Yeah, this story is definitely burying the lede.

The author installed software on computers in Apple Stores, without Apple's permission. That software took photos of visitors to the apple store, and transmitted it to the author.

Definitely shady activity, and when the information about how the author got the photos - is entirely unsurprising that they were raided.

the FOIA documents paint a different picture than the blog.

> The author installed software on computers in Apple Stores, without Apple's permission

They had at least some level of permission:

> I saw people taking pictures inside all the time, so I just had to double check with an employee.

[...]

> We got situated in the store, double checked with an employee that it was ok to shoot video, and I triggered the slideshow

> I saw people taking pictures inside all the time, so I just had to double check with an employee.

This "permission" he gets is _extremely_ vague. For all we know he could have asked "hey can I take pictures in the store" and a part-time associate said yes because that's the general policy.

Hence the "at least some level". Although the fact that he was on-site for the demonstration and was allowed to walk out without even a "hey, what the hell?" would seem to indicate that the employees had at least some understanding of what was going on.

The details are vague, maybe on part of it happening so long ago. From just the text it sounds like they didn't get explicit permission from the store manager, and it didn't exactly sound like they made it known that they were the ones doing it. It all depends on who and how he gave that 'can i shoot video' question and if they knew the extent. It's also not like floor staff are constantly watching those machines - if people could just hit escape to get out of the slideshow, they might have just thought they accidentally opened the camera/photos app and wouldn't have immediately alerted an employee to the weirdness.

I think it's clear that it was done with a sense of "it's legal so i'm going to do it" even if that wasn't verified nor approved by anyone.

he definitely wasn't honest about the extent of what he did - that isn't 'some level of permission' it's lying to an apple employee.

Is there a statement from one of the involved employees that wasn't covered in the blog or is this pure speculation?

Extrapolation from the way the article skirts making this explicit?

read the FOIA documents - it is pretty clear he misled the employee

this was about videoing the live reactions of people within the store at the time of the slideshow 'exhibition', not about installing the software/taking the webcam pictures

That's the second quote, the first quote was about the software installation.

Also, an employee is not one who can give permission for that, at most he/she can explain what is allowed/not allowed.

Like, just because a (potentially misinformed) McDonald’s employee told you, that you can eat your own food at the place doesn’t mean it is actually the rule of the place. And on top of that, in this situation it was even illegal.

No charges were ever filled here.

Ethics != legality

The grandparent comment explicitly mentioned legality.

That's a different distinction.

reading through the FOIA document, LEO was very clear about which laws were broken.

A charge being filed is a formal process in the legal system that has specific implications.

In this instance, while a search warrant was executed, no charges were filed.

I'm not claiming charges were filed. I'm claiming (and the docs claim) laws were broken.