at&t “iPad Hacker” Released on Bail
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Andrew Auernheimer, one of the two men accused of hacking at&t’s website last year, has been released on bail earlier today, via a whopping US$50,000 bond.
Auernheimer is one of the two “hackers” charged with fraud and conspiracy earlier this year, for “hacking” at&t’s network and collecting private information about more than 100,000 iPad users.
According to the Department of Justice, Auernheimer is forbidden to travel outside of his home state, and can only connect to the Internet for work-related tasks.
Auernheimer and his pal managed to uncover an important security vulnerability in the at&t website, and shared the information with a reporter. According to Auernheimer, at&t was notified, but the telecoms giant immediately took the case to court, as it considered Auernheimer’s action a breach of security into its network, since the flaw allowed Auernheimer to obtain the e-mail addresses of a slew of iPad owners.
Note that while the Department of Justice may consider Auernheimer’s actions “hacking,” we’re not completely convinced that his actions were entirely malicious. In our opinion, Auernheimer should have done a much better job at cooperating with at&t to fix the breach before reaching out to reporters, but he also uncovered – and helped fix – a security flaw that should not have existed in the first place.
