Computers of Gizmodo Blogger Siezed by Police

14 years ago

Yes, I rather suspect there is more to this than meets the eye. Also, seizing equipment does not mean there is a wrong done, just the suspicion of such. Scare tactics perhaps?

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sbucciarel

Banned 14 years ago

Freedom to receive stolen goods is not a freedom that we have

I imagine they are investigating to determine if there was knowledge that they were receiving stolen goods or any conspiracy involved.

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Ernie Mitchell

14 years ago

As I understand it, in the state of California it's illegal to take possession of something that is worth over $50.00 (may be $500??) without first making an attempt to find the original owner.

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Danny Cutts

14 years ago

is it classed as stolen?

If it was taken off the person then yes but if the dummy left it on a seat in a bar to me that is not theft.

I however always try and find the rightful owner of phones as I knowits a complete pain when you lose one

Danny

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FSchmieder

14 years ago

woah woah taking back the stolen property is one thing. But getting a warrant to take all of his items because he bought an Iphone on the trumped up charge that they were all used to "steal" the phone.

Give me a break

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kindsvater

14 years ago

We haven't seen the affidavit to the search warrant, and perhaps there is a lot more to this story than what has been published.

But from what has been reported, I'm putting my money on Gizmodo, although I question why they're only 'fighting' back on their website. Sure - great publicity for them.

Given the high publicity of this, I'm surprised the judge would sign a warrant as it seems plain the suspect qualifies as a journalist.

They should have been in court today to challenge the seizure and/or to get the property returned ASAP. Presumably, they're working diligently on this.

Making a forensic copy of a computer can be done very quickly, and those computers undoubtedly have personal, legal, and private information on them.

End of the day:

Apple wins by showing they are serious.
Gizmodo wins from awesome publicity.
California law enforcement, as usual, incompetent.

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Floyd Fisher

14 years ago

Originally Posted by kindsvater

We haven't seen the affidavit to the search warrant, and perhaps there is a lot more to this story than what has been published.

But from what has been reported, I'm putting my money on Gizmodo, although I question why they're only 'fighting' back on their website. Sure - great publicity for them.

Given the high publicity of this, I'm surprised the judge would sign a warrant as it seems plain the suspect qualifies as a journalist.

They should have been in court today to challenge the seizure and/or to get the property returned ASAP. Presumably, they're working diligently on this.

Making a forensic copy of a computer can be done very quickly, and those computers undoubtedly have personal, legal, and private information on them.

End of the day:

Apple wins by showing they are serious.
Gizmodo wins from awesome publicity.
California law enforcement, as usual, incompetent.

Right now, everything is at a standstill.

This article raises some real questions.

iPhone Leak Investigation Pauses As DA Ponders Gizmodo Shield Law Defense

Seems Apple might have thrown their weight around a little too much on this one.

Earlier today Yahoo News pointed out that Apple serves on the steering committee of REACT, a special task force involved with the investigation. Wagstaffe said that Apple played no part in REACT's inclusion and that he wasn't even aware that Apple was part of the committee.

I smell corporate malfeisance here. Smells like......(sniff sniff)......money.

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seasoned

14 years ago

Originally Posted by kindsvater

We haven't seen the affidavit to the search warrant, and perhaps there is a lot more to this story than what has been published.

But from what has been reported, I'm putting my money on Gizmodo, although I question why they're only 'fighting' back on their website. Sure - great publicity for them.

Given the high publicity of this, I'm surprised the judge would sign a warrant as it seems plain the suspect qualifies as a journalist.

They should have been in court today to challenge the seizure and/or to get the property returned ASAP. Presumably, they're working diligently on this.

Making a forensic copy of a computer can be done very quickly, and those computers undoubtedly have personal, legal, and private information on them.

End of the day:

Apple wins by showing they are serious.
Gizmodo wins from awesome publicity.
California law enforcement, as usual, incompetent.

Brian,

Apple doesn't care about the information. They KNOW everything that would be known, and gizmodo already hung themselves, so there should be nothing to prove. GRANTED, taking the computers provides MORE proof, but the main reason they took the computers you can bet was NOT to find out what was on them, but to PREVENT further dissemination and delete that info. If they could copy it in a NANO second from the outside of the place, they would STILL have had to seize it!

If you don't want to be searched like that, avoid illegality, and DON'T be soo cavalier!

Steve

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sbucciarel Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by kindsvater

Making a forensic copy of a computer can be done very quickly, and those computers undoubtedly have personal, legal, and private information on them.

They have no respect for the trade secrets of Apple, so who really cares about their private information?

What goes around comes around. They thought they had a lot of exposure by trying to capitalize on Apple's trade secrets .... hope their happy with that exposure now.
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seasoned

14 years ago

Originally Posted by FSchmieder

woah woah taking back the stolen property is one thing. But getting a warrant to take all of his items because he bought an Iphone on the trumped up charge that they were all used to "steal" the phone.

Give me a break

Nobody cares about a phone. APPLE doesn't care about a phone. HECK, people don't even buy an iphone because of the phone. There are a LOT of CHEAP phones out there. It is because of the tradesecrets, etc... And YEP, the computer, CDs, or anything else of that nature COULD have been, and probably were used to STEAL and make available for further theft, trade secrets.

Steve

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Floyd Fisher

14 years ago

Don't know the whole story. For all we know, someone might have broken into Apple and stole the phone, then resold it to Gizmodo.

Story of the iphone being left in a bar sounds fishy to me. Apple is a different company, but I doubt even they would just let an employee take home a prototype iphone. Esepcially one that hasn't been released to the public yet.

Tech companies, Apple included, generally keep stuff like that under uber heavy security.

We shall see as the story develops.

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WareTime

14 years ago

Originally Posted by cjmo75

That's scary. Every day it seems we lose more and freedoms. However, buying an iPhone prototype for $5000 from "a guy in a bar" is less than on the level. You need to find out the source of the product before you purchase it. Most likely, the felony they are talking about is receiving stolen goods.

No worries mate. It's just posturing from Apple in cahoots with Gizmodo to build hype for the new phone. This leak is not a leak, they are just doing the police thing to legitimize the story. There will be no charges carried out with. Gizmodo will get a "stern talking to" as detailed in the press release sign a document from Apple legal and get a big check at the end of the deal.

God forbid anyone sell a link on a website though.

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Paul Myers

14 years ago

No worries mate. It's just posturing from Apple in cahoots with Gizmodo to build hype for the new phone. This leak is not a leak, they are just doing the police thing to legitimize the story. There will be no charges carried out with. Gizmodo will get a "stern talking to" as detailed in the press release sign a document from Apple legal and get a big check at the end of the deal.

Right. In complete contravention of their usual rigid control of the rollout process, they decided to commit a crime, by falsely alleging a felony theft?

Your tin foil hat is too tight.

Paul

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rickkettner

14 years ago

Interesting story... I feel bad for Jason, but can't exactly condone his actions either. Will be interesting to see if the whole "journalist" legal stuff protects him here.

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Kay King 14 years ago

I would think the shield laws would be more convincing had he not paid such a sum for the info - and wonder how the person who "found" it knew who to go to for selling it.

Every time I read more about this case it brings up more questions for me. The whole thing is a bit odd.

kay
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SageSound

14 years ago

Guys, forget this was "Apple Computer" for a minute.

Whatever you might think of them, here's the issue.

Say you spent millions of dollars creating a whole line of proprietary products, millions more preparing patent applications, maybe a million or more dealing with NDAs and legal docs to make sure you PROTECTED YOUR RIGHTS to keep your investment SECRET.

One day, one of your prototype devices shows up being dissected on a web site by some guys who were never given permission to have your device, never signed an NDA, never bothered to ask if it's ok to even look at it, and yet appeared 100% aware of who owned the device, what it was, and what it represented.

This is YOUR investment being displayed in public without your knowledge or permission. It might be a 'real' product, or a 'prototype' or just a 'concept'. But it's YOURS.

So now explain to me this ... should Gizmodo have the unlimited "right" to perform a public autopsy on YOUR PRIVATE PROPERTY, without your permission, knowledge, approval, or even attempting to notify you first? Just because they're a "news service" and are therefore "protected" by "First Amendment Rights" to side-step every security measure you've spent millions setting up to protect your property rights?

Wouldn't YOU want to know whether, in the process of dissecting YOUR PROPERTY on THEIR PREMISES without your permission or supervision, they documented anything that might violate or invalidate any patents, trade secrets, or any of a bazillion legal agreements that their actions just caused to be put at significant legal and financial risk?

If it was YOU, I think you'd do just about everything you could possibly imagine to ascertain the extent of the security breeches, how much sensitive information they actually extracted from YOUR DEVICE, and how much legal liabilities YOU INCURRED as a result of THEIR STUPIDITY.

IF it was YOU, you'd be screaming bloody murder!

I think the guys at Gizmodo stepped in a really HUGE pile of doo-doo, and they're going to be paying for their mistake for a long time.

Given Apple's history of aggressively protecting their intellectual property RIGHTS, and as large a legal staff and financial backing that they have, it seems a rather lop-sided situation. Gizmodo could be a "business" living on borrowed time. Whomever is running that "business" could be facing jail time as well if Apple has their way.

Suppose that device was a prototype for something Apple was developing for the Military?

Do you seriously believe Gizmodo exercised "reasonable" caution in their actions?

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Karan Goel

14 years ago

Seems like cops don't like Bloggers.

"Are bloggers journalists? I guess we'll find out," Nick Denton, who runs Gawker Media, wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Of course they are. If not, why are "bloggers" at NYC, WSJ etc call themselves "Journalists"?

Karan

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SageSound

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Karan Goel

Seems like cops don't like Bloggers.

Of course they are. If not, why are "bloggers" at NYC, WSJ etc call themselves "Journalists"?

Karan

Uh, think again...

April 22, 2010

N.J. court rules blogger is not protected under shield law in porn company defamation case | - NJ.com

Too Much Media v. Hale (pdf)

(This is actually a quite amusing case in some respects. Read the PDF!)

Even in the context of traditional forms of news media, determining who qualifies for the privilege is difficult. The United States Supreme Court has warned of the complexities in such an undertaking:

Sooner or later, it [will become] necessary to define those categories of newsmen who qualif[y] for the privilege, a questionable procedure in light of the traditional doctrine that liberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer . . . just as much as of the large, metropolitan publisher . . . .

[Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 704, 92 S. Ct. 2646, 2668, 33 L. Ed. 2d 626, 653 (1972).]

Since then, few cases around the country have discussed who, beyond the traditional news media, has status to raise the newsperson's [shield law] privilege. Our research discloses only limited occasions in New Jersey where the privilege had been successfully invoked by an individual who was not a "journalist" in the traditional sense.

But apparently this isn't the first time Apple has found themselves in this particular boat:

Apple dealt loss in Apple v. Does trade secret case

It'll be interesting to see what the outcome is this time around!

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seasoned

14 years ago

Originally Posted by SageSound

But apparently this isn't the first time Apple has found themselves in this particular boat:

Apple dealt loss in Apple v. Does trade secret case

It'll be interesting to see what the outcome is this time around!

That case was different from this one. I only scanned that page, but it seems to be about a rumor site allegedly getting information and reporting on it.

HERE, they stolle a phone, took it apart, and got the info THEMSELVES!

HECK, when COMPAQ wanted to compete with IBM, they had THREE teams! One took a LEGALLY purchased computer, examined it, and came up with specs. Lawyers approved the specs, so they were sterile of possibly bad info. ANOTHER party then handed them to designers that created the system. WHY!?!?!? Because if the two computers were too similar, or IBM could prove that there was some contamination of the product, IBM could possibly have taken EVERYTHING!

You see the difference? THIS guy took an ILLEGALLY obtained product, and just spread things about it HIMSELF! AND, apparently, the shield law was made to protect people like the sources for reporters frlom being revealed. In this case, HE was the source. so the shield law doeesn't apply.

Steve

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FSchmieder

14 years ago

I just want to laugh at the "trade secrets" that gizmodo revealed about the phone.

-It has smaller parts
-It has a bigger battery
-it has a different camera

Oh.My.God. Apple is ruined now!

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seasoned

14 years ago

Originally Posted by FSchmieder

I just want to laugh at the "trade secrets" that gizmodo revealed about the phone.

-It has smaller parts
-It has a bigger battery
-it has a different camera

Oh.My.God. Apple is ruined now!

Just the fact that they are CONSIDERING such a phone is a tradesecret! So apple only prosecute if it is a new processor that uses a special kind of gate(that hackers probably couldn't figure out ANYWAY)?

And WHO KNOWS, there may be new commands, or software that, if made public, may frustrate a patent application. IMAGINE if PCL were released earlier by a third party. HP might not even exist today! What if gates found out what apple was doing with the MAC a few years earlier. Apple might not exist.

Steve

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SageSound

14 years ago

Originally Posted by FSchmieder

I just want to laugh at the "trade secrets" that gizmodo revealed about the phone.

-It has smaller parts
-It has a bigger battery
-it has a different camera

Oh.My.God. Apple is ruined now!

How do you know that's not just the tip of the iceberg? How long did they have that device in their possession? What other things did they do to dig into it?

The fact is, YOU don't know, nor does APPLE. So they need to take some extreme measures to ensure they keep their intellectual property rights.

The software is only one aspect. Simply revealing the chips involved could cause problems for the VENDORS who probably demanded that Apple keep them under wraps.

There's a whole chain of things that can be upset by premature disclosure of information like this.

If you think the steps Apple is taking in this case aren't justified, you have not worked in that industry at all. I think their steps are what ANY company would be expected to do to assert and maintain their intellectual property rights, and are virtually REQUIRED to ensure the patents, copyrights, and trademarks they've been working on for so long aren't invalidated because of Gizmodo's stupidity.

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seasoned

14 years ago

Originally Posted by cjmo75

That's scary. Every day it seems we lose more and freedoms. However, buying an iPhone prototype for $5000 from "a guy in a bar" is less than on the level. You need to find out the source of the product before you purchase it. Most likely, the felony they are talking about is receiving stolen goods.

It was a PROTOTYPE belonging to another and had TRADE SECRETS! The video they made made that CLEAR! They were not only in the wrong, their very actions made it clear and spelled it out.

Steve

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Profit-smart

14 years ago

Originally Posted by seasoned

It was a PROTOTYPE belonging to another and had TRADE SECRETS! The video they made made that CLEAR! They were not only in the wrong, their very actions made it clear and spelled it out.

Steve

Im with you on this one.

has anyone considered the 5 or 6 million dollars apple poured into developing OS 4?

Which was.. on that phone?

Which a determined hacker could *easily* copy to a hard drive?

Seizure of computers makes perfect sense in that context.