FBI Investigating iPad E-Mail Leaks

CWmike writes "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation into the leak of an estimated 114,000 Apple iPad user e-mail addresses. Hackers belonging to a group called Goatse obtained the e-mail addresses after uncovering a web application on AT&T's website that returned an iPad user's e-mail address when it was sent specially written queries. After writing an automated script to repeatedly query the site, they downloaded the addresses, and then handed them over to Gawker.com. Now the FBI is trying to figure out whether this was a crime. US law prohibits the unauthorized accessing of computers, but it is unclear whether the script that the Goatse group used violated the law, said Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 'The question is, when you do an automated test like this, [are you] getting any type of unauthorized access or not,' she said. If it turns out the data in question was not misused, it is unlikely that federal prosecutors will press charges, she added."

Comments

Someone is lying, who do you think it is?

[KingSkippus]

They may have discovered it, but they didn't report it to AT&T.

...According to AT&T. Someone is lying. From TFA:

Goatse Security notified AT&T of the breach and the security hole was closed.

Then later in the article:

AT&T sent us a statement...: "The person or group who discovered this gap did not contact AT&T."

Personally, I think that AT&T is a sack of douchebags that doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, and when choosing who to believe between AT&T and just about anyone else, I'm inclined to believe anyone else. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that someone did indeed notify AT&T, but now they're trying to cover their ass and make it sound like they somehow proactively found the hole themselves.

Re:Ha ha, I love the genius of the hackers' name

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was any other company I'd agree with you, however this is Apple, and the fact that they tightly control who sells their product and how, I would expect some kind of oversight. You think if Vodafone got a bunch of iPads and was selling them at $1 on a 5 year plan that apple wouldn't shit itself?
They got themselves into their own self policed walled garden, now they have to deal with it. It was a security breach at a carrier inside the walled garden... deal with it.

And yes, email addresses are valuable information. Sure, not as bad as SSNs, but would you post your email address on a billboard? Why do you think websites, companies etc keep their customer emails under lock and key? because it's a valuable information