Is finding the same as stealing?

Dear Lupinion,

Some friends of mine (a couple) recently "found" an iPhone on the slopes at a certain unnamed ski resort. Apparently this iPhone was just glistening in the snow, waiting to be retrieved by them.

The phone was off and powered down because it had been on the slopes losing power. They did not turn the phone into the lost and found -- instead they decided to take it home with them.

Since said friend is vehemently against Apple and only buys cheap impostor MP3 players, they did not have an Apple charger. So my friends return home from this ski resort, go to the Apple store to get a charger and charge that baby up.

This is where I would start checking the contacts and e-mails or taking the phone to AT&T to find the rightful owner.

Instead, what do these people do? They hack it over to T-Mobile so that they can now use it on their network. Now they couldn't be more in love with their sweet little iPhone and its cool user interface. (So much for hating Apple when it's free!) I have a total ethical issue with this. I have already told my friends once over e-mail and once in person that I would have returned the phone to its owner and that it's really easy to find the owner's contact info in the phone. They contend that the AT&T service had been cut off and they couldn't have done this. Not only have they stolen the phone from its owner but they've hacked the system.

I am so upset about this that I don't know if I can continue a friendship with these people.
Lupinion, what are your thoughts?

Signed,
iHaveaniPhonedilemma


Dear iHaveaniPhonedilemma,

First of all, I was distracted by your question actually being a question and your use of real paragraphs. It’s like you’ve never read lupinion before.

No matter. I like a person who can use “its” properly and I decided to give your query a lot of consideration. I asked my most trusted friend for input. She doesn’t know about this column because I don’t want to wonder if she likes me for me or for lupinion, so I said, I said, “A ‘friend’ wanted to know what you would have done?” And she was like, “What friend.” I was like, “You don’t know her.” And then she was like, “Yeah, right. You’re lying.” I was like, “No I’m not.” Then she was like, “Whatever. I would’ve totally taken the phone.”
“Hm,” I thought, “I agree.”

Then I realized that you don’t, iHaveaniPhonedilemma, and that your question wasn’t even about that. Your thoughtfulness, iHaveaniPhonedilemma, albeit unnecessary for this site, moved me to believe that you would have, in fact, found the rightful owner. And also, when you said, “I [would’ve found] the rightful owner.”

Here’s what you should do. Call the resort and ask if someone reported a lost iPhone. If they say no, then unfortunately you’ll have to live knowing that your friends could’ve gotten in a lot of trouble but didn’t. That will be annoying. But if someone did report the loss, as I suspect they did, give the Lost& Found office your friends’ information, indicate with air quotes that the phone has been “found”, then sit back and enjoy your priceless gift. I can tell that no one will suspect you and I envy you for that, because if that ever happened to one of my friends, it would take them less then a second to figure out who did it.