AT&T iPad Security Breach Hacker Sentenced to 41 Months in Prison

[tongxinshe]

Sounds like you have sympathy for a guy who could wreck peoples' lives via identity theft. I have no sympathy whatsoever for this twerp. While I would love nothing more than to see bureaucratic nannies like Bloomberg and Emanuel taken down a notch, the truth is people like Auernheimer are a huge threat to all of us, and it needs to be demonstrated that identity theft simply can not be tolerated and will be punished harshly.

Personally, I hope during his stay at the Gray Bar Hotel, they completely eliminate any and all access to computer technology so that he can't find ways to continue to invoke havoc on others.

The real focus here is that a lot of more serious criminals aren’t sentenced as harshly. If he should serve 41 months, a rapist should easily be sentenced 410 months. And, nowadays the police does not even investigate a physical burglary event with a broken window glass. It is simply wrong.

 

[Daws001]

Nice. Steal info/identities at your own risk.

 

[samcraig]

The real focus here is that a lot of more serious criminals aren’t sentenced as harshly. If he should serve 41 months, a rapist should easily be sentenced 410 months. And, nowadays the police does not even investigate a physical burglary event with a broken window glass. It is simply wrong.

No. The real focus should be on this crime. Bringing in other crimes is irrelevant. Both to this forum - which is about tech and to the jury/judge that decided because when you issue a sentence - you don't consider what other crimes punishments are unless they are similar or there's a precedent to the one you're ruling over.

I think this thread has gotten off topic when other issues are brought in. It also creates noise and other feelings (which are valid in their own right) which aren't necessarily appropriate for the thread.

 

[xraydoc]

Wanker.

I agree 41 months is harsh for a non-violent crime, however I agree with the article in that his attitude and lack of remorse almost certainly added to his sentence.

 

[Medic311]

I didn't read every single post you made, you were the one that replied to me.
And the second someone starts talking about politics I just stop reading completely.

Yet you continue to say they are only getting 1 year for the rape.

you call it politics - i call it real life. steal an iPad from my house and get X months or years in jail. steal an iPad from Bloomberg's house - you're getting the max in prison + max probation guaranteed

you wouldn't have even heard of this case if it wasn't for Bloomberg and other elitists having their email addresses released to the public. heck this case wouldn't have even existed b/c they wouldn't have devoted resources for regular joe-shmoes like us here.

do you know how many times AT&T is probably hacked? more than you would feel comfortable with and would likely take your business elsewhere.

just face it - the only reason this got attention was b/c the elitists were inconvenienced and now everyone knows their email addresses. boooo hoooo. their friends and coworkers already knew their email addresses anyways. this is hardly a security threat and even remotely calling it is a giant joke

move on boys and girls - there's nothing to see here

 

[rGiskard]

but you know they won't......

once the news media witch hunt is over, the prosecution won't be pressured to make a big deal about it anymore and they will move onto the next high-attention case

Witch hunt? Last night on CNN the 'droids were all commiserating with the rapists over how terrible it is that their lives are ruined! It was disgusting.

 

[The Phazer]

So being an a hole gets you a longer sentence? Isn't that like revenge from the bench or something?

No, it's common sense. Prison is supposed to reform a person and stop them committing crimes.

Showing absolutely no regret and claiming that you're going to do the same thing as soon as you get out indicates you have little chance of reforming during a short sentence and thus extends it. And always has.

 

[Titanium81]

AT&T should hire that guy and use him to fix holes in their security, putting him in jail is such a waste of talent.

 

[t22design]

Crazy sentence.

 

[gnasher729]

So being an a hole gets you a longer sentence? Isn't that like revenge from the bench or something?

And querying servers can get you 3 1/2 years jail time. That's just silly.

Yes, being an a**hole can get you a longer sentence. Among other things, a sentence is there to keep you from doing it again. If you announce publicly that you intend to find ways to commit the same crime again without being published, then I find it quite normal that this would lengthen the sentence.

And he didn't get jail time for "querying servers". He got jail time for querying servers, knowing that each query gave him an email address that he had no authorisation to access, doing this often enough to receive 114,000 email addresses without authorisation, collecting those email addresses, and apparently taking steps to publish them. Something that is reasonably harmless when done once is much less harmless when done 114,000 times.

AT&T should hire that guy and use him to fix holes in their security, putting him in jail is such a waste of talent.

What makes you think he is any good at fixing security holes? He has proven that he has no common sense at all. He has demonstrated that he has all the intention to do similar exploits in the future. He's probably impossible to work with and will just cause any future employer no end of trouble.

 

[crisss1205]

you call it politics - i call it real life. steal an iPad from my house and get...

Wow, someone is outraged today. I really don't get where your anger is coming from. You just all of a sudden decided to reply to me and be an ass about it.

By politics I was talking about this line:

destroying people's lives by lying about AAA ratings on junk mortgage securities and plunging this country into a recession we have yet to fully recover from...priceless.

That to me is talking about politics. I just came here to say that some of you were wrong about the jail time in the rape case. You are the one that made a big scene about it.

 

[gnasher729]

i don't care about the ages, i am talking specifically about the crime.

rape is rape. being 17 vs being 18 does not change the crime. rape at ANY age should carry more than a 1 year sentence period. that right there is another problem with the system.

There will always be lots of other cases where you can argue that the sentence was too strict or too lenient. But that's completely pointless if you don't know all the details about these other cases, so what you argue might be completely wrong, and even if you are right about these other cases, it doesn't change this one in the slightest. Let's assume you are right and there were two rapists who got a sentence of one fifth of what they should have got. You are basically claiming that as a result, every single sentence should be reduced accordingly.

----------

Hack an unprotected computer: 3 years.

Conspire with a "rape crew" to drug a girl unconscious, gang rape her all night long, dump her body on some lawn and piss on her: 1-2 years.

WTF?

"Protected" in the case of a computer means "protected by the law". Just as that girl was "protected" by the law, assuming she was unarmed, had no body guards etc.

 

[Karllake]

Sounds like you have sympathy for a guy who could wreck peoples' lives via identity theft. I have no sympathy whatsoever for this twerp. While I would love nothing more than to see bureaucratic nannies like Bloomberg and Emanuel taken down a notch, the truth is people like Auernheimer are a huge threat to all of us, and it needs to be demonstrated that identity theft simply can not be tolerated and will be punished harshly.

Personally, I hope during his stay at the Gray Bar Hotel, they completely eliminate any and all access to computer technology so that he can't find ways to continue to invoke havoc on others.

By the same argument you clearly have sympathy for rapists.... You know that isn't what they meant...

 

[Glideslope]

Selling crack to junior high school kids gets you less time.

They should have received 5 years. Got off easy IMO.

 

[Medic311]

By politics I was talking about this line:




That to me is talking about politics. I just came here to say that some of you were wrong about the jail time in the rape case. You are the one that made a big scene about it.

it's not petty politics bro, that's real life.

 

[crisss1205]

it's not petty politics bro, that's real life.

Politics is real life. But talking about the recession in an article about a hacker getting jail time is bringing in politics.

 

[Earendil]

What's your definition of a hacker? I consider him a good samaritan.

What good did he do? Because I don't see the good, I see the harm. If his intent was to only do good, he could have done that without the harm. The truth is he didn't intend to do good, and any good that comes of this should not go to his credit.

And querying servers can get you 3 1/2 years jail time. That's just silly.

What's silly is summation. That's like if the article read:
"Guy tries multiple combinations on a lock, finds codes that work, enters premise, takes information, puts copies of information on random street corners."
And then getting a summary that says "He got 3.5 years for trying combinations on a lock!". That's just silly.

If he had only found the vulnerability and reported it, he could have claimed good intent, and it would be hard to argue he did any harm. He did not do that though, he was not trying to be a Good Samaritan.

In the united states you can be punished for action, result, and for intent. People here are focusing on a fraction of the action, and not on the result or intent.

 

[Medic311]

There will always be lots of other cases where you can argue that the sentence was too strict or too lenient. But that's completely pointless if you don't know all the details about these other cases, so what you argue might be completely wrong, and even if you are right about these other cases, it doesn't change this one in the slightest. Let's assume you are right and there were two rapists who got a sentence of one fifth of what they should have got. You are basically claiming that as a result, every single sentence should be reduced accordingly.

there are tons of other cases all around this country that receive little to no attention. the only reason why this case got attention was b/c a bunch of elitists and media snobs had their email addresses exposed on the internet (god forbid) and were inconvenienced b/c now all of the regular folk (us) can email them if we wanted to. which i presume - most of us wouldn't even take 5 mins of our day to email Diane Sawyers...really..who the F cares.

no security risks were created - these were just email addresses. Bloomberg's own friends and family have his email address. this case was blown up b/c it affected high profile elitists, nothing more. he received the max sentence solely for that reason. judge claims it was b/c of his defiant behavior - that may have had something small to do with it. it was mainly to send a message that if you inconvenience the elitists you will get the max sentence.

 

[Porco]

Whatever one thinks of the sentence for this individual, I think companies like AT&T should be handed out bigger (any?!) punishments for failing to secure private info in the first place.

 

[Medic311]

Politics is real life. But talking about the recession in an article about a hacker getting jail time is bringing in politics.

i apologize if i have offended you in anyway. to further prevent you from being offended again, i suggest you frolick elsewhere hahaha jk


dude no hard feelings. i'm just yanking your chain. let's not start the grudge thing

 

[hybroid]

This guy did an AMA on reddit yesterday before his due sentencing: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ahkgc/i_am_weev_i_may_be_going_to_prison_under_the/

Wherein, some alleged filth came out about his practices with the 'GNAA'.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ahkgc/i_am_weev_i_may_be_going_to_prison_under_the/c8xoq4s

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ahkgc/i_am_weev_i_may_be_going_to_prison_under_the/c8xpoev

Seems to be a lot more to it than meets the eye.

 

[derek4484]

Exactly!

You are right. Why should we tolerate people who could wreck peoples ives with identity theft. AT&T is the one who had poor practices and left the door open. In fact, the guy did not do anything other than "create a url". I mean, if you typed the wrong info into your address bar at the time you too would have accessed somebody else info.

AT&T should be the one on the line here. They are the ones with the responsibility to not allow others to access your information. And until we stop allowing companies to be reckless with our data more holes like these will found and accessed.

All this guy did was enter a URL into a browser. It was AT&T's crappy computer system that returned all the info without any verification process. Their software coders were lazy and slack and this guy gets 41 months? Ridiculous.

 

[Brian Y]

So you're saying that it's ok to rob grocery stores. Because, you know, they have less security than banks. If they really didn't want me to steal that ham they should have locked it up!

A post below be describes how HTTP works. You issue a GET request, and the server responds with the information you require.

Now let's rework your analogy. You walk up to a shopkeeper, who has ham on the shelf at £1.99, and say "give me that ham free of charge". He gives it to you. Is that a crime?

 

[mw360]

What good did he do? Because I don't see the good, I see the harm. If his intent was to only do good, he could have done that without the harm. The truth is he didn't intend to do good, and any good that comes of this should not go to his credit.



What's silly is summation. That's like if the article read:
"Guy tries multiple combinations on a lock, finds codes that work, enters premise, takes information, puts copies of information on random street corners."
And then getting a summary that says "He got 3.5 years for trying combinations on a lock!". That's just silly.

If he had only found the vulnerability and reported it, he could have claimed good intent, and it would be hard to argue he did any harm. He did not do that though, he was not trying to be a Good Samaritan.

In the united states you can be punished for action, result, and for intent. People here are focusing on a fraction of the action, and not on the result or intent.

Perfect.

Its time for society to adjust to the fact that tinkering about on a computer at home can get you time in jail. Whether its oh-so-innocent little GET requests, or tweets, or filesharing. That's because it's not just your computer that is affected by your actions, it's real people out here in the world.

 

[Small White Car]

A post below be describes how HTTP works. You issue a GET request, and the server responds with the information you require.

Now let's rework your analogy. You walk up to a shopkeeper, who has ham on the shelf at £1.99, and say "give me that ham free of charge". He gives it to you. Is that a crime?

There's a such thing as pushing an analogy until it cracks.

You can't use a ham to harm and steal from thousands of other people, so I say we've reached the point where the analogy doesn't really fit anymore.

You seem to be under the impression that this guy was being a good guy and wouldn't hurt anyone else, but I'm not seeing him that way. The punishment is not so much for the theft itself but the idea that he would have gone on to do much, much more damage with this information.