Posted on 04/26/2010 4:17:17 PM PDT by Smogger
Cops break open front door and seize computers in investigation of lost iPhone prototype.
It looks like the police are taking this pretty seriously.
Armed with a search warrant, members of California's Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team broke into a private home Friday night and seized computers and other electronic equipment, according to a report posted Monday on Gizmodo.
The home belonged to Jason Chen, the Gizmodo editor who published photographs and videos of a top secret prototype iPhone left at a bar by a young Apple engineer. Gizmodo has admitted paying $5,000 for the device, which it turned over on request to Apple (AAPL), but only after cracking it open and publishing details about its parts and specifications.
It's not clear at this time whether Apple or the local district attorney initiated the investigation. Apple has not replied to a request for clarification.
The search warrant, signed by a San Mateo County Superior Court judge, said the equipment seized may have been used to commit a felony.
"My wife and I drove to dinner and got back at about 9:45," begins Chen's description of the event. "When I got home I noticed that the garage door was half open, and when I tried to open it, officers came out and said they had a warrant to search my house and any vehicles on the property 'in my control.' Then they made me place my hands behind my head and searched me to make sure I had no weapons or sharp objects on me."
Photocopies of the warrant and a list of the equipment seized (including one box of business cards for "suspect chen") are available here. Chen's full statement below the fold.
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.fortune.cnn.com ...
And you think the trigger analogy is stupid? Moron.
That someone(official Apple representative), DID have the authority to take the abandoned product back, speaking as a bona fide representative of Apple. They not only rejected the product, and they wouldn't even acknowledge that Apple had lost anything. Apple can blame someone else for their own utter stupidity and screw-ups
You still don't see that comparing some me-too smartphone to losing the secrets to the trigger mechanism to America's nuclear arsenal is really retarded?
Say, when nut house did you escape from recently?
your call may be recorded (is recorded) for quality assurance purposes.
apple does not dispute the attempt to return.
I am curious as to what they thought they would find after the phone was returned.
I assure you, the judge did NOT consider the interesting (I'm being generous) legal theories regarding property law that are being propounded on this thread.
Show me on this doll where the man from Apple touched you.
As long as you get ya ugly mutt outta Steve Job’s butt.
The Apple part is simply a sideshow for me . . . if anyone thinks we live in an over-litigated society, they simply have to read your responses here. You are simply ignorant. There is no other way to put it.
At least I am making sense, and I am not comparing some smart phone to American nuclear secrets like you kept doing.
You have kept insisting that a guy that found a phone, that some Apple employee had carelessly left behind in a bar, then REPEATEDLY tried to return said phone to Apple, only for the Apple's official representatives to repeatedly refuse to accept the phone or even acknowledge that they lost any phone at all, is somehow a thief. That's ridiculous.
The only people who screwed up here are Apple by # 1, leaving their supposedly “secret” phone in some bar where anyone could examine it and see exactly what it was about, and # 2, failing to instruct their official switchboard to accept their phone back, in case the honest person that found it, called in and tried to return the phone.
No one is at fault here apart from Apple themselves.
I think this is all about Apple successfully kicking themselves in the nuts with steel-toed boots in a demented attempt to prove via jackbooted tantrum what a self-important cabal of snot-nosed elitists they are; justice for we, not for thee, and all.
Robespierre rides again.
May they all meet the same fate.
BS... there are pleanty of ham sandwich judges. Judges who will sign any warrant because a cop says so.
it would make a good samaritan think twice about helping anyone with a lost apple phone.
Maybe. Maybe he knows where his bread is buttered. Given their size, Apple's gravitational pull on the local constabulary should raise some questions given the fact that the goods in question were returned to Apple after they claimed ownership.
Apple is as evil as Google. I am happy their nextgen iPhone was revealed for all their competitors to see.
Eliminate the 4th Amendement? Yeah, there’s an App for that!
If it's not reclaimed in a certain period of time you might even get part of it for yourself.
You are arguing from your personal point of view and moral base. The law is more complex and continues to recognize that you do not have an absolute right of ownership to things you claim you just found around and about.
That means he's not ignorant, he's "ignant"!
What “proper authorities” are those, if someone finds a $5 note on the street, as has been happening for decades? In 99% of the cases, the finder just keeps the money without making any attempt to find the owner(which will be near impossible to do anyways in a place like Time Square). How do you even determine that that particular $5 note belonged to some particular person? All $5 notes are virtually the same.
Back on point, exactly when did it become “stealing”, when you find a phone that someone has left behind, try repeatedly to return the phone to the alleged owner of the phone(as determined by data on the phone), only for the owner to refuse to accept it, and deny they ever lost any phone?
Referring to them as "notes" clearly marks you as a foreigner. Whatever they do "back home", that's not how it's done here ~
How many $5 bills have you ever owned whereby you actually knew the serial number of each one?
I can't recall even one currency note I have owned that I ever knew the serial number of.
“Referring to them as “notes” clearly marks you as a foreigner”
Referring to them as “notes” simply means I have lived in quite a few countries in my lifetime, including spending many years in the UK. I have from time to time made references to that in my posts on here when the thread is about countries I have lived in.
“Whatever they do “back home”, that's not how it's done here ~”
No?
Is how “it's done here” entail person "A" foolishly leaving their phone in a bar, someone else (person "B") finding it, then person "A" (or his representative) refusing to accept the phone back when person "B" repeatedly tries to return the said phone, and person A" even denying that he lost the phone at all, only for person "A" to turn round a week later and accuse the the phone finder of being a thief?
The trouble with you idiotic Applebots is, you don't think for yourselves for even one minute. If Steve Jobs says jump into a lion's den with an hungry lion in it, you'd find some way to justify why such a suicidal act is good.
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