Police take Mac of blogger who posted iPhone pics

Yahoo news ^ | On Monday April 26, 2010, 4:20 pm

[Swordmaker]

Police search house of Gizmodo blogger, take Mac, cell phone in iPhone leak investigation

FREMONT, Calif. (AP) -- A blogger who posted pictures and details of a lost iPhone prototype has given up his computer, digital camera and cell phone to law enforcement.

A special computer-crime task force made up of different law enforcement agencies searched Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen's house and car, according to a statement and search warrant documents provided by Gizmodo.

The warrant says the computer and other devices may have been used to commit a felony.

Apple did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

[mowowie]

Interesting. thank you for the info.

Reminds me of a Sony, MS fracus.

Sony contracted Digital? i forget to create their new Cell proccessor for the PS3.
A year later MS contracted the same company to develop the CPU for their upcomming Xbox 360.
Through shady dealings and contract loopholes MS stole a years worh of R/D from Sony and introduced thir machine a year earlier.
That proved almost fatal to the sales of the PS3.

This might be all BS, it’s been a while since i read the article.

[zeugma]

I’ll tell you who is stupid and that is the company called Microsoft...

As you've no doubt noticed, any tech thread (doesn't even particularly have to be a "Mac" thread will find these same posters constantly insulting Mac users. I note that even when responding so such childishness, you still don't stoop to their level weith your response.

[Star Traveler]

A little bit more and that's all, for now, anyway ... :-) ...

Here's something that came from the anti-trust suit against Microsoft, which brought some information to light that was not known by the public, as to what had been going on with Apple and Microsoft and that Microsoft was worried about the situation in regards to the stolen code and the position that Microsoft would be in and Microsoft's potential liability...

Paul Maritz' testimony does give some useful information not previously disclosed about Microsoft's relationship with Apple, and in particular more details about litigation issues. It turns out that Microsoft's use of Apple code in Microsoft Video for Windows did indeed violate Apple's intellectual property rights, and that the case was settled out of court. Although Microsoft officially denies any liability -- and, for once, its hands were clean because its chum Intel passed Microsoft the duplicated code -- the legal wording used is a well-known shorthand for Microsoft having paid Apple a sufficient sum of money for it to be allowed to proclaim its innocence. The Apple claim for $1.255 billion evidently caused Microsoft a great deal of anguish, and there must have been good reason for this. Apple says that 24 of its patents were infringed, and possibly 12 more. Apple lost the intellectual property case it launched in 1988 after the Supreme Court said in 1995 that it would not hear the appeal. Microsoft crows that it received attorney's fees. Apple was unaware at the time of some key evidence that might well have changed the result of this case: it shows that Microsoft did copy the Apple GUI, since a mistake in the Apple GUI was copied into Windows and still exists. There is also a witness to Microsoft having received the source code listing from Apple, but he was never deposed. Microsoft's particular concern was that if Apple went to the wall, as it was close to doing in 1996/97, it might fight a mighty patent battle and win. Maritz' testimony says in its defence that "patent liability can be found even when the product in question was developed wholly independently" but that is unconvincing. A side issue is that a so-called "patent terrorism" fight, as Maritz described it, doesn't put Microsoft in a strong position, because the opponent isn't going to be a customer.

...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/02/01/maritz_on_apple/

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

And with all of the licenses involved you would think that these products would cost a fortune.

Yep, and that's why they have to sell a lot to make some money ... :-)

It's not cheap to be in business and the more successful you are, the more expensive it gets...

[zeugma]

No, the "crime" wasn't "the article" that was written. The article that was written only let the police become aware of the crime that was committed.

I believe it will be up to a jury to decide if there was, in fact, a crime committed. That's the way these things work. If, as others have speculated, there was collusion between the engineer who had original posession of the phone and Gizmodo, that is more likely.  If not, then you never know. Police have to investigate because they believe a crime was comitted. There's nothing wrong with that, and it happens every day all across this land of ours. 

I'm not entirely sure the heavy-handed tactics of confiscating the guys computers were necessary, though it seems to be SOP with most government investigative agencies, who apparently have never heard of any of the various software programs that allow one to clone a disk for later forensic analysis.

Also, if the story was accurate as written, there was an attempt to ascertain the ownership of the device in question. Unsurprisingly the tech support folk they taked to didn't know anything about it, so that query came to naught. You'll note that once Apple verified that it was their phone, it was returned.

If I was on a jury in this case and the facts turn out as presented thus far, I'd not be able to vote for conviction. To me, it's just a lesson learned on Apple's part. If you'vew got stuff you don't want people to see, don't let it off campus.

[mowowie]

Well goodnight all.
Great thread.
Tomorrow i will wake up. make some coffee and like every morning lately take a deep breath before i click Drudge.

can’t wait.
yup

[Swordmaker]

That is simply because an Apple that is equivalent to a $800 Dell or HP costs over $2500.

i've been watching you spout your ignorance of Macs on this thread for some time... this one is totally absurd. Please show me the $800 Dells and HP that are workstation class machines with Intel® Xeon™ class processors that have Error Correcting Memory DDR3 memory? On the contrary, when you configure either a Dell or a HP to the same specs, the Apple Mac Pro is usually either competitive in LOWER in price.

Here are both the Mac Pro and the Dell Workstations matched as best as possible... The Mac had an upgraded hard drive to 1TB and added 3yr warranty.

The Dell Precision T7500 had the processor matched to the MacPro's, the HD upgraded to 1TB, the OS upgraded to 64bit, Memory to 3GBs:

Gee, Editor, the Dell is $169 MORE expensive than the MacPro... and still doesn't come with the suite of excellent software that comes free with the MacPro... or the excellently engineered aircraft aluminum case, without cabling anywhere in it, that is completely EPEAT GOLD rated... and the Apple MacPro is available TODAY... as opposed to having to wait until May 5th for the Dell to be built and shipped.

Now, Would you care to repeat that absurd ignorant claims about $800 dollar equivalents????

[Swordmaker]

"And yet they sell products that people want to buy, without a single bailout, or even massive layoffs." apple bail out And yes, they have had massive layoffs preceding the bailout. Although, I could kick myself for not buying stock during the panic selling. It was one of those to do things that I never got around to. People get rich when other people panic, at least people other than I do. So far, other than Palm, I'm not aware of any of the major phone manufacturers receiving a bail out. Maybe Motorola during the dark years. Speaking of Motorola, I read a story tonight that they are going to stop using Google location services for their Android phones. That is an interesting turn of events and may warrant it's own thread later if anyone is interested.

How many times do I have to shoot down this "Bailout myth?"

Excuse me, DangerDoc, but that was no "Bailout." That was Microsoft Paying off on a losing lawsuit settlement... Apple had over 1 billion dollars in the bank in cash, was already in the bank. And by the time you accounted for other liquid assets, Apple had almost $2 billion.

The payment to Apple was to purchase $150 million in NON-VOTING RESTRICTED shares of preferred stock (hardly a "bail-out") as part of three interlocking agreements that Microsoft and Apple executed to end a lawsuit that Apple had instigated against Microsoft for stealing the Quicktime Code that was found inside Microsoft's Windows Media Player software... in its entirety including the name of one of Apple's software engineer's mothers, specific identifying words not part of the code, and other things placed there by Apple.

In addition to paying Apple the $150 million, Microsoft agreed to license the offending software patents from Apple for an undisclosed yearly license for a period of five years, as well as other software patents that Microsoft admitted under discovery they were using with out license. They also agreed to continue development of Microsoft Office for Mac for those same five years... and agreed to continue to market Office for Mac for those five years... after having cancelled Office for Mac. In addition, Microsoft, agreed, as further compensation to Apple to grant unlimited licenses to Apple certain undisclosed Software patents held by Microsoft, without compensation from Apple, in perpetuity for the life of the patents.

For its part, as part of these three agreements, Apple agreed to issue the preferred non-voting, non-controlling stock from already authorized stock. Apple agreed to ship, on its distribution disks of Apple's Operating System, and on all new Macs, Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Mac along with Netscape Navigator for Mac, and allow Macintosh Users to elect to select one or the other as the default browser on the Macintosh for a period of five years. Apple agreed to license to Microsoft the Quicktime software patents that Microsoft had originally ripped off, for an undisclosed amount for five years and to not publicize that licensing. Finally, Apple agreed to drop its lawsuit against Microsoft for patent infringement.

Some legal analysts estimate that Microsoft's ultimate cost of this settlement, counting the $150 million and the licensing of the software patents may have totaled over $2 billion dollars over the five years of the agreement. This is undetermined as both companies do not break out the income and expenses of their licensing income or expenses in their books. However, Microsoft cut it's losses when it sold it's Apple stock as soon as the restrictions expired in three years for about $450 million. . . so it was a good investment. But it was NOT a bail-out.

The interlocking agreements between Apple and Microsoft outlining all this are now available on the internet for those interested in digging them out and reading them.

[Swordmaker]

I was under the impression that in the 90’s MS made it so their Office Suite would run on an Apple.

You've got it backwards. Microsoft Word and Excel were written FOR Apple under contract to them. Office for Mac came before Office for Windows.

[Swordmaker]

How could any company come out with a product nowadays that does not step on somebody elses invention or idea?

It was more blatant than that... the code that was there included explicit things that showed it was Apple's unmodified code... including the name of the mother of one of Apple's engineer's in some of the padding. They were caught red handed.

[Terpfen]

As another thread indicated, An Apple user would have been much better off spending their 3 thousand bucks on Apple stock rather than their ego soothing computer in 1988.
They would have over $120 grand in the bank right now.

Yes, and instead of buying a new car for $25k, you can invest that and get a few hundred thousand dollars back in 10-15 years. So what?

[Terpfen]

The original ‘finder’ attempted to return the thing to Apple but they poo-poo’d him. Then he sold it.

This is false. The person who found the phone made no attempt to return it. He spoke to a bar employee, nothing more. He had the person's Facebook page acquired from the phone but did not make contact. He could have dropped it off at an Apple Store, or called Apple directly, but did not. He instead sold it to Gizmodo for $5000.

[absalom01]

What you seem to have missed is that the phone was most likely planted, not lost, for publicity benefit.

I'm not buying it.

I think you would feel differently if it was your property that was being auctioned off, but that's irrelevant. Seems like a pretty clear violation of the PC sections cited above. I'm sure all parties will get their day in court to sort it all out, though.

[absalom01]

I’m guessing that they’ll offer the “finder” a deal of some kind, plead down to a misdemeanor. But he sure demonstrted mens rea by running around and trying to find a buyer, and selling the thing for 5K. Heck, if he really wanted it returned to the rightful owner, he could have just dropped it off at the local PD and filed a found property report.

[Yaelle]

OK. Thanks for all the info. I now know that buying and selling a known lost object is illegal. I seriously did not know that. The finder and Gizmondo were stupid to sell openly. If they’d known about the law, they could have arranged a “for free gift” of the object, if you know what I mean.

[dangerdoc]

That is one way to interpret the events. At the time, the common interpretation was that Microsoft voluntarily pumped money into Apple for multiple reasons only some being the ones that you mentioned.

They were in real fear of the government breaking them up like they did AT&T. Pumping some money into Apple was cheap insurance compared to that consequence and settled some distracting lawsuits from Apple at the same time.

These companies sue each other all the time. Sometimes it is for obvious reasons, often the suits are for obscure reasons and they are settled secretly with various licenses being traded as a result. I would not over read Apple’s suits against Microsoft. Just look at how many outstanding suits Apple has filed and has filed against them at any given moment.

In the end, ongoing suits and countersuits is just the price of doing business. Facing the Feds who want to bust you up is the real threat, pulling Apple from the brink was Microsoft’s plea for their life when facing the federal executioner.

[Star Traveler]

Here's a FReeper thread on that very thing... and clarifying the issue -- namely the report comparing "apples to oranges" -- that was put out in that other article from PC Advisor ... :-)

PC Advisor blows it: Implies Apple's 17-inch Macbook Pro Core i7 gets too hot when it doesn't

If you want to comment on this one, the FReeper article, above, is recent and you can "weigh in" ... :-)

As was said over in that thread ...

Comparing PC with i5 to Apple's i7... Oranges to Apples...

AND reports processor SURFACE temperature as though it were temperature of laptop case!!! NOT!

[editor-surveyor]

Different but seemingly identical laptop computers can operate at grossly different temperatures, depending on the software setup.

Some packages keep the processor working harder than others. Its a hard comparison to make.

[editor-surveyor]

We were talking about laptops.

Your ‘religion’ may be getting in the way on this.

[ColdWater]

I get $3299 for the MAC without OS. That puts it at least $500 more than the Dell ...