There are a couple of really important angles here that I failed to mention, and I'm kicking myself for that failure.....
Any smartphone is likely to have sensitive personal data on it, if nothing other than contacts. And it's likely that a smartphone such as an iPhone will have sensitive data beyond contacts, possibly including MSU-sensitive data (or that for another enterprise).
Obviously it's not a good practice to keep such data on a smartphone -- I'm just saying it's likely that it'll have it.
So if you think about it, it's probably NEVER a good practice to give a smartphone, or any other handheld data pail, to a random person.
I do not say this to pick on David, whose instincts were obviously civic.... This is stuff that doesn't occur to you (or me) at first blush.
A couple of years ago my colleague Davin Granroth and I found a USB thumb drive in a microlab, no label, no way to identify. We started to plug it into a lab computer, but then we realized we might see stuff on the drive that was private. We instead left a note telling the owner to please come to the closest lost and found.
It is also dangerous to plug a random USB drive into a computer, especially if you are running on a Windows admin account.
/rich
On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 1:37 PM, Richard Wiggins
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
The owner might benefit to have it back, in case they had phone insurance. I believe the MSU Union building is still the best central campus lost and found.
Or, if you wanted to go way above the call of duty, take it to an AT&T store and see if they could look up the owner using the serial number.
/rich
PS -- well, I suppose it's possible the owner ditched it iPhone in favor of a newer model from LG. :-)
On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 1:28 PM, David McFarlane
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Anyone have any use for a broken iPhone? I found one cracked open on the sidewalk while biking in this afternoon, let me know and I can send it through campus mail.
-- dkm