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March 19, 2013

Hacker Who Revealed AT&T Security Flaw Gets 3.5 Years in Prison 
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A hacker who leaked email addresses from an AT&T web server to a
journalist in an effort to expose the company's security vulnerabilities
has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.
Twenty-seven-year-old Andrew Auernheimer, nicknamed "Weev," found a flaw
in AT&T's server in 2010 that allowed him to gather 114,000 email
addresses of i Pad users. He gave the information to the website Gawker,
which posted a redacted version. After a federal probe, Auernheimer was
convicted of identity theft and conspiracy to access a computer without
authorization. On top of the prison term, he has been ordered to undergo
three years of supervised release and pay more than $73,000 in
restitution to AT&T. He was charged under the controversial Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act, the same law used by federal prosecutors to target
the late cyber-activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide in January
just weeks before his trial for downloading a trove of academic
articles. Last week, Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys was
indicted under the same law. Keys is accused of providing login
information to the hacker group Anonymous that allowed them to alter the
text of a headline on the website of the Los Angeles Times. Keys, who is
26, could face up to 25 years in prison.

 

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