The iPhone 4 Leaker Goes Public, Shares His Regrets on Reddit

A few years after being the center of media attention, Brian Hogan — known as the guy who found the iPhone 4 in a bar and sold it to Gizmodo — has decided to finally go public and share his story about how he ended up with the handset in his hands, how much money he made and what were the consequences.

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The latest Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) featured Brian, who was 21 when it happened. He opened up the discussion by divulging how he ended up in possession of the phone.

When I was 21 I was at a bar pretty late at night with 2 friends. After the last call both of my friends went to the bathroom, as they left a random drunk guy came out, walked up to me, picked up the phone on the bar stool next to me, and said don’t forget your phone! I told him it wasn’t mine and I didn’t know who it belonged to. Random drunk guy hands me the phone and tasks me with finding its owner. I ask around and cant figure out who it belongs to, and after my friends returned we left and walked home having intentions of figuring out who the phone belonged to and giving it back.
The next day I woke up and actually forgot that I had the phone at first, then went about trying to figure out who it belonged to. I checked Craigslist, then started looking at the actual phone for clues. First I noticed that the screen looked like it had a higher resolution than any iPhone I had seen, then that the case had plastic pieces/buttons in strange places. When I took the case off I found an iPhone with a flat back, flat edges, and a forward facing camera. There were two bar code stickers on the back, and there were a series of x’s instead of a serial number. I was very curious/excited at this point, but I had no idea what I had.

Next, he and his friend contacted several tech blogs. The guys from Gizmodo seemed interested in the device and they promised serious money to Brian to show it: $5,000 and another $3,000 if Apple confirmed it was real.

However, Brian is full of regrets. He says he never received the money from Gizmodo, and due to the media buzz, the relationship between him and his girlfriend fell under stress. Also, he ended up hiring an expensive lawyer which cost him more than $5,000.

Gizmodo told me they would give me $5,000 for the story, and another $3,000 after it was confirmed by Apple to be real. They knew that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to ask for the $3,000 after the story aired, but I didn’t. I ended up having to hire and expensive lawyer and had to pay him much much more than $5,000.

You can read the full discussion on Reddit by following this link.

[Via The Next Web]

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