Mark D. Rasch:
I don’t know what the sentence could be, but it could be significant as they’re going to say what he stole wasn’t something worth $150 or $400, it wasn’t even worth $5,000, but they’re going to say it’s worth the entire development cost of the iPhone prototype, which could cost tens of millions of dollars.
I also love this quote when asked if he had ever worked on a similar case:
There was a case I worked on many years ago in which a Soviet pilot defected to Tokyo and under the law he was granted asylum. The Soviets wanted their Mig25 plane back, but we had never seen a Mig25 before. So we and the Japanese had to return it because it was the property of the Soviet Union. But before it was sent back, it was taken apart, every piece measured, every piece replicated and put back together and then returned. Did we steal it? No. We returned it.
The really interesting point here is not who will be found right, but rather who will wave the white flag first. This is going to be expensive for Gizmodo, and Apple. I tend to think that Apple is the only one who can afford it.