Two Men Arrested in iPad Email Security Breach

By Justin Lee, January 24, 2011 A screen capture of the iPad, taken from the Apple website

Related Topics: security hackers apple at&t legal

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- A San Francisco man was arrested and charged last week in Newark, New Jersey for allegedly stealing the email addresses of 120,000 Apple iPad users, according to a report by SF Appeal.

Daniel Spitler, a 26-year old store detective at a San Francisco-based Borders bookstore, surrendered to FBI agents in Newark on Tuesday morning.
After making an initial appearance before a federal court in Newark, Spitler was released on $50,000 bail under the condition that he does not have access to computers during his bail sentence with the exception of fulfilling his job duties, said US attorney spokeswoman Rebekah Carmichael.
Spitler and 25-year-old Andrew Auernheimer of Fayetteville, Arkansas were both charged January 13 in a federal criminal complaint.
They were both charged with one count of conspiring to gain unauthorized access to computers and one count of fraudulently obtaining personal information, with each count carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison if they are convicted.

The two defendants are accused of exploiting a former vulnerability in AT&T Communications security to hack into the company's servers and steal the emails of 114,067 people in June 2010.

In what was considered the worst security breach in Apple history, the hack compromised the email addresses of thousand of early iPad 3G subscribers, including politicians, celebrities, corporate executives and military personnel.
According to the complaint, the defendants allegedly used a script they called "Account Slurper" to attain the email addresses.
AT&T said it informed all iPad 3G customers of the flaw at the time and fixed the flaw shortly after.
US attorney Paul Fishman of New Jersey said last week there is no proof the two men used the emails for criminal actions, according to Carmichael, but recognized the severity of the charges.
Meanwhile, Auernheimer was arrested Tuesday morning in Fayetteville, where a US judge ordered that he be held in custody until a detention hearing on Friday, Carmichael said.
Written by FBI Agent Christian Schole, the complaint stated that Spitler and Auernheimer were members of a lose collective of hackers called Goatse Security.
The complaint cites excerpts of alleged online chats between the two men, where they appeared to consider selling the list of emails to spammers, exposing the vulnerability to the public, and making a profit on a potential decline in AT&T stock prices.
The complaint also alleges that Spitler and Auernheimer talked about getting rid of the stolen email addresses after Gawker first reported on the flaw.
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