Originally Posted by
monglobonglo 
First: let me say that I apologize for making this my first post. I came across this blog entry/opinion article and just had to respond to several things
Let me preface the following with this statement (
which may not be true):
Brian Hogan has not yet been arrested. As such, it appears as though law enforcement do not have sufficient evidence to do so.
the following opinion is used to discuss the possible evidence that might be used to arrest or try Brian Hogan for his alleged involvement with the overall alleged crime(s) that were (or were not) committed in this case
what are the basic facts:
someone looses a phone in a bar
someone picks up the phone in a bar
someone uses the phone for a few minutes before it deactivates (using their own sim card?)
someone sits on the phone for an undetermined period of time
someone sells the phone (through however many intermediaries) to a "journalist" (the quotes are there because modern laws do not specifically mention the distinctions necessary to define an ONLINE journalist, relative to a blogger, who is NOT a journalist)
with all that said, I make the case for the grievous conflict of interest in this case
I see some major questions/issues, and here is the reasoning I use:
1)Assuming a NON-jury trial:
All of the statements made to the press are completely worthless and inadmissable in court. the only evidence that can be used against any suspect is gained during an investigation or arrest.
Any other statement is essentially garbage as far as the DA or defense is concerned and the DA will not even attempt to use these statements
assuming a jury trial:
these statements are used as circumstantial evidence, but cannot be used as definitive evidence by the jury to assign blame.
2) without a large amount of extra evidence that has not yet been reported to the public, the police VASTLY overstepped their legal rights.
This must, obviously, mean that there is a great deal of extra confidential evidence in this case because the police, the DA, and Apple's lawyers would never go out of their way to break the law (they have much more to lose)
and YES. without extra evidence beyond what we all know, there is OBVIOUSLY a conflict of interest with the police and the judge that issued the warrant.
a no knock warrant is not a simple thing.
there are plenty of murderers, rapists, child slavers, and hard drug dealers that get away DAILY because such search warrants are so hard to obtain without DEFINITIVE ABSOLUTE EVIDENCE that ABSOLUTELY identifies a person as having been involved with the commission of a crime.
there are plenty of identity theft criminals and similar who get away in similar situations.
3) GSM phones do not broadcast their IMEI number during any communication method. indeed, it is widely claimed that tracking a phone by its IMEI number alone is "impossible"
I have this information directly from my local law enforcement (I used to work at a Cingular store).
this was the response when I inquired about tracing a stolen phone. I was told that tracking a phone by its serial number (IMEI = Serial number) is impossible.
indeed, if you put your ATT sim card into ANY OTHER GSM PHONE (unlocked/ATT, broadcasting on usable freqencies, etc) ATT will never know.
you literally have to call and tell them the new IMEI number, or else they would never know you had a different phone.
there are other obvious reasons that back up my claim (Beyond the direct proof I gave)
if it WAS possible, then Lockline (among others) would utilize this ability regularly to find stolen/lost phones
phones are not cheap. even the lowest quality phone is extremely expensive. ATT sells their phones at a huge loss and every lost/stolen phone that must be replaced by Lockline is a huge loss to them.
very few people realize this, and most complain about a $100 iPhone (even though ATT is losing as much as $400 on the phone)
they have an economic incentive to exploit any tracking ability that is possible....
but it is NOT POSSIBLE to track a phone by IMEI
4) 3G internet access does not transmit any extra hardware information that is not transmitted during idel operation or normal voice operation.
thus the fact that the suspect used facebook does not add any evidence
5) The access of the suspect's facebook account by the phone/sim card cannot be used to prove that the suspect used the phone in this way.
facebook has notoriously porous security. Facebook accounts are regularly phished.
Any argument based on this access is worthless and the DA would never use it as an argument in court (especially a DA in a place that has large amounts of identity theft problems, they are experts in understanding what can and cannot be used without question in court)
6) cellular phones can be triangulated to within a radius that is dependent on the spacing of the closest 3 ceullar towers (on the order of a mile if densely populated, and several miles if not)
GPRS can triangulate/locate the position to within a much smaller radius (on the order of several meters)
thus, knowledge of the location of the suspect at the time that the account was accessed can be used BUT ONLY AS CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
this is PURE circumstantial evidence and is worthless in court.
6) here is the ONLY ONLY ONLY ABSOLUTE PURE REAL EVIDENCE THAT CAN BE USED IN COURT:
visual identification of the person who took the phone home from the bar by other bar patrons, and/or visual identification of the suspect by OTHER people who have been arrested or interviewed by the police
unfortunately, any visual identification of the subject by bar patrons has become a completely worthless piece of garbage now that his picture has been plastered all over the internet
I thank the author (as well as others) for adding to this (mostly because the bias is so obvious in the article, lol)
I hope Apple realizes how much they are harming their own image in the minds of technology journalists and industry insiders in this case...
Apple's image as being more in touch with their consumers' needs has been tainted by the obvious anger and frustration they have over this issue.
people have claimed that Jobs' involvement with REACT has been suspect.
it is. yes. absolutely. it would be absolutely naive and stupid to believe that the law enforcement in certain areas are not sensitive to the employers and tax payers in those locales.
it would be naive and stupid to believe that when a board of directors hears from one of their peers about a specific crime committed against him, that they would not act in his defense with all due haste.
OF COURSE the police, DA, etc are enforcing the needs of Apple.
in doing so, they are (by proxy) enforcing the needs of thousands of locals (employees), stock holders, and even non-employees who live in the same area. These non-employees depend on apple as a source of proxy employment (the grocery stores, the mechanics, the public and private utilities providers, etc)
this is not a conspiracy theory. this is common sense, and a fact, and it happens all over the world every day.
do you think that the police departments in Detroit, Pasadena, Burbank, etc (auto, defense, and defense, respectively) do not focus on similar issues of theft of intellectual property and industrial espionage?
the people they represent are heavily invested in the well being of large corporations.
BUT NONE OF THIS GIVES THEM THE RIGHT TO CIRCUMVENT, 2ND GUESS, ASSUME, OR OVERSTEP THE LAW!!!!!
. Funny how locked down their iPhones are, Yet they still Walk.
