FC: Bizarre: MS sends wrong box out, starts criminal investigation

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

***********

> Date: Sun, 19 Dec 1999 13:28:22 -0500
> From: [anonymized]
> Subject:  bizarre ms story
>
> so lets see whats wrong with the story? MS fucks up and sends the 
> wrong box out. they they make up a story about a non-existent theft 
> to get the NYPD to retrieve the box from a poor elderly couple on NY 
> upper east side (a well known hangout of high tech thieves) that was 
> never stolen and these clueless reporters buy it. How about a story 
> about MS abusing power by falsifying a police report to cover up 
> corporate incompetence?
>
> -d
>
>       Posted at 9:51 p.m. PST Friday, December 17, 1999 
>
> NYPD steps in to retrieve WebTV box
>
> BY NOAM LEVEY AND CECILIA KANG
> Mercury News Staff Writers
> The box marked WebTV in Microsoft Corp.'s Mountain View mail room 
> probably looked like the perfect gift, a new toy worth a couple 
> hundred dollars that no one would miss.
> But it was no ordinary box. After it disappeared last week, police 
> investigators were told it held a prototype machine worth a million 
> dollars. And Microsoft wanted it back.
> They'll get it. A cross-country hunt for the missing piece of 
> high-tech wizardry found it Friday in the Manhattan home of a man who 
> thought he had just received a great Hanukkah present.
> Microsoft officials, who feared that their next-generation technology 
> had been filched by high-tech rivals, can breathe a little easier.
> Investigators believe the thief didn't even know what he was stealing.
> Microsoft's current generation of WebTV boxes, which sit on top of 
> the TV and allow users to surf the Internet from their televisions, 
> sell for about $200 at most retailers. But the VCR-sized box that 
> disappeared could be worth millions, said detective Ted Rodgers, who 
> worked the case out of Mountain View.
> ``It's like any new technology out there,'' Rodgers said. ``It could 
> be the next big thing, and if it's the next big thing and sells, it 
> will generate millions. Or it could flop.''
> Microsoft spokeswoman Pam Kahl would say only that the missing item 
> was ``a very valuable box from a Microsoft perspective.''
> According to police, someone with access to the mail room at 
> Microsoft's WebTV facility in Mountain View changed the address label 
> on the WebTV box last week and rerouted it from Redmond, Wash., to 
> New York City.
> The alarm bells went off when workers at Microsoft's Redmond 
> headquarters received only the cord that was supposed to connect to 
> the box.
> Searching through United Parcel Service shipping records left by the 
> unwitting thief, investigators learned that the missing machine was 
> shipped to East 96th Street in Manhattan, and Thursday afternoon, 
> Mountain View police alerted their counterparts at the New York 
> Police Department.
> Investigators from the city's Computer Investigation and Technology 
> unit swept in and confronted an unsuspecting Scott Posner, who told 
> police he had just given the box to his father, who lived 10 blocks 
> south.
> Samuel Posner hadn't even unpacked it. He handed it over without 
> incident, according to New York police.
> Rodgers, who also works on Silicon Valley's high-tech crime task 
> force, said the Posners did not say who sent the special gift.
> But he said investigators are confident this was not high-tech espionage.
> ``It was just a really stupid theft,'' Rodgers said. ``There is no 
> indication there was any kind of conspiracy to steal WebTV 
> technology.''
> Police are continuing their investigation. There have been no arrests.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Contact Noam Levey at nlevey () sjmercury com or (650) 688-7577. Contact 
> Cecilia Kang at ckang () sjmercury com or (650) 920-5066.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------




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