I don’t mind if you are offended by trolls like weev.  Or dislike him.  Hell go right ahead and hate him.  But don’t do so without taking into account who and what people like weev are.  What you lose when you throw them to the wolves.

As for what he deserves.  The man broke no laws.  AT&T made available PUBLICLY a database of sensitive information.  They did this knowingly.  There was no security.  This was not a private website or network.  They published this as the boingboing publishes its articles.  for all the world to see.

Weev downloaded the information as it was freely offered.  And he called reporters to let them know that AT&T was publicly publishing their customers private data.

Now, maybe AT&T has employees that don’t understand their own industry, technology, or that they shouldn’t be publishing their customers data for all the world to see.  Doesn’t matter really.  Ignorance is not an excuse.  AT&T violated the trust of the customers, and probably several laws. 

Rather than admit that they had done wrong, they made up a blatant lie.  They said that Weev had “hacked” them.  Or circumvented some security mechanism.  They proved in court that this was not the case.  They proved beyond all doubt that there was no security mechanism in place.  And then they lied to the jurors after proving themselves in error.  Because the jury did not understand the technology they did not see the blatancy of their lies.

Weev may deserve a lot of terrible things.  But no man or woman should be jailed when innocent of the crimes of which they are accused.  And anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t deserve to live in this country.

AT&T posted this data on a public website for all the world to see.  There was no security implemented.  It may as well have been a box of files left in a public park.

Go.

Go.

Edit; Yes im serious dear cartoon fox.

“Auernheimer then helped Spitler refine his script to harvest a large number of valid e-mail addresses of iPad 3G users, suggesting that a huge data set would be needed to “direct market iPad accessories” or start a “future massive phishing operation,” noting that the data breach would be “huge media news.”"

It seems he considered all options here. But let’s ignore this for a while.

Apparently, he did not “hack” anything, since there was no authentication involved. I have mixed feelings on wether the guy should be prosecuted or not and what should or shouldn’t be his punishment.

Let’s focus on ATT now: 

You know how RIAA and the likes are more then willing to prosecute everyone involved on illegal downloads: from downloader to ISPs. So why is ATT a victim? If your bank is robbed, you don’t need to ask: they will replace your money. If it was robbed because someone left the door open, even worse! But personal data is not replaceable once it is compromised. You can’t undo that.

ATT systems were broken.  They put personal data for anyone to access.  Auernheimer is not at fault and had no bad intention.  He actual was trying to get ATT to fix their security hole.