Boycott Apple. Boycott Everyone.
When Apple dispatched California's Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team to conduct a literal door-busting raid on Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's house to confiscate his computers and many other items, the general response should have been outrage. But what really happened? A whole lot of shrugging, and a lot of "he stole Apple's property so he deserved what he got" comments. No wonder corporate abuses are so rampant-- they get away with it. With ease.
Let's review the sequence of events:
* On March 18, Apple software engineer Gray Powell was "field testing" the iPhone 4G prototype at the Gourmet Haus Staudt, a popular beer joint. It was Mr. Powell's birthday, and he posted a Facebook update from the prototype: "I underestimated how good German beer is." He left the phone at the bar and went home
* Brian J. Hogan found the phone and took it home. The phone was remotely de-activated soon after Mr. Hogan came into possession of it
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Anyone remember Dmitry Sklyarov?
He was a Russian PhD student who created software that enabled people to remove the DRM from Adobe ebooks. He came to the US in July, 2001, to give a presentation at the DEFCON convention and got arrested by the FBI for violating the DMCA, presumably at Adobe's behest, before he could return to Russia. He spent approximately 3 weeks in jail and wasn't allowed to leave the US for another 4 months. He had a family he left behind. The DMCA obviously isn't a Russian law.
Now that was utterly insane.
In a country where the police taze children, law enforcement has to do something really outrageous before it draws much attention. In this case, Gizmodo made a business decision to spend $5K on what was essentially stolen property in order to get an exclusive (and they also ID'd the poor schmuck who lost the phone). It paid off, generating millions of page hits and lots of buzz. Now that they face some consequences, it's hard to feel sorry for them.
Also, Apple's got a history of going to absurd lengths to protect its intellectual property. This one does take the cake, though.