Also, where is AI getting its R.E.A.C.T funding figures?
I downloaded a PDF of the 2008 annual report of the California high tech crimes task force, the umbrella organization for R.E.A.C.T and a bunch of other state cyber-crime task forces. The relevant passage:
It's a typo on AI's part. Their source is Marketwatch (linked in the article) who states $2.3M, not billion.
It's a typo on AI's part. Their source is Marketwatch (linked in the article) who states $2.3M, not billion.
What I figured. The people getting exercised over the cost per conviction figures can probably relax (and it's worth noting that this same task force is credited with recovering billions in funds and property).
Probably would have been easier to follow the link in the story rather than hunt stuff down myself.... \
What I figured. The people getting exercised over the cost per conviction figures can probably relax (and it's worth noting that this same task force is credited with recovering billions in funds and property).
Well nobody seemed interested in confronting their bias by checking the link. Good eye!
On Friday, the REACT task force executed a warrant to search the home and car of Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen, who had possession of the iPhone prototype before it was returned to Apple, and who was responsible for the gadget blogs breaking stories on the device.
Chen said he and his wife came back home from dinner around 9:45 p.m. when they noticed their garage door was half-open. When he tried to open the door, officers searched him and informed him that his property was under their control.
Chen's front door was reportedly broken open so the authorities could enter, and those on the scene informed him that he could be reimbursed for the damage. He was provided with a copy of the warrant, which stated that there was probable cause his computers were "used as the means of committing a felony."
Those beliefs stem from the fact that Gizmodo's parent company, Gawker Media, openly admitted that it paid $5,000 to obtain the iPhone prototype from a man who claimed he found it at a California bar after it was left their by an Apple baseband engineer who was field testing the device.
The employee frantically searched for the device, calling the bar multiple times to see if it had been returned, but the owner of the bar said no one ever contacted him to say they had found an iPhone. Gizmodo claimed that the person who found the phone attempted to call Apple and did not receive a response.
A full inventory of the material seized from Chen's home included a MacBook, MacBook Pro, 32GB iPad, 16GB iPhone, an AirPort Extreme, IBM ThinkPad, a Dell desktop, external hard drives, and American Express credit card bills. The items were removed from numerous rooms in his home.
Gawker has since argued that by executing the search warrant, the REACT task force was in violation of California's shield law, which was designed to protect journalists from being forced to turn over their sources.
What kind of lawless place is California? Stuck in the Wild, Wild West mentality? Shoot first, ask questions later?
I'm shocked by what happened. In Canada, the search warrant would be illegal and open the door to civil damages as showing no cause for breaching the constitutional right to privacy.
Let me explain. First, a criminal offence must be proven or probable cause that a crime was committed must be shown before a search warrant is issued. Second, theft has never been proven nor alleged. Finding lost property never constitutes theft.
It never is a criminal offence to find lost property.
In Canada, policemen cannot search a home in the hope of finding evidence of criminal offences. Policemen must establish probable cause that a crime was committed before they can be issued a search and seizure warrant. Here, no proof was ever offered before the warrant was issued.
I thank God (for the first time!) that Canadians are protected against such abuse of power. Corrupt or unqualified judges are not acceptable in Canada.
My strong advice to Jason Chen: Seek legal advice from the lawyers working for the American Civil Liberties Association and SUE for damages and unlawful breach of your civil rights of privacy and protection against unlawful search and seizure.
Let me explain. First, a criminal offence must be proven or probable cause that a crime was committed must be shown before a search warrant is issued. Second, theft has never been proven nor alleged. Finding lost property never constitutes theft.
It never is a criminal offence to find lost property.
Going by the story Gizmodo told. The fact the the finder of the phone did not give it to the Police or return the phone to the bar he found it makes it a stolen property. It's actually pretty clear cut.
The only question is, did Jason Chen spend 5 grand just to buy some random iPhone knockoff? or he knew it's a legit stolen iPhone prototype.
this story is just stupid. the engineer should have be more careful with the phone. apple is just throwing a fit like they always do. the phone is out on the internet, apple should just move on and stop acting like a little kid. Gizmodo had all rights to do what he wanted to do with the phone. apple got it back anyways
Freedom of speech. First amendment, gone.
It's always about the bottom line, from Iraq to the white house and everything inbetween.
Especially lobbiest.
We gothrough sll this while most of the products are made in china yet over there is where they CLONE everything, yet we never hear aboutthat now do we and Apple continues todo business with them, a communist country.
[QUOTE=Avidfcp;1621655]Freedom of speech. First amendment, gone. /QUOTE]
I really wish people would learn to THINK before posting drivel like that.
The First Amendment is just fine. The issue happens to be stolen property, not freedom of the press.
If Chen can convince a court that it IS a journalism issue, he'll get his things back.
But, after all, if it's OK for him to take Apple's property, hold it for weeks, disassemble it, and publish the details for the world to see, it should be OK for the police to do the same to him, right? All we need is for one of the police officers to run a blog on the side and it's perfectly legal, right?
Better yet, if Chen is so sure he's right, then AppleInsider should offer the police $10 for Chen's computers and then AI can publish the contents. As long as AI returns them to Chen when they're done, it should be OK, right?
At least according to the silly Psystar-like arguments being presented here.
They said they did not know it was stolen, that doesn't make it true.
Chances are they knew it was a stolen Apple prototype, and they paid 5 grand for it.
Unfortunately nobody has the right to buy/sell stolen property.
But that doesnt mean its never ok to do just that. Lets say your friend's iPhone got stolen and the next day the thief comes up to you and offers it to you, you immediately recognize it as your friends phone. If you call the police the thief and phone will disappear. So do you do your friend a favor and recoup their phone? or because its illegal to buy stolen property you let get away? If you say yes then you admit that the law isnt cut and dry, black or white, but that it can have gray areas. And in that gray area is where this case is.
What kind of lawless place is California? Stuck in the Wild, Wild West mentality? Shoot first, ask questions later?
I'm shocked by what happened. In Canada, the search warrant would be illegal and open the door to civil damages as showing no cause for breaching the constitutional right to privacy.
Let me explain. First, a criminal offence must be proven or probable cause that a crime was committed must be shown before a search warrant is issued. Second, theft has never been proven nor alleged. Finding lost property never constitutes theft.
It never is a criminal offence to find lost property.
In Canada, policemen cannot search a home in the hope of finding evidence of criminal offences. Policemen must establish probable cause that a crime was committed before they can be issued a search and seizure warrant. Here, no proof was ever offered before the warrant was issued.
I thank God (for the first time!) that Canadians are protected against such abuse of power. Corrupt or unqualified judges are not acceptable in Canada.
My strong advice to Jason Chen: Seek legal advice from the lawyers working for the American Civil Liberties Association and SUE for damages and unlawful breach of your civil rights of privacy and protection against unlawful search and seizure.
You're casually conflating "proof" and "probable cause" throughout this post, but they're not the same thing (not even in Canada, I would think).
"Proof" is a matter for seeking a conviction, once charges are brought. "Probable cause" is what's in play here, and there was indeed probable cause to believe that Chen was in receipt of stolen property, in that he had written extensively about that property, having gone so far as to disassemble it.
You may take issue with the notion that found property over a certain value becomes stolen, if the finding party fails to make a reasonable effort to return that property to its owner. But I suspect that Canadian law makes at least some acknowledgement that anyone that discovers a diamond engagement ring lying on the street isn't automatically given full ownership, free and clear-- despite your claims.
But that doesnt mean its never ok to do just that. Lets say your friend's iPhone got stolen and the next day the thief comes up to you and offers it to you, you immediately recognize it as your friends phone. If you call the police the thief and phone will disappear. So do you do your friend a favor and recoup their phone? or because its illegal to buy stolen property you let get away? If you say yes then you admit that the law isnt cut and dry, black or white, but that it can have gray areas. And in that gray area is where this case is.
That is total BS. Gizmodo didn't spend the money to try to recover Apple's phone. It was absolutely clear (the payment they offered months ago, the high price they paid, the fact that they disassembled it and published the details, the fact that they knew from the start how to get in touch with the owner, the fact that they waited so long to return it, the fact that they insisted on a letter from Apple legal before returning it, and so on) that Gizmodo purchased the phone knowing it was stolen property with the intention of getting a scoop on everyone else.
Please stop with this 'Gizmodo was simply trying to recover Apple's phone as a favor to Apple' nonsense.
Let's not forget that the phone was bricked. It doesn't look like any iPhone on the market. The only way to determine if it's really Apple's and not some kind of knock-off is to take it apart.
Let's not forget that the phone was bricked. It doesn't look like any iPhone on the market. The only way to determine if it's really Apple's and not some kind of knock-off is to take it apart.
That is, of course, nonsense.
They knew the name of the owner and his facebook page. They knew with 100% certainty that it was Apple's phone - as evidenced by their willingness to pay $5 K - and the fact that the seller apparently told a number of sites that it was a prototype Apple phone. Furthermore, their story is that the person they bought it from SAID it was a prototype Apple phone.
Pretending that they didn't know it was an Apple phone is total BS.
But that doesnt mean its never ok to do just that. Lets say your friend's iPhone got stolen and the next day the thief comes up to you and offers it to you, you immediately recognize it as your friends phone. If you call the police the thief and phone will disappear. So do you do your friend a favor and recoup their phone? or because its illegal to buy stolen property you let get away? If you say yes then you admit that the law isnt cut and dry, black or white, but that it can have gray areas. And in that gray area is where this case is.
And in the process your friend take apart your phone, take pictures of it, put it up on a blog, then put it back together...
Taking Apple out of the equation-has anyone thought about the cost of this task force and how well they are doing convicting people?
1) 2.3 billon in 2009 to fund Task Force, yielded-102 investigations, 28 arrests and 12 convictions.
2) That is 17.9 million per investigation, 82 million/arrest, and 192 million/conviction. This is how CA spends its money? You have got to be kidding me.
The percentages don't add up to have this task force operating at all, unless companies are funding the task force and are using them as they're personal police force. Which I suspect Apple, Google, and Adobe is. Pretty hard to get a search warrant on the public when you are a private company isn't it?
3) Percentages- 27% of the investigations led to an arrest and only 42% of the arrests led to a conviction. If that happened in a business it would be bankrupt in months.
Yeah, because we know how well businesses and banks are run ....
This actually is how ALL law enforcement looks from the financial end. We pay alot of people top dollar to deal with the 5% of the population that does the most damage. This has nothing to do with government or California budgets - this is the price you pay for a free society that gives rights to people and money to police.
Think of how much it costs to imprison someone, execute someone, pay for investigating Goldman Sachs and the rest ... not to mention the occasional invasion of a third world country.
A 42% conviction rate is actually pretty good. You just never had to read about it before.
You're casually conflating "proof" and "probable cause" throughout this post, but they're not the same thing (not even in Canada, I would think).
"Proof" is a matter for seeking a conviction, once charges are brought. "Probable cause" is what's in play here, and there was indeed probable cause to believe that Chen was in receipt of stolen property, in that he had written extensively about that property, having gone so far as to disassemble it.
You may take issue with the notion that found property over a certain value becomes stolen, if the finding party fails to make a reasonable effort to return that property to its owner. But I suspect that Canadian law makes at least some acknowledgement that anyone that discovers a diamond engagement ring lying on the street isn't automatically given full ownership, free and clear-- despite your claims.
True but does a SWAT team show up to deal when there is "probable cause" in a stolen ring?! No one disputes police investigations, the point is "unreasonable search and seizure" which is in the Constitution. Now I don't know the details; this article is not comprehensive and intellectual property is a little different than real property, like a ring. But maybe there needs to be a reality check and adequate court oversight when someone finds a lost cell phone in a bar.
Comments
Also, where is AI getting its R.E.A.C.T funding figures?
I downloaded a PDF of the 2008 annual report of the California high tech crimes task force, the umbrella organization for R.E.A.C.T and a bunch of other state cyber-crime task forces. The relevant passage:
It's a typo on AI's part. Their source is Marketwatch (linked in the article) who states $2.3M, not billion.
It's a typo on AI's part. Their source is Marketwatch (linked in the article) who states $2.3M, not billion.
What I figured. The people getting exercised over the cost per conviction figures can probably relax (and it's worth noting that this same task force is credited with recovering billions in funds and property).
Probably would have been easier to follow the link in the story rather than hunt stuff down myself....
What I figured. The people getting exercised over the cost per conviction figures can probably relax (and it's worth noting that this same task force is credited with recovering billions in funds and property).
Well nobody seemed interested in confronting their bias by checking the link. Good eye!
Significant difference, don't you think?
Well nobody seemed interested in confronting their bias by checking the link. Good eye!
Significant difference, don't you think?
Yeah, I'd say so. California may have a reputation for lavish spending, but billions for a multi-county cyber-crime task force struck me as unlikely.
...after it was left their by an Apple baseband engineer...
There, their and they're are all different words with different meanings. Do people proofread or just use spell check these days?
On Friday, the REACT task force executed a warrant to search the home and car of Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen, who had possession of the iPhone prototype before it was returned to Apple, and who was responsible for the gadget blogs breaking stories on the device.
Chen said he and his wife came back home from dinner around 9:45 p.m. when they noticed their garage door was half-open. When he tried to open the door, officers searched him and informed him that his property was under their control.
Chen's front door was reportedly broken open so the authorities could enter, and those on the scene informed him that he could be reimbursed for the damage. He was provided with a copy of the warrant, which stated that there was probable cause his computers were "used as the means of committing a felony."
Those beliefs stem from the fact that Gizmodo's parent company, Gawker Media, openly admitted that it paid $5,000 to obtain the iPhone prototype from a man who claimed he found it at a California bar after it was left their by an Apple baseband engineer who was field testing the device.
The employee frantically searched for the device, calling the bar multiple times to see if it had been returned, but the owner of the bar said no one ever contacted him to say they had found an iPhone. Gizmodo claimed that the person who found the phone attempted to call Apple and did not receive a response.
A full inventory of the material seized from Chen's home included a MacBook, MacBook Pro, 32GB iPad, 16GB iPhone, an AirPort Extreme, IBM ThinkPad, a Dell desktop, external hard drives, and American Express credit card bills. The items were removed from numerous rooms in his home.
Gawker has since argued that by executing the search warrant, the REACT task force was in violation of California's shield law, which was designed to protect journalists from being forced to turn over their sources.
What kind of lawless place is California? Stuck in the Wild, Wild West mentality? Shoot first, ask questions later?
I'm shocked by what happened. In Canada, the search warrant would be illegal and open the door to civil damages as showing no cause for breaching the constitutional right to privacy.
Let me explain. First, a criminal offence must be proven or probable cause that a crime was committed must be shown before a search warrant is issued. Second, theft has never been proven nor alleged. Finding lost property never constitutes theft.
It never is a criminal offence to find lost property.
In Canada, policemen cannot search a home in the hope of finding evidence of criminal offences. Policemen must establish probable cause that a crime was committed before they can be issued a search and seizure warrant. Here, no proof was ever offered before the warrant was issued.
I thank God (for the first time!) that Canadians are protected against such abuse of power. Corrupt or unqualified judges are not acceptable in Canada.
My strong advice to Jason Chen: Seek legal advice from the lawyers working for the American Civil Liberties Association and SUE for damages and unlawful breach of your civil rights of privacy and protection against unlawful search and seizure.
Let me explain. First, a criminal offence must be proven or probable cause that a crime was committed must be shown before a search warrant is issued. Second, theft has never been proven nor alleged. Finding lost property never constitutes theft.
It never is a criminal offence to find lost property.
Going by the story Gizmodo told. The fact the the finder of the phone did not give it to the Police or return the phone to the bar he found it makes it a stolen property. It's actually pretty clear cut.
The only question is, did Jason Chen spend 5 grand just to buy some random iPhone knockoff? or he knew it's a legit stolen iPhone prototype.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...paid-iphone-4g
If Apple sold microchip implants that you would use to make payments, and they could track your location with it, would you buy it?
I think you are talking about Google there.
this story is just stupid. the engineer should have be more careful with the phone. apple is just throwing a fit like they always do. the phone is out on the internet, apple should just move on and stop acting like a little kid. Gizmodo had all rights to do what he wanted to do with the phone. apple got it back anyways
Freedom of speech. First amendment, gone.
It's always about the bottom line, from Iraq to the white house and everything inbetween.
Especially lobbiest.
We gothrough sll this while most of the products are made in china yet over there is where they CLONE everything, yet we never hear aboutthat now do we and Apple continues todo business with them, a communist country.
Go figure!
I really wish people would learn to THINK before posting drivel like that.
The First Amendment is just fine. The issue happens to be stolen property, not freedom of the press.
If Chen can convince a court that it IS a journalism issue, he'll get his things back.
But, after all, if it's OK for him to take Apple's property, hold it for weeks, disassemble it, and publish the details for the world to see, it should be OK for the police to do the same to him, right? All we need is for one of the police officers to run a blog on the side and it's perfectly legal, right?
Better yet, if Chen is so sure he's right, then AppleInsider should offer the police $10 for Chen's computers and then AI can publish the contents. As long as AI returns them to Chen when they're done, it should be OK, right?
At least according to the silly Psystar-like arguments being presented here.
They said they did not know it was stolen, that doesn't make it true.
Chances are they knew it was a stolen Apple prototype, and they paid 5 grand for it.
Unfortunately nobody has the right to buy/sell stolen property.
But that doesnt mean its never ok to do just that. Lets say your friend's iPhone got stolen and the next day the thief comes up to you and offers it to you, you immediately recognize it as your friends phone. If you call the police the thief and phone will disappear. So do you do your friend a favor and recoup their phone? or because its illegal to buy stolen property you let get away? If you say yes then you admit that the law isnt cut and dry, black or white, but that it can have gray areas. And in that gray area is where this case is.
What kind of lawless place is California? Stuck in the Wild, Wild West mentality? Shoot first, ask questions later?
I'm shocked by what happened. In Canada, the search warrant would be illegal and open the door to civil damages as showing no cause for breaching the constitutional right to privacy.
Let me explain. First, a criminal offence must be proven or probable cause that a crime was committed must be shown before a search warrant is issued. Second, theft has never been proven nor alleged. Finding lost property never constitutes theft.
It never is a criminal offence to find lost property.
In Canada, policemen cannot search a home in the hope of finding evidence of criminal offences. Policemen must establish probable cause that a crime was committed before they can be issued a search and seizure warrant. Here, no proof was ever offered before the warrant was issued.
I thank God (for the first time!) that Canadians are protected against such abuse of power. Corrupt or unqualified judges are not acceptable in Canada.
My strong advice to Jason Chen: Seek legal advice from the lawyers working for the American Civil Liberties Association and SUE for damages and unlawful breach of your civil rights of privacy and protection against unlawful search and seizure.
You're casually conflating "proof" and "probable cause" throughout this post, but they're not the same thing (not even in Canada, I would think).
"Proof" is a matter for seeking a conviction, once charges are brought. "Probable cause" is what's in play here, and there was indeed probable cause to believe that Chen was in receipt of stolen property, in that he had written extensively about that property, having gone so far as to disassemble it.
You may take issue with the notion that found property over a certain value becomes stolen, if the finding party fails to make a reasonable effort to return that property to its owner. But I suspect that Canadian law makes at least some acknowledgement that anyone that discovers a diamond engagement ring lying on the street isn't automatically given full ownership, free and clear-- despite your claims.
But that doesnt mean its never ok to do just that. Lets say your friend's iPhone got stolen and the next day the thief comes up to you and offers it to you, you immediately recognize it as your friends phone. If you call the police the thief and phone will disappear. So do you do your friend a favor and recoup their phone? or because its illegal to buy stolen property you let get away? If you say yes then you admit that the law isnt cut and dry, black or white, but that it can have gray areas. And in that gray area is where this case is.
That is total BS. Gizmodo didn't spend the money to try to recover Apple's phone. It was absolutely clear (the payment they offered months ago, the high price they paid, the fact that they disassembled it and published the details, the fact that they knew from the start how to get in touch with the owner, the fact that they waited so long to return it, the fact that they insisted on a letter from Apple legal before returning it, and so on) that Gizmodo purchased the phone knowing it was stolen property with the intention of getting a scoop on everyone else.
Please stop with this 'Gizmodo was simply trying to recover Apple's phone as a favor to Apple' nonsense.
Time to visit the optician. Read it again.
Where does it say that Apple was even involved in the raid, never mind your complicity claim.
Not ok.
Let's not forget that the phone was bricked. It doesn't look like any iPhone on the market. The only way to determine if it's really Apple's and not some kind of knock-off is to take it apart.
That is, of course, nonsense.
They knew the name of the owner and his facebook page. They knew with 100% certainty that it was Apple's phone - as evidenced by their willingness to pay $5 K - and the fact that the seller apparently told a number of sites that it was a prototype Apple phone. Furthermore, their story is that the person they bought it from SAID it was a prototype Apple phone.
Pretending that they didn't know it was an Apple phone is total BS.
But that doesnt mean its never ok to do just that. Lets say your friend's iPhone got stolen and the next day the thief comes up to you and offers it to you, you immediately recognize it as your friends phone. If you call the police the thief and phone will disappear. So do you do your friend a favor and recoup their phone? or because its illegal to buy stolen property you let get away? If you say yes then you admit that the law isnt cut and dry, black or white, but that it can have gray areas. And in that gray area is where this case is.
And in the process your friend take apart your phone, take pictures of it, put it up on a blog, then put it back together...
Taking Apple out of the equation-has anyone thought about the cost of this task force and how well they are doing convicting people?
1) 2.3 billon in 2009 to fund Task Force, yielded-102 investigations, 28 arrests and 12 convictions.
2) That is 17.9 million per investigation, 82 million/arrest, and 192 million/conviction. This is how CA spends its money? You have got to be kidding me.
The percentages don't add up to have this task force operating at all, unless companies are funding the task force and are using them as they're personal police force. Which I suspect Apple, Google, and Adobe is. Pretty hard to get a search warrant on the public when you are a private company isn't it?
3) Percentages- 27% of the investigations led to an arrest and only 42% of the arrests led to a conviction. If that happened in a business it would be bankrupt in months.
Yeah, because we know how well businesses and banks are run ....
This actually is how ALL law enforcement looks from the financial end. We pay alot of people top dollar to deal with the 5% of the population that does the most damage. This has nothing to do with government or California budgets - this is the price you pay for a free society that gives rights to people and money to police.
Think of how much it costs to imprison someone, execute someone, pay for investigating Goldman Sachs and the rest ... not to mention the occasional invasion of a third world country.
A 42% conviction rate is actually pretty good. You just never had to read about it before.
You're casually conflating "proof" and "probable cause" throughout this post, but they're not the same thing (not even in Canada, I would think).
"Proof" is a matter for seeking a conviction, once charges are brought. "Probable cause" is what's in play here, and there was indeed probable cause to believe that Chen was in receipt of stolen property, in that he had written extensively about that property, having gone so far as to disassemble it.
You may take issue with the notion that found property over a certain value becomes stolen, if the finding party fails to make a reasonable effort to return that property to its owner. But I suspect that Canadian law makes at least some acknowledgement that anyone that discovers a diamond engagement ring lying on the street isn't automatically given full ownership, free and clear-- despite your claims.
True but does a SWAT team show up to deal when there is "probable cause" in a stolen ring?! No one disputes police investigations, the point is "unreasonable search and seizure" which is in the Constitution. Now I don't know the details; this article is not comprehensive and intellectual property is a little different than real property, like a ring. But maybe there needs to be a reality check and adequate court oversight when someone finds a lost cell phone in a bar.