Man Gets More Than 3 Years in iPad Data Breach Case: Apple Inc. (AAPL), AT&T Inc. (T)

Prosecutors say Auernheimer was part of a group that tricked AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)’s website into divulging the email addresses, including those of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, film mogul Harvey Weinstein, and other celebrities.

The group shared the addresses with the website Gawker, which published them in redacted form.

Auernheimer and his supporters have claimed he was providing a public service by exposing a flaw in AT&T’s system.

“What did the 114,000 iPad users do that was so wrong, to have their personal information exposed to Gawker?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Zach Intrater posed to Wigenton. “He could have contacted AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and let them know what was wrong, and they could have patched the hole and then the defendant could have published and got his reputation.”

Prosecutors said at the time of Auernheimer’s arrest that he had bragged about the operation online. Court papers also quoted him declaring in a New York Times article: “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money. I make people afraid for their lives.”

A second defendant, Daniel Spitler of San Francisco, pleaded guilty in 2011 and testified against Auernheimer last year.

The article Man Gets More Than 3 Years in iPad Data Breach Case originally appeared on Fool.com.

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