeks amongst the finder's roommates and neighbors, where the device was shown around mostly as a curiosity. ... 'There was no effort to keep it secret,' the source said. 'There were a bunch of people who knew.' ... Wired.com received an e-mail March 28 offering access to the device, but did not follow up on the exchange after the tipster made a thinly veiled request for money."

Comments

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[dxprog]

I guess Wired was a little smarter than Gizmodo.

Obligatory YouTube Link...

[wbren]

Don't Talk to the Police

Re:Obligatory YouTube Link...

[Cowclops]

This isn't a troll. It is a law school professor explaining why that interacting with the police can lead to trouble for you down the road, even if you're innocent, and even if you say only things that would point towards you being innocent. Cops have absolutely no requirement to quote you in context, and out-of-context quotes can make a completely innocent statement sound strange. Furthermore, while cops can use anything you say AGAINST you in a court of law, if you ask them to repeat something you said that would help your case, that would be heresay, and therefore can not help you.

The cop's followup to the law school professor's talk is less interesting, but the very least it validates most of what the law school professor said.

So, indeed, do not talk to cops when you can avoid doing so.

IANAL, but I did watch the video in its entirety and you should at least watch the first half too.

funny headline

[ravenspear]

I thought for a minute that Apple had ported the Finder to the iPhone OS and someone had a screenshot or something.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[Ron Bennett]

He was only selling lost property. Nothing more, nothing less. People do this all the time. Why the hell do so many people think he did something evil?

So if someone finds your wallet at a bar, you're ok with them selling it? After all, in your view, it's only "lost property" and people "do this all the time" ... be careful what you wish for.

The correct, and easiest, course of action would have been for the person who "found it" to immediately hand it over to the barkeep.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[BasilBrush]

Even IF the seller had gone to every effort to find and return the item to it's owner and failed*, it would only become his legal possession after 90 days. Selling something you don't own without the permission of the owner is an act of theft. What part are you not understanding?

* (Not that he did go to any reasonable effort at all. There were plenty of avenues to return the phone to Apple or the engineer or the police, all but perhaps one of which were not taken.)

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[Bing Tsher E]

Why the hell do so many people think he did something evil?

It made Steven Jobs angry. So naturally all his flying monkeys are going to swirl around with fury. Also, this is apple.slashdot.org not the real Slashdot, so this stuff is to be expected.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[quenda]

The guy is an idiot. Instead of stealing the phone, he could have just taken lots of photos, including the insides.
He could then promptly return it to Apple, and openly auction off the photos. Apple would still scream blue murder and harass him with search warrants, but he would not be a criminal.

Heck, according to US government precedent, you could have sent it back in pieces.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Belenko

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[MBCook]

People keep posting that, but I just find it so disingenuous.

• What part of Apple did he call? Tech support? That would be worthless. The Giz article said he couldn't send them a picture of the thing. Why not? Surely he had his own camera phone. If he sent a pic with the stickers on the back, I think he would have gotten a real response.
• He could have returned it to the bar, which would have solved everything. He could have at least told the bartender and given his number so the guy who lost it could get in contact with him.
• He could have given it to the police
• He knew the name of the Apple engineer. He could have called him, or looked him up. He could have found the guy's Facebook as Giz did. If he made a friend request that said "I have your iPhone", don't you think the guy would have responded?
• Why not take it to an Apple store? They'd be able to figure out if it was a cheap knockoff pretty fast (as Giz claims everyone first thought). Either way the manager of the store would know someone to contact at Apple to get it checked out.
• He could have gone to Apple HQ. It was only 20 miles away. As soon as he discovered it wasn't a normal 3GS and had part number stickers on the back, he could have easily walked into 1 Infinite Loop and turned it in.

It just sounds like he didn't make any real effort. Even ignoring the California "take it to the police" forfeiture law, it just doesn't sound like an ethical thing to do. If he took that to Apple headquarters, my guess is he could have received an award. He might have gotten a tour of Apple, some money, a chance to meet The Great Steve, a promise of a free iPhone 4G on launch day (or many be a free iPad). He couldn't have been a small hero.

I would even accept selling pictures of the thing to Giz (or someone else) and then turning it back in. At least he turned it back in.

Instead, he went for a payday. Then Giz got it and took 3 weeks to decide it was real and notify Apple, after cracking it open and posting all sorts of stuff about it. Then they named the poor guy who lost it and posted pics of his Facebook profile, which seems like rubbing salt in a wound.