T-Mobile announced on Monday that it will be issuing an update for Samsung's (005930) Galaxy Note II smartphone in anticipation of the launch of its upcoming LTE network, which is scheduled to go live at the end of the month. The arrival of the company's high-speed network will come at the same time it launches the 4G LTE-enabled BlackBerry Z10 smartphone, its second LTE smartphone. T-Mobile also confirmed that it plans to launch additional LTE devices in the coming months such as the Galaxy S 4 and an LTE version of the Galaxy S III.
[More from BGR: Apple revival said to start with 'killer feature' planned for iPhone 5S]
Early tests show that the carrier's LTE network may be on par with offerings from Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T) and Sprint (S) in terms of speed. CNET clocked download speeds in excess of 60 Mbps and uploads speeds above 15 Mbps, although speeds are expected to slow down once the network is available to the general public.
[More from BGR: BlackBerry CEO: Apple stood still and now the iPhone has fallen behind]
T-Mobile didn't reveal which markets will be among the first to get its LTE network coverage.
This article was originally published on BGR.com
Monday, March 18, 2013
Another report points to fall launch for Retina iPad mini
A recent report claims Apple (AAPL) is prepping its second-generation iPad mini for launch ahead of the holidays this year. Following a report suggesting the new Retina-equipped iPad mini could debut as soon as next month, a pair of reports claim the tablet's release is instead slated for sometime this coming fall. CNYes reported on Monday that Apple is aiming for a third-quarter launch, and DisplaySearch analyst Paul Semenza recently told CNET that the second iPad mini will likely launch in the third or fourth quarter this year. Apple's next-generation iPad mini is expected to feature a new 8-inch Retina display with 2,048 x 1,536-pixel resolution.
[More from BGR: Apple revival said to start with 'killer feature' planned for iPhone 5S]
This article was originally published on BGR.com
[More from BGR: Apple revival said to start with 'killer feature' planned for iPhone 5S]
This article was originally published on BGR.com
Computer hacker gets 3-1/2 years for stealing iPad user data
By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) - A computer hacker was sentenced on Monday to three years and five months in prison for stealing the personal data of about 120,000 Apple Inc iPad users, including big-city mayors, a TV network news anchor and a Hollywood movie mogul.
Andrew Auernheimer, 27, had been convicted in November by a Newark, New Jersey, jury of one count of conspiracy to access AT&T Inc servers without permission, and one count of identity theft.
The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton in Newark was at the high end of the 33- to 41-month range that the U.S. Department of Justice had sought.
Prosecutors had said prison time would help deter hackers from invading the privacy of innocent people on the Internet.
Among those affected by Auernheimer's activities were ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein, prosecutors said.
'When it became clear that he was in trouble, he concocted the fiction that he was trying to make the Internet more secure, and that all he did was walk in through an unlocked door,' U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. 'The jury didn't buy it, and neither did the court in imposing sentence.'
Auernheimer had sought probation. His lawyer had argued that no passwords were hacked, and that a long prison term was unjustified given that the government recently sought six months for a defendant in a case involving 'far more intrusive facts.'
The lawyer, Tor Ekeland, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. He has said his client would appeal.
Ekeland is also a lawyer for Matthew Keys, a deputy social media editor at Thomson Reuters Corp who was suspended with pay on Friday.
Keys was indicted last week in California on federal charges of aiding the Anonymous hacking collective by giving a hacker access to Tribune Co computer systems in December 2010.
The alleged events occurred before Keys began working at the website Reuters.com. Ekeland on Friday said Keys 'maintains his innocence' and 'looks forward to contesting these baseless charges.
INTERNET TROLL
Prosecutors called Auernheimer a 'well-known computer hacker and internet 'troll,'' who with co-defendant Daniel Spitler and the group Goatse Security tried to disrupt online content and services.
The two men were accused of using an 'account slurper' designed to match email addresses with identifiers for iPad users, and of conducting a 'brute force' attack to extract data about those users, who accessed the Internet through the AT&T servers.
This stolen information was then provided to the website Gawker, which published an article naming well-known people whose emails had been compromised, prosecutors said.
Spitler pleaded guilty in June 2011 to the same charges for which Auernheimer was convicted, and is awaiting sentencing.
Gawker was not charged in the case. In its original article, Gawker said Goatse obtained its data through a script on AT&T's website that was accessible to anyone on the Internet. Gawker also said in the article that it established the authenticity of the data through two people listed among the names. A Gawker spokesman on Monday declined to elaborate.
AT&T has partnered with Apple in the United States to provide wireless service on the iPad. After the hacking, it shut off the feature that allowed email addresses to be obtained.
The case is U.S. v. Auernheimer, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 11-00470.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Martha Graybow and Alden Bentley)
(Reuters) - A computer hacker was sentenced on Monday to three years and five months in prison for stealing the personal data of about 120,000 Apple Inc iPad users, including big-city mayors, a TV network news anchor and a Hollywood movie mogul.
Andrew Auernheimer, 27, had been convicted in November by a Newark, New Jersey, jury of one count of conspiracy to access AT&T Inc servers without permission, and one count of identity theft.
The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton in Newark was at the high end of the 33- to 41-month range that the U.S. Department of Justice had sought.
Prosecutors had said prison time would help deter hackers from invading the privacy of innocent people on the Internet.
Among those affected by Auernheimer's activities were ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein, prosecutors said.
'When it became clear that he was in trouble, he concocted the fiction that he was trying to make the Internet more secure, and that all he did was walk in through an unlocked door,' U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. 'The jury didn't buy it, and neither did the court in imposing sentence.'
Auernheimer had sought probation. His lawyer had argued that no passwords were hacked, and that a long prison term was unjustified given that the government recently sought six months for a defendant in a case involving 'far more intrusive facts.'
The lawyer, Tor Ekeland, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. He has said his client would appeal.
Ekeland is also a lawyer for Matthew Keys, a deputy social media editor at Thomson Reuters Corp who was suspended with pay on Friday.
Keys was indicted last week in California on federal charges of aiding the Anonymous hacking collective by giving a hacker access to Tribune Co computer systems in December 2010.
The alleged events occurred before Keys began working at the website Reuters.com. Ekeland on Friday said Keys 'maintains his innocence' and 'looks forward to contesting these baseless charges.
INTERNET TROLL
Prosecutors called Auernheimer a 'well-known computer hacker and internet 'troll,'' who with co-defendant Daniel Spitler and the group Goatse Security tried to disrupt online content and services.
The two men were accused of using an 'account slurper' designed to match email addresses with identifiers for iPad users, and of conducting a 'brute force' attack to extract data about those users, who accessed the Internet through the AT&T servers.
This stolen information was then provided to the website Gawker, which published an article naming well-known people whose emails had been compromised, prosecutors said.
Spitler pleaded guilty in June 2011 to the same charges for which Auernheimer was convicted, and is awaiting sentencing.
Gawker was not charged in the case. In its original article, Gawker said Goatse obtained its data through a script on AT&T's website that was accessible to anyone on the Internet. Gawker also said in the article that it established the authenticity of the data through two people listed among the names. A Gawker spokesman on Monday declined to elaborate.
AT&T has partnered with Apple in the United States to provide wireless service on the iPad. After the hacking, it shut off the feature that allowed email addresses to be obtained.
The case is U.S. v. Auernheimer, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 11-00470.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Martha Graybow and Alden Bentley)
Hacker 'Weev' Gets Three Years in Jail, Just for Being an Internet Troll
Today in astonishing prison time for computer crimes: Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer has been sentenced to 41 months in jail, pretty much because he handed over some iPad email addresses to Gawker. Yes, that's a very long time for something that might not even be considered a crime. In addition, Auernheimer has to pay $73,000 to AT&T, all allegedly because he obtained 'unauthorized access' to AT&T's information. The feds are using the now all too familiar charge of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization, along with a count of identity fraud - both of which Auernheimer was found guilty of back in November - to back up the three-plus years in prison, which he's appealing. But while the cases of Aaron Swartz and Matthew Keys made them into even bigger heroes because of villainous sounding prosecutions and astonishingly long potential jail times, this harsh sentencing might make a champion out of a guy who, really, is just an expert troll.
RELATED: The iPad Is Turning Everyone Into Expensive Data Superusers
Back in June 2010, the man known as Weev, operating with the organization Goatsee Securities, exposed an AT&T security hole, which made email addresses publicly accessible. Using a program called 'account slurper,' which Weev didn't even write himself, he collected these emails and then sent them to Gawker - just to prove a point, he insisted. Like any good troll, Auernheimer did it to get a rise out of people, telling Gawker's Adrian Chen that he thinks the breach wasn't 'a big deal' and that 'What made it big is the way I presented it.' At a press conference before his sentencing, Auernheimer reiterated that point: 'I'm going to jail for doing arithmetic,' he said. Really, all he did was collect e-mail addresses, something that a lawyer told Chen does not at all break the law. And yet, because of the now famously harsh penalties for 'unauthorized access' in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Weev is facing several years in prison for a felony crime. (In a case of downloading academic papers from JSTOR, Swartz at one point faced 35 years in jail before he killed himself; Keys is facing 25 years for changing some copy on a Los Angeles Times story about a tax deal in Washington.)
RELATED: AT&T Hasn't Lost Its iPhone Dominance Quite Yet
But the case against Weev - and how he obtained said 'unauthorized access' - appears to be even thinner than the one against Swartz. At MIT, Swartz snuck into a closet and created fake account names to game a system. (Still, many argue that he did not deserve felony charges for obtaining access to JSTOR documents by way of the school servers.) And Weev just took advantage of a security vulnerability. He found an 'open door,' as Motherboard's Alex Pasternack explains, and he didn't even use the information for his own gain: 'while they had considered exploiting their score for personal gain, [Weev and his hacking partner Daniel Spitler] acted mostly in the public interest, releasing what they found only to Gawker.'
RELATED: Will Amazon's Tablet Finally Challenge The iPad?
Perhaps like the indictments of Keys and Swartz, the feds want to set an example with Weev. But it's also possibly that he's receiving such a harsh sentence and perhaps undue attention because of his outsize online persona. Wee, after all, is a professional troll. Chen, who covers a lot of these types, called him 'The Internet's Best Terrible Person.' On the evening of his sentencing, Weev was still at it - during a Reddit Ask Me Anything Sunday night he said a bunch of inflammatory things, including another threat to AT&T. That didn't go unnoticed by the jury, which cited his AMA three times in its sentencing letter to the judge in his case. They also pointed to his Encyclopdia Dramatica - a 'satirical' Wiki entry, which describes Auernheimer as an 'eDork' who 'smells of rotting turnips.' Indeed, his own trial may have been his most successful troll yet.
RELATED: The iPad Is Turning Everyone Into Expensive Data Superusers
Back in June 2010, the man known as Weev, operating with the organization Goatsee Securities, exposed an AT&T security hole, which made email addresses publicly accessible. Using a program called 'account slurper,' which Weev didn't even write himself, he collected these emails and then sent them to Gawker - just to prove a point, he insisted. Like any good troll, Auernheimer did it to get a rise out of people, telling Gawker's Adrian Chen that he thinks the breach wasn't 'a big deal' and that 'What made it big is the way I presented it.' At a press conference before his sentencing, Auernheimer reiterated that point: 'I'm going to jail for doing arithmetic,' he said. Really, all he did was collect e-mail addresses, something that a lawyer told Chen does not at all break the law. And yet, because of the now famously harsh penalties for 'unauthorized access' in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Weev is facing several years in prison for a felony crime. (In a case of downloading academic papers from JSTOR, Swartz at one point faced 35 years in jail before he killed himself; Keys is facing 25 years for changing some copy on a Los Angeles Times story about a tax deal in Washington.)
RELATED: AT&T Hasn't Lost Its iPhone Dominance Quite Yet
But the case against Weev - and how he obtained said 'unauthorized access' - appears to be even thinner than the one against Swartz. At MIT, Swartz snuck into a closet and created fake account names to game a system. (Still, many argue that he did not deserve felony charges for obtaining access to JSTOR documents by way of the school servers.) And Weev just took advantage of a security vulnerability. He found an 'open door,' as Motherboard's Alex Pasternack explains, and he didn't even use the information for his own gain: 'while they had considered exploiting their score for personal gain, [Weev and his hacking partner Daniel Spitler] acted mostly in the public interest, releasing what they found only to Gawker.'
RELATED: Will Amazon's Tablet Finally Challenge The iPad?
Perhaps like the indictments of Keys and Swartz, the feds want to set an example with Weev. But it's also possibly that he's receiving such a harsh sentence and perhaps undue attention because of his outsize online persona. Wee, after all, is a professional troll. Chen, who covers a lot of these types, called him 'The Internet's Best Terrible Person.' On the evening of his sentencing, Weev was still at it - during a Reddit Ask Me Anything Sunday night he said a bunch of inflammatory things, including another threat to AT&T. That didn't go unnoticed by the jury, which cited his AMA three times in its sentencing letter to the judge in his case. They also pointed to his Encyclopdia Dramatica - a 'satirical' Wiki entry, which describes Auernheimer as an 'eDork' who 'smells of rotting turnips.' Indeed, his own trial may have been his most successful troll yet.
Man gets over 3 years in iPad data breach case
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - An admitted online 'troll' was sentenced Monday to the maximum prison term under federal guidelines - more than three years - for illegally gaining access to AT&T's servers and stealing more than 100,000 email addresses of iPad users.
Dozens of Andrew Auernheimer's supporters packed the hearing, and clapped when he made a statement castigating the government for what he characterized as an unfair prosecution. The proceeding turned tense at one point when Auernheimer apparently pulled out a cellphone and several U.S. marshals grabbed it from him and held him spread-eagle on the defense table. After a short recess, he was led back into the courtroom in shackles.
Auernheimer, formerly of Fayetteville, Ark., was convicted in November of identity theft and conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers. The counts each carry a five-year maximum sentence, but U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton had accepted federal prosecutors' request to use a range of 33 to 41 months. Auernheimer's attorney had sought probation. The attorney, Tor Ekeland, said he would appeal Auernheimer's conviction and 41-month sentence.
'The one word that comes to my mind the most is disappointment,' Wigenton said as she pronounced Auernheimer's sentence. 'That someone of your intelligence and ability would use his skills in a negative way.'
Outside the courtroom before the sentencing, Auernheimer fumed about U.S.-sponsored drone attacks and referred to the U.S. government as 'malicious tyrants.' In front of the judge he was less strident but no less adamant about his innocence.
'I respectfully say this court's decision is wrong and if you understood what you are doing to the rule of law and the Constitution, you would be ashamed,' he told Wigenton.
Prosecutors say Auernheimer was part of a group that tricked AT&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 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.
Dozens of Andrew Auernheimer's supporters packed the hearing, and clapped when he made a statement castigating the government for what he characterized as an unfair prosecution. The proceeding turned tense at one point when Auernheimer apparently pulled out a cellphone and several U.S. marshals grabbed it from him and held him spread-eagle on the defense table. After a short recess, he was led back into the courtroom in shackles.
Auernheimer, formerly of Fayetteville, Ark., was convicted in November of identity theft and conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers. The counts each carry a five-year maximum sentence, but U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton had accepted federal prosecutors' request to use a range of 33 to 41 months. Auernheimer's attorney had sought probation. The attorney, Tor Ekeland, said he would appeal Auernheimer's conviction and 41-month sentence.
'The one word that comes to my mind the most is disappointment,' Wigenton said as she pronounced Auernheimer's sentence. 'That someone of your intelligence and ability would use his skills in a negative way.'
Outside the courtroom before the sentencing, Auernheimer fumed about U.S.-sponsored drone attacks and referred to the U.S. government as 'malicious tyrants.' In front of the judge he was less strident but no less adamant about his innocence.
'I respectfully say this court's decision is wrong and if you understood what you are doing to the rule of law and the Constitution, you would be ashamed,' he told Wigenton.
Prosecutors say Auernheimer was part of a group that tricked AT&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 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.
Retina-equipped iPad mini rumored for fall release
One disappointment with Apple's (AAPL) iPad mini was that it didn't come with the high-resolution Retina display that the company first used in its third-generation iPad models. While many Apple fans were hoping that the company would release a Retina-equipped iPad mini this spring, a new report from Chinese website CNYes suggests that we might have to wait until the third quarter of 2013 to see an upgrade for Apple's smaller tablet. The good news for Apple is that the lack of a Retina display hasn't hurt demand for the iPad mini at all since CNYes says that Apple plans to ship 55 million units this year alone. Given that Apple shipped more than 13 million iPad minis in the fourth quarter of 2012 and that smaller tablets are expected to grow even more popular throughout 2013, Apple likely feels no need to rush a second-generation iPad mini as long as the first-generation model keeps selling well.
[More from BGR: BlackBerry CEO: Apple stood still and now the iPhone has fallen behind]
This article was originally published on BGR.com
[More from BGR: BlackBerry CEO: Apple stood still and now the iPhone has fallen behind]
This article was originally published on BGR.com
BlackBerry CEO: Apple stood still and now the iPhone has fallen behind
The world got its first glimpse of Samsung's new Galaxy S 4 last week, reigniting the Apple (AAPL) vs. Samsung (005930) argument as the two companies battle for the future of mobile. Apple seemed a bit on edge as it put up its new "What iPhone?" page, and now a third player is looking to strike while Apple is on defense: BlackBerry (BBRY). The struggling smartphone vendor might not pose the same threat to Apple that Samsung does in the near term, but CEO Thorsten Heins used a recent interview as an opportunity to let the world know that Apple's iPhone has fallen behind rival platforms, including his new BlackBerry 10 OS.
[More from BGR: Bitcoin apps soar in Spain - will the Cyprus shocker boost virtual currencies?]
"The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don't innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly," Heins told Australian Financial Review in a recent interview. "The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about, is now five years old."
[More from BGR: Galaxy S 4 said to help Samsung overtake Apple]
He noted that Apple was largely responsible for the shift in the smartphone market to touchscreen devices. "They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon," he said. "There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that."
But the problem, Heins notes, is that Apple rested on its laurels. "The point is that you can never stand still. It is true for us as well," Henis said. "Launching BB10 just put us on the starting grid of the wider mobile computing grand prix, and now we need to win it."
This article was originally published on BGR.com
[More from BGR: Bitcoin apps soar in Spain - will the Cyprus shocker boost virtual currencies?]
"The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don't innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly," Heins told Australian Financial Review in a recent interview. "The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about, is now five years old."
[More from BGR: Galaxy S 4 said to help Samsung overtake Apple]
He noted that Apple was largely responsible for the shift in the smartphone market to touchscreen devices. "They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon," he said. "There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that."
But the problem, Heins notes, is that Apple rested on its laurels. "The point is that you can never stand still. It is true for us as well," Henis said. "Launching BB10 just put us on the starting grid of the wider mobile computing grand prix, and now we need to win it."
This article was originally published on BGR.com
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