Andrew Auernheimer, a self-proclaimed Internet “troll” and hacker, will have to serve 41 months in prison and pay AT&T $73,000 for exploiting a security issue in AT&T 3G iPad registration scheme, allowing him to access and expose customers’ email addresses. Prior to his sentencing, Auernheimer took part in a reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), where he said that “my regret is being nice enough to give AT&T a chance to patch before dropping the dataset to Gawker,” and that “I won’t nearly be as nice next time.” Those comments alone resulted in a longer sentence.
You might feel a bit sympathetic for Auernheimer, but a little bit of extra research can show that little to none should be given.
Internet hacks and exploits of critical information happen all the time, but the issue is that Andrew is known to hack for pleasure and profit. According to Heavy, Andrew once said, in an interview with Time Magazine, “I hack, I ruin lives, I make piles of money.” This also became apparent during the reddit AMA, where one commenter said “everybody who thinks Weev is some kind of hero is getting played by a sadistic sociopath who has spent most of his adult life anonymously inflicting misery on people as entertainment.”
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Source: Arstechnica, Heavy