Two Men Charged with Hacking iPad Accounts, including 16,000 in N.J.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested two men Tuesday morning, and charged them with hacking into AT&T's servers and stealing e-mail addresses belonging to 120,000 Apple iPad users, including 16,000 in New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman announced at a press conference.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not release a complete list of victims and their hometowns. But among those who had their e-mail addresses stolen were former White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer and movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

Arrested were 26-year-old Daniel Spitler of San Francisco, who turned himself in in Newark, and Andrew Auernheimer, 25, from Fayetteville, Ark., who allegedly worked with Spitler. Spitler was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday afternoon in Newark in front of Judge Claire Cecchi, while Auernheimer had a court appearance set in Arkansas.

Spitler and Auernheimer apparently acted to prove their hacking abilities to a group of peers, subsequently finding a hole in AT&T's security. Fishman said the hackers were a threat to national security.

The 120,000 e-mail addresses were stolen between June 5 and June 9, 2010. AT&T did not know it was being hacked during that time. 

Afterward, the hackers provided the stolen information to the web site Gawker, showing off their accomplishment. 

"Let me be clear," Fishman said, "computer hacking is not a competitive sport and security breaches are not a game."

The AT&T servers are located in New Jersey, which is part of the reason why Fishman’s office is handling the case, he said during Tuesday's press conference.

New Jersey does not have the largest number of victims, Fishman said, but it’s “substantial” enough to take action.

“We don’t wait,” Fishman said. “We act when we get the information.”

The two defendants were each charged with one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization and one count of fraud, connected to obtaining personal information, Fishman said.

It’s unclear what the hackers were planning to do with the information, Fishman said, but added, “There’s nothing funny about the consequences of malicious computer hacking.