Federal prosecutors in New Jersey are announcing the arrests of two men accused of stealing e-mail addresses and other information from more than 100,000 Apple iPad users, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a slew of other dignataries, according to reports.Daniel Spitler, 26, of San Francisco and Andrew Auernheimer of Fayetteville, Ark., 25, each face one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization and one count of fraud in connection with personal information related to the hack of AT&T’s servers.
Spitler is scheduled to appear in federal court in Newark on Tuesday afternoon. Auernheimer is to appear before a federal judge in Fayetteville, Ark.
AT&T Inc. in June acknowledged a security weak spot that exposed the e-mail addresses of apparently more than 100,000 iPad users. Some reports indicated at the time that the hackers developed a script that automatically created “unique identifiers” for users’ iPads, collecting their email addresses in the process and leaving them vulnerable to spam and viruses.
The company said the vulnerability affected only iPad users who signed up for AT&T’s “3G” wireless Internet service. Those early-adopter subscribers reportedly included ABC’s Diane Sawyer and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, as well as Mayor Bloomberg.
{NBC NY/Matzav.com}
