plain and simple.

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Guest wrote:
plain and simple.

Someone who knew the back room layout and how to navigate there via the ceiling crawl space.

No wait a minute! It was in Seattle not far from Redmond and even closer to the Bill Gates mansion. Look for these items to appear in the iPod amnesty bin at MicroSoft

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Guest wrote:
Inside job

Punching a hole through the ceiling?

You don't think a non-apple employee knows how to do that?

This sentence is calling out for a hyphen between "break" and "in":

Their computers were stolen during a break
in some time before the store opened for the day.

So they took old and possibly defective computers and iPhones, instead of new?

And just a word to the wise to everyone else out there--make sure the area you want secure has PLYWOOD (not sheet rock) going ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CEILING JOISTS/DECK (not to just above the suspended ceiling. Bad construction on Apple's part, as this is a well-known point of entry for thieves.

I want a simple bit of software on my iPhone that detects someone picking it up and not unlocking it within a few seconds and then starts beeping, shouting at him, calling me and putting me on speakerphone, and taking pictures and emailing them home!

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farmboy wrote:
So they took old and possibly defective computers and iPhones, instead of new?

If you try and sell new Macs, that could and should arouse suspicion. However you could offer to sell a used a Mac without garnering too much attention. Especially around a university where there are always students pawning stuff.

There is another problem. Personal identity on these stolen Macs, providing they can be booted.

Mark down my posting date and jop your draws in awe when the truth is revealed. This was done by a customer, or at his behest. Dollars to donuts, friends... Someone brought their laptop into the genius bar for what he thought was an easy repair. Genius tells him it needs to go to their tech and would be ready in the morning. Customer knows he has "inappropriate content" on his lapper, but doesn't want to act too suspicious, consents to having genius take it in for repairs. Maybe customer gets a call from tech that really scares him. Tech probably has no idea about what's on the lapper. Customer freaks out, desperately tries to rescue the evidence, takes other computers with him because either he doesn't want to arouse suspicion or can't figure out which one is his.

And the final part of my theory... Customer is 50 something, mostly bald, Nordic or German, maybe looks kinda like the late Jef Raskin. Money in the bank people. Count on it.

One last thing... The last thing a computer repair business or technician wants to do is find child porn or the like on a computer they are tasked to repair. They are obligated to report it and cooperate with authorities and they don't get paid for the headache. You can bet that if a company like Apple doesn't have repair and data handling procedures in place to minimize the likelihood of finding that stuff (or otherwise breaching data security), the techs do.

If it were an inside job the people involved would have had the code to the stock room door and could have made off with a lot more.

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Guest wrote:
plain and simple.

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Guest wrote:
If it were an inside job the people involved would have had the code to the stock room door and could have made off with a lot more.

If it was a store employee they probably would have wanted to make it look like an outside job so that they wouldn't be questioned. It doesn't work, I have no doubt that detectives are questioning current and former employees.

What happens when you first boot up a new Mac? It prompts you to register the computer with Apple. So you buy a new Mac from some guy in a parking lot. When the serial number is registered it is flagged as having been stolen from an Apple Store. If you have registered your real address, expect a visit. You could decline registering or give bogus information, but if you didn't know the Mac was stolen you wouldn't do that.

Sure it is a real possibility that someone "outside" cased the store and figured where was the storeroom. Bosco's suggestion isn't all that far fetched either.

... this happened at the Seattle store, right? Even money says it was a new form of Microsoft "research and development".

No, wait, it couldn't be Microsoft. If it had been, they'd have busted through the door with a flying chair.

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tbone1 wrote:
... this happened at the Seattle store, right? Even money says it was a new form of Microsoft "research and development".

No, wait, it couldn't be Microsoft. If it had been, they'd have busted through the door with a flying chair.

MicroSoft wouldn't have used a "flying chair." That would have crashed before getting the job done, if it would even have gotten off the ground. Besides the pilot, not the chair, would be the one breaking the window. I have a vision of Ballmer in a flying chair heading for the "window" as he screams "Developers!, Developers!"

Now a sack of unsold Zunes, that could have broken the window.