Conference 7.286::digital

    .0�I recently heard of a situation where a reseller purchased used equipment
    .0�from an apparently rightful owner, including CPU boards and built up a
    .0�system for a customer. The customer knew he was buying used equipment.
    .0�The customer then had a problem and sent the board back to Digital for repair.
    .0�Turns out that Digital claimed that board in question was stolen.  Digital
    .0�refused to return the module. Customer and reseller are stuck.
    
    
    This is probably similar to the situation where you pass a counterfeit
    bill. You may not have known anything about it at all but you're
    *still* screwed.
    
    Ken

    The risk of trading _unknowingly_ in stolen goods is endemic to
    anything which is traded on the second-hand (pre-owned) market.  It's
    also true of trading in livestock.
    
    The exceptions that spring to mind are aircraft (excluding spares) and
    large shipping (i.e. not hobby boats) where the requirements of
    registration and/or insurance ensure limit the risk that the item has
    been stolen.
    
    Notice that I didn't exclude vehicles.  There are a number of reported
    court cases of people taking action to recover stolen property from
    someone who has bought in good faith and is left looking at an
    uninsured loss.
    
    The problem of maintaining a register of evrything that's traded like
    this is mind-numbing -- and I'm sure the civil liberties and consumer
    protection people would, separately or jointly, have a riot by
    encouraging all sorts of litigation.
    
    Unless you're a lawyer I would suggest that you either live with, or
    insure against, the risk.

    	The situation would depend on the country. A number of countries
    base this law on English common law, and there, the original owner of
    property is always deemed to own it even after it has been stolen. This
    is what is depicted in .0. DEC is still the rightful owner of the
    property even though it has passed through several hands. The purchaser
    has recourse in civil law from the person he bought it from, and that
    person has in turn recourse from the person he bought it from. In
    principle this chain ends up with the original thief being sued for the
    loss suffered by his customer.
    
    	In Napoleonic law, things bought in good faith belong to the
    purchaser. He can be required to supply the name of his supplier, and
    so on, and eventually the victim of the theft can seek recourse against
    the thief. If the customer described in .0 is in a country with
    Napoleonic law then he is able to insist that he keeps the (faulty)
    board, but cannot insist that DEC repairs it.
    
    	Napoleonic law applies in most of Western Europe. English common
    law practice is generally followed in Britain and the U.S..

  If my understanding is correct, the base noter understands all of that
  or at least it doesn't address his question. His question was:

Question:  Does Digital publish or otherwise make available in electronic
or hard copy form a "hot list" of stolen serial numbers of boards and systems?
Where can one get such a list?

  That is: since Digital obviously knew that the board was stolen, we
  must maintain a list somewhere. It might be a useful service to
  potential buyers (e.g., resellers) if they could determine whether a
  board was on this list before they got stuck with it. This should be
  feasible, and there may even be some benefit to Digital from it.

    
    Sure, (I would guess) that Digital has a list...but how are we supposed
    to catch the person stealing if we publish it?
    

>>>    	Napoleonic law applies in most of Western Europe. English common
>>>    law practice is generally followed in Britain and the U.S..

	The state of Louisiana is one notable exception in the U. S. Their 
state codes are Napoleonic, and they generally ignore the Uniform Commercial 
Code that governs business in the rest of the U. S. DEC has a special set of 
terms and conditions that we have to put in each piece of business we do 
there. We paid an LA. attorney a bundle to write them for us some years ago!

    
    re 3
    
    What you are describing is also possible English law under a lawsuit
    for "detinue" rather than theft. It's defined as "depriving the true
    owner of his (sic) rightful property".
    
    This also originates French law, but predates the Napoleonic code.
    Probably originates from just after 1066.  A detinue action ensures
    that the original owner can try to recover property from a subsequent
    owner, no matter how many times it has changed hands.
    
    This is true for the UK but may not apply in the US.
    
    C.
    

    	A list of that type would have dubious value. I heard of a theft
    ring a few years ago that involved falsification of paperwork by a
    whole chain of DEC employees from the storekeeper to district
    management level. There were some prosecutions of DEC employees, I
    believe. Some of the stuff stolen was stolen a couple of years before
    the ring was detected, and because of the in-house falsification of
    paperwork there is no possibility that it would have appeared on any
    "stolen" list within that couple of years.
    
    	Obviously there are some more straightforward thefts that could
    immediately be put on a list, but I am not sure what percentage of
    theft is straightforward in that sort of way. There is certainly a list
    of some sort, because DEC makes great efforts to track equipment that
    may have been diverted to prohibited countries, and theft is one means
    of diversion.
    
    	In Europe, George Brothers (or his secretary) would know if such a
    list exists and what the policy is for making it available. Outside
    Europe his secretary would be able to give you a suitable name to
    contact.

    I'm pretty sure IBM maintains (or maintained - would anybody want
    to steal one anymore?) a list of the serial numbers of stolen
    Selectric typewriters.  Whenever one got repaired, the number
    was checked.
    
    I would think it would be beneficial to make such lists as public
    as possible. The more readily such a list could be checked, the
    more difficulty a thief would have disposing of stolen property.
    Suppose we had a list of the serial numbers of stolen Digital PCs 
    on Internet; anybody who wanted to buy a used Digital PC could check 
    the list to see if that computer had been reported stolen.
    

Thanks for the replies

As for the distinction between English law and Napoleonic
law, it is very interesting, but, as the lawyers say, moot.  This
happened in the US and not in Lousianna so English law 
applies.  

Re .5 What value publishing the list.

It may not lead to the recovery of already stolen equipment, but
would make DEC hardware much less attractive to steal.  If one
knows that all in the channel who might consider purchasing 
such used equipment will check the serial number against 
a hot list,(a title search analogy in real estate) one 
might steal something else instead of Digital hardware. 

The trick is to have serial numbers marked on the equipment in 
a way that is difficult to remove and forge.  

In addition, it is not necessary to publish for all the world 
a list -- we have the technology to permit a inquiry - is this
particular number listed as stolen or not.  

Again, there must be a list since someone checked against 
something to determine that the board in .0 was indeed stolen.
The question is whether Digital makes such a thing available
to resellers?  Nobody has said use this option
on Estore or VTX XXX or call 1800xxx.  Anybody?

So the implied question is whether this sounds like a good 
idea and who could go about implementing it?

regards,

eric

    
    >happened in the US and not in Lousianna so English law 

    Would be a good trick to have something happen in Louisiana without
    it happening in the US. :-)

    			Alfred

    
    i do not think we track the serial numbers of every board shipped in 
    a system. 
    
    I do not see how we can maintain such list.
    
    

>
>  That is: since Digital obviously knew that the board was stolen, we
>  must maintain a list somewhere. 

One would think/hope that Digital has to prove to someone that the board was
stolen before they can confiscate someone's property.  A transcription error
on someone's part could result in property being taken without just casue or
reason.  I am not saying this happened, but if it did to me, I would have
Digital justify its confiscation.

I had a printer stolen from DEC property that was still in it's box. I 
contacted manufacturing hoping to get the serial n� that was shipped 
against the DECnumber but they don't keep them!

Let's hope nobody steals a whole truck full!

Dave.

    	Not all stolen equipment manufactured by DEC is stolen from DEC.
    Should other legitimate purchasers be able to enter equipment on this
    list? What would DECs responsibility be if asked by a Louisiana
    customer to repair equipment that was reported stolen by a customer in
    Georgia? The Louisiana contract provisions would not apply since the
    customer would not have bought the equipment from DEC.

I know of at least one instance whereby a contract customer reported their
equipment stolen (primarily for contract purposes, I would imagine) to their
local Digital office (or whomever handled contract administration).  These
folks, in turn, notified the CSC which updated their records.  

The equipment later showed up in the form of a problem call to the CSC and 
this info was forwarded to someone (who, I don't know because that's not 
my job).  Presumably, it was then somehow confirmed to have been stolen.

I would imagine this sort of scenario would not be all together uncommon,
though I might be terribly wrong :-(

-Andy

Digital would not publish a list of stolen goods... the liability is too 
great.   What if I bought a piece of equipment, checked it against Digital's
list, didn't find it, and it turned out to be stolen?

Also, one of our most significant competitors today is the used equipment
market.   There is significant risk in buying from this market, and our policy
of not returning stolen property simply (and legally) adds to that risk.
The more risk there is in buying from our competitors, the more likey the 
customer will buy direct from Digital (or authorized resellers).

Makes good business sense not to publish a list.

Bob

>Also, one of our most significant competitors today is the used equipment
>market.   There is significant risk in buying from this market, and our policy
>of not returning stolen property simply (and legally) adds to that risk.
>The more risk there is in buying from our competitors, the more likey the 
>customer will buy direct from Digital (or authorized resellers).

How is maintaining the value of the equipment we have sold been construed 
as a competitor?  When there is a market for used equipment, it makes the 
first purchase more palatable.  No used equipment market implies no value 
to Digital hardware after some short time.

Treating legal owners of our equipment like competitors is what got us into 
all the trouble with our customers a couple years ago.  A viable used 
market increases the value of the new equipment.  How often have you bought 
a car that had no resale value after 2-3 years?

>Makes good business sense not to publish a list.

This is still debatable.

When I bought a Cincinnati Microwave radar detector from a friend and then 
sent it in for repair the called my friend to make sure it had not been 
stolen.  It works for a simple consumer product, it can be made to work for 
commercial goods.

Matt

    	Well, I was writing the note until the telephone line dropped and
    lost half of it.
    
    	The conclusion was roughly: "Who pays for the list?". If it is of
    value when selling our new equipment that we provide a list like this
    then it should be paid for by a "tax" (read increased price) on said
    new equipment. If it is of value to someone buying DEC equipment second
    hand then how much money can we make on maintaining the list and
    selling it, or selling access to it? In either case the IS department
    here is open to new ideas and interested in making money for the
    company.

    	It appears that .19 is only readable by me since I am still writing
    it. I don't know how to fix this, but :-
    
           <<< HUMANE::DISK$DIGITAL:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DIGITAL.NOTE;1 >>>
                        -< The Digital way of working >-
================================================================================
Note 2820.19             List of Hot (Stolen) equipment?                19 of 20
PASTIS::MONAHAN "humanity is a trojan horse"          0 lines  24-DEC-1993 08:30
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    	Maintaining an acknowlegedly incomplete list internaly costs very
    little. Each time something is stolen from DEC a security officer
    enters something in a screen form. Hopefully this is rather rare. If
    more than a tiny percentage of our equipment is stolen before we can
    sell it then this could be an explanation for low stock prices.
    
    	Using such a list has a larger cost. It requires a DEC employee to
    make a database inquiry every time he sees some equipment that
    "belongs" to a customer. The list can be incomplete but still show a
    return on investment in this check. Whether that is the case I don't
    know.
    
    	Publishing the list has even higher costs, even if it is made
    perfectly clear to the purchaser of the list that it contains only
    equipment stolen directly from DEC, and is certainly incomplete even
    

From: [email protected] (UPI)
Subject: Stolen Chagall sparks battle with museum, legal owner
Keywords: collecting, lifestyle, civil proceedings, legal, museums, art
Copyright: 1993 by UPI, R
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 93 10:48:48 PST
Location: new york, new york city

	NEW YORK (UPI) -- A court battle began Monday pitting the Solomon
Guggenheim Museum against the owner of a Marc Chagall painting stolen
from the New York museum in the mid-1960s.
	The current owner, Rachell Lubell, has argued that she should not
have to surrender the watercolor, or its estimated worth of $200,000,
because she and her late husband bought the painting in good faith from
a reputable dealer.
	The case concerns ``Le Marchand de Bestiaux,'' or ``The Cattle
Dealer,'' which was finished in 1912 as a preparatory work for a later
oil painting and is considered by experts a relatively minor work by the
popular artist.
	Because of the possible legal precedents stemming from the court
battle, however, much of the art world is keenly watching the
proceedings.
	The painting was stolen sometime after 1965 and Lubell and her
husband purchased the painting for $17,000 in May 1967. The artwork was
discovered stolen two months later.
	In court papers, museum lawyers argue that because the painting was
purchased before its theft was discovered, the museum had no way of
notifying anyone of their claim to the Chagall.
	Instead, they say, purchasers should make basic checks into the
pedigree of paintings offered for sale. A catalogue at the time showed
the Guggenheim's ownership of the painting.
	Lubell's lawyers will focus on the museum's obligation to report
missing paintings. Depositions from industry experts portray an art
world in which paintings disappear more frequently than is known and
that such news is downplayed for fear of negative publicity or a drop-
off in donations.

    	There was a similar case where a British museum had a painting
    stolen, and it turned up several years later in a Belgian museum. The
    Belgian museum (Napoleonic law) had no obligation to return it, but
    agreed to sell it back at the price they had paid, and provided all
    purchase details in case anyone wanted to pursue the case further.