Man Who Found (and Sold) Lost iPhone 4 Prototype Talks to Reddit

A few years ago, an Apple employee famously lost an unreleased iPhone 4 in a California bar, and a 21-year-old man named Brian Hogan found that device and sold it to Gizmodo. Hogan has been out of the spotlight since then, but he resurfaced on Reddit last night to answer questions about the incident.

Logging on as "bphone4_ama" and posting a picture of his current image to prove his identity, Hogan began by recapping the general story of how he found the device and what happened afterward, just before the legal problems arose. Now that a good deal of time has passed since the widely reported iPhone saga, Hogan said, "I rarely talk about topic with people, but my conscience is clear, I'm over the embarrassment, and life's too short for some of the guilt I was placing upon myself about it."

For those who may have missed the fireworks surrounding the story at the time, much of the controversy centered on the issue of whether Hogan was wrong to sell access to the lost iPhone to Gizmodo (reportedly for 5,000), and whether the site was wrong for offering money for it in the first place. Since then, a number of debates regarding Gizmodo's "paycheck journalism" approach and Hogan's decision making have taken place in the public sphere, but ultimately the website and writer avoided indictment by authorities and Hogan was given a $125 fine, 40 hours of community service, and one year of probation.

Nevertheless, the ordeal had a profound impact on Hogan who, in response to a question of whether he regretted taking the iPhone, said, "Short answer is yes definitely. I also regret how I handled the situation from an early stage, I let it get completely out of my hands and into everyone else's."

"Part of the reason why I though what I was doing was ok was that my ex-girlfriend's sister's boyfriend worked at Facebook, and he told me that there were whole divisions of companies like Samsung who wanted information like this," he continued.

Interestingly, Hogan shed some light on the employee (Apple engineer Grey Powell) who originally lost the iPhone. "I found out two days ago that he got fired, but then rehired," Hogan said. "I had always been under the impression that he wasn't fired, but in telling my story to another Apple employee on Sunday, he told me that he was fired because of it. I really felt bad when I heard that."

As for his views on Apple, Hogan, who says he currently uses a Samsung Galaxy S III , said, "At first I tried to demonize Apple any way I could to make myself feel better, but now I don't use that experience as an excuse to hate the company. I think their manufacturing chain is much more unethical than how they handled the situation with me."

You can read the full question and answer session on Reddit.