Surveillance footage of lost iPhone 5 prototype automatically erased

Well, that was no surprise. At the old university I used to work for, we only maintained surveillance footage for only one month unless there was a special need to preserve it longer. I would have been surprised at a bar preserving pictures for months.

If next year another prototype is left at a bar again, Apple will petition California to close all the bars within the state. Yeah, it's the bars' fault, not the stupid Apple employees

Apple never claimed that the prototype loss was the bar's fault so I'm not sure why you are rolling your eyes.

In another day, it won't matter at all, will it?

Implying theft of intellectual property doesn't stop being illegal after the product's released?

If that's the case, Samsung is off scott-free.

Sorry....but at best this is alleged theft. There is NO PROOF anything was stolen...merely that some Apple employee lost a phone. Lose != theft when there is nothing to prove the phone was stolen.

Well, he lost it and it's gone now. Not in the bar, not at Apple.

It has been stolen. Someone other than the owner currently has it and has no intention of returning it.

Not implying that at all. But if you want to steal IP, you can buy one yourself soon enough.

As for the so-called lost phone: maybe it is truly lost? Gone into the trash, overlooked, deactivated, possibly lost forever.

Wow. You'd think that the police would not wait months to capture evidence? It's not like this is a cold case.

I would have thought the police had investigations down to a routine. Shouldn't be that difficult to ensure that evidence is always preserved.

Think the cops and DA were smoking' some medicinal weed?

Unless of course it was returned to Apple, perhaps just hours after their search. Speculation is just speculation. Police have said no theft is being investigated. They are investigating their own actions (and by extension Apple's).

This is a serious case because the missing iPhone might've been sold to the likes of Samsung who are willing to pay a lot more for it than Gizmodo.

Their surveillance system is the Rose Mary Woods model 1972.

It's his tribal name: No-Brain Rolling Eyes.

I think what we'll see is a lot of people hungering for publicity/martyrdom. If I'm right, you'll also see that Cook got to a certain point and then eased back on finding the phone.

Well, there's not much data about this case, but it's clear what California law is. You pick up something that isn't yours, you have to attempt to return it, or else it's presumed a theft.

The much bigger issue that should be investigated is the role SFPD played in the case. To heck with the prototype, I want to know if SFPD are conducting searches without warrants and/or allowing 3rd parties to do so under the guise of being police.

I've been in Security for 30 years consulting on cctv system design for 20. I've got a few observations. First a bar puts in cctv to detect theft, cash shortages, sweathearting drinks--free drinks given by staff when they are not authorized, age/id issues,potential "last drink" issues in accidents etc. Yes, its possible an idiot owner/manager buys a cctv system with a digital recorder that is cheap enough and poorly configured to record one frame every few minutes but it would be useless and serve no useful purpose. Very very unlikely. The video should be there for at last a week. Assuming Apple reports the phone missing the next day the police are most likely at the bar within 72 hours. Any info on the recorder is reviewed, copied, archived, and saved. Video of the police visit is gone whenever the right person wants it gone or usually one month at the longest but most likely a week. Quality and length of storage = $$$$. So most likely video of the potential loss was reviewed. Video of the cops in the bar would be gone most likely.

there's no proof that this event really happened. Especially now that the bar can't produce photos of the Apple employee that was there and 'lost' his/her phone.

it's all rather convenient and odd. What would be the point in wanting to see the footage anyway. The only 'confirmed' investigation is the one about the issue of whether the SFPD overstepped their bounds allegedly taking the Apple Gestapo to the poor victim's house and then helped harass him with threats of deporting his loved ones and sending him to Gitmo. or whatever they supposedly said to him. How would the footage relate to said issue.



Cali law disagrees. As we learned when Gary whatshisname lost his prototype last year, if you find something that wasn't yours and you don't make a genuine effort to return it to the rightful owner by Cali law, you stole it.



Nope. According to the stories, Apple never filed a police report, allegedly because they didn't want the negative PR of losing yet another phone or the risk of details about the phone getting out. Supposedly they sent a couple of gumbas to ask the cops to help them go ask about a lost item that they had reason to believe was at this particular guy's house. Going with someone in such a manner is not out of line for the police in a general sense.

Now according to the stories. the guy admitted he was at the particular bar the couple of days before (which is already suspect cause Apple wouldn't wait to try to get it back but the stories claim they did). Supposedly, he says that the police asked to search the house and didn't tell him that the two Apple employees were not cops. And it was this two folks that went in the house, etc. Meanwhile the real cops were outside, not supervising and basically telling him that he better not be lying or he'd be deported and everyone he knows with him.

so like a month later, word gets back to the SFPD about these claims and then they decide to investigate that. But never was the phone filed etc. In fact it seems that there was no record of a phone related to the visit which is why originally the SFPD denied they did anything -- they were asked about searching for a phone.

if you go back and look at the statements and who said what, there was a lot of evidence by the alleged theft and the bar and the stuff supposedly by the cops is very wishy washy. a lot of 'i guess' and 'perhaps' in places where one would think he wouldn't say anything without getting the details and making a firm statement.

Even the LinkedIn profile is off. LinkedIn is a professional business network. And this supposed Apple employee uploads a shot in a wifebeater and shades. ???? Really????

So what they're saying is: this surveillance system is for show only. Don't expect it to help solve any real crime.

Ahh, once they knew it was erased, they shouldn't have bothered viewing it!

I agree. I think this story was totally fabricated and either CNet is the perpetuator or they are sucked in by it.
There is no real evidence Apple lost a phone asked the Police to help.

As you say the Linkedin profile is very suspicious - particularly where it says he was employed by "Apple Computer!"

can not be totally fabricated.

police have confirmed that they escorted apple security personnel to the house and the occupant of the house said he was in fact at that bar.

apple suspects that man (occupant of the house).

but they have no proof. maybe even no actual internet trace of the phone to that address, maybe instead an eyewitness claiming it was that occupant who had it in his possession.

You mean other than the official statement (on their website) by the SFPD that they assisted Apple in searching for a lost phone? Or their statements to multiple press outlets saying the same?

You honestly think cnet or cava22 just hacked into SFPD webservers and planted the statement? Or do you think they have someone 'on the inside' of SFPD that is making them make statements that aren't true?

Sometimes I wonder how people get out of bed in the morning.

Right. And do we know that there was no attempt to return it? Do we know that it wasn't returned the day after they searched Sergio's home? No, we don't know. So, we don't know whether it was stolen.

Pretty much what I was thinking. In a few hours it all won't matter and we can move on to looking for iPad 3 prototypes left in bars.

You can recover delete images from a hard drive.

Use a recovery software.