Slashdot Mirror
Jail Looms For Man Who Revealed AT&T Leaked iPad User E-Mails
concealment sends this quote from MIT's Technology Review:
"AT&T screwed up in 2010, serving up the e-mail addresses of over 110,000 of its iPad 3G customers online for anyone to find. But Andrew Auernheimer, an online activist who pointed out AT&T's blunder to Gawker Media, which went on to publicize the breach of private information, is the one in federal court this week. Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation worry that should that charge succeed it will become easy to criminalize many online activities, including work by well-intentioned activists looking for leaks of private information or other online security holes. [Auernheimer's] case hasn't received much attention so far, but should he be found guilty this week it will likely become well known, fast."
Anon pastebin is the way.
Oh right, the feds, they're never in their right mind. I shouldn't have asked, dumb question, sorry.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Of another article with this comment.
I thought there were whistle blower laws to shield people from these mishaps?
Is it because he went to the media rather than the FBI? I'm genuinely curious as the article doesn't say much except that he's a "hacker" that downloaded a bunch of public web addresses that were easily predictable.
That is the point of this endeavour.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If you find a security hole, you don't need to exploit it 114,000 times. The Gawker story is incomplete and confusing, so I'm not sure what Weev did and what Goatse Security did. But to say "there was no illegal activity or unauthorized access" is plain silly.
like the Electronic Frontier Foundation worry that should that charge succeed it will become easy to criminalize many online activities, including work by well-intentioned activists looking for leaks of private information or other online security holes.
The road to hell and all that.
It's time for the geek to grow up and discover that life hasn't dealt him a Get Out Of Jail Free card,
seem to be having increasing difficulty distinguishing the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law. Anything to add yet another successful prosecution to their resume with no concern as to the effects on others or the betterment of society.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Next time I see a weakness in a system, EXPLOIT it or sell if to criminals. DO NOT report it..
Weev is a troll. He's better known to /. as one of the "president" of the GNAA. An all around unpleasant fellow.
The unfortunate thing about this case is that Weev didn't actually do anything wrong here. AT&T published the email addresses, it should be AT&T facing prison time.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I watched a video of you sucking a fat chub on my Droid Razr.
I know little of the case, but it looks like this case is being brought by Paul J. Fishman, the U.S. District Attorney for New Jersey. According to Wikipedia (it's always correct), he used to work for Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman. A firm that represented the Communication Workers of America. Not surprisingly, the CWA regularly deals with AT&T.
Mr. Fishman was appointed by President Obama in 2009. If you don't like his actions, contact the Whitehouse and your representatives and let them know. Not that it'll matter, but maybe it'll make you feel better.
Or if you'd prefer, you can always contact his office directly for more information on the case: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nj/contact.html . Though, again, not that'll it matter.
If he would have done the right thing and sold the information to Chinese hackers they would have given him a little cash and no one would be getting sued.
The same argument used against these types of laws is the same thing which prompted even a congress bought and paid for to leave exceptions in the DMCA for scientists:
If identifiable people are caught and strung up, what will happen is that they will reach for the a tor proxy, a pastebin account, and what once was a private matter now is dirty laundry open for all to see.
I see it with the heavy-handed copyright enforcement methods. Those did work, but now most people doing torrents now use offshore VPNs, encrypting clients, and seedboxes. Had this not have been done, the police work needed to catch real crime would be a lot easier. These days, now everyone uses "envelopes" for their data which makes enforcement a lot harder. Now, unless an endpoint is compromised, it is difficult to gather evidence, and even then, even what would be a simple domestic case becomes something that requires the cooperation of multiple governments, each with differing laws, and few liking each other.
What I forsee happening is that security breaches won't be reported by researchers. Either the company a message send to them by someone behind a Guy Fawkes mask, or the exploit gets handed over to bad guys... and then the FBI ends up having to do the notifications.
So it's just dandy for a company to fuck you over, pay some money to a class action lawyer and fuck you over again (Here's a coupon for your next purchase/upgrade, you're welcome). But when someone else points out, "Hey, this company is fucking you over!" he gets to go to jail.
Screw that. Time for (un)civil disobedience.
According to the article attached to the summary, the way Weev accessed this information was typing in publicly accessible URLs. If that's the case, how in the world can he possibly be prosecuted for accessing a public website?
Something seems to be missing here. I'm guessing there's more to this story than what is written in the article.
do you help yourself, tell the bank, or shout about it from the rooftops? Andrew Auernheimer shouted from the rooftops and deserves punishment.
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
I wonder how many of his defenders on Slashdot realize that this is Weev, the former president of the GNAA?
Still, I'm impressed with Slashdot's integrity, for once. After ten years of crapflooding and trolling by the GNAA, I would have thought that Slashdot would be a bit more antagonistic toward him.
Look this LOSER up.
http://twitter.com/apilosov
1) Violating an identity theft law by "being in possession of the e-mails." With no evidence that he planned to misuse the information.
2) Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse act via "unauthorized access to a computer". Even though the information was publicly available on AT&T's website (not behind any kind of protection, not even a password).
I almost hope he's convicted on the latter charge; the publicity that will generate may lead to sane revision of these laws.
Please, make sure the Jury knows about Jury Nullification. They can still declare him not guilty even if he technically broke the law. Juries are your protection against bad laws. Let them know it.
IMarv
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
I stumbled across this site when my father-in-law was pissing and moaning about how broke he is(111,000/year). It seems like the information here is far more dangerous than a bunch of leaked emails. Why is "free-speech" in this aspect protected, yet you can't publish a bunch of email addresses?
...is your analogy still stupid?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This just in from twitter:
Andrew Auernheimer has been found guilty on one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization and one count of fraud.
Government is the organized crime of plutocrats.
I know you can.
Regardless of the outcome of the court case against Andrew Auernheimer, his life has already been ruined by the spectre of the case and the time and resources it has taken from his life.
The only place that can fix corporate behaviour is the court of public opinion and mass action. The "Courts" are rigged, as is the government.
According to Wikipedia (it's always correct), he used to work for Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman. A firm that represented the Communication Workers of America. Not surprisingly, the CWA regularly deals with AT&T.
I would like to meet the man or woman with a senior position in law, finance, tech or government who at one time or another hasn't been friend or foe and often both to AT&T.
Hereabouts, you'll find them mighty thin on the ground.
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, downtown Dallas, Texas. AT&T is the largest provider both of mobile telephony and of fixed telephony in the United States, and also provides broadband subscription television services. As of 2010, AT&T is the seventh largest company in the United States by total revenue, and the fourth largest non-oil company (behind Walmart, General Electric, and Bank of America). It is the third-largest company in Texas (the largest non-oil company, behind only ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, and also the largest Dallas company). As of 2011, AT&T is the 14th largest company in the world by market value, and the 9th largest non-oil company. It is also the 20th largest mobile telecom operator in the world, with over 100.7 million mobile customers.
AT&T
.... he was thoroughly ignorant of who owns AT&T --- had he been so, he would have approached things entirely differently (one hopes?).
Americans are thoroughly idiotized today --- the vast majority are still to eff-tard stupid to understand we live in a corporate fascist state, and that it is by purposeful design that Americans are completely ignorant of the ownership of those ruling corporations (especially the banksters, oil companies, pharmaceuticals and weapons makers, etc.).
Exactly why they re-arrested that Sergey Alenikov fellow (remember the programmer and Goldman Sachs' HFT software???). --- eff with JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, GE, AT&T, etc., and you're effing with the top five families in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps the planet.
yeah it's difficulty to stand up like that all he might become is a lesson to others to not try the same thing
I have a midget in my belly button. He is eating my spank juice. That is all.
It is hard to maker a good analogy and I find most of those posted far off the track.
I see it differently: imagine a library. You know, books, of the paper variety. A lot of them, all available for public use.
Somehow careless library management put in there their finance book. Someone found it and picked up for rental. Person at the checkout out did not object.
It is negligence of the people who let the financial info get in the library, not the one who rented it.
if you saw an open bank vault do you help yourself, tell the bank, or shout about it from the rooftops? Andrew Auernheimer shouted from the rooftops and deserves punishment.
What? He and/or his friends helped themselves. Thousands of times. That's what he'll be punished for.