Updated Sept. 10, 2012: According to NBC News, the leaked UDIDs were not from an FBI agent's laptop as previous reported. Instead, they came from the app-publishing company BlueToad. An outside researcher discovered this after looking into AntiSec's claim that it had hacked its way into an FBI laptop and stole 12 million Apple user's UDIDs. BlueToad CEO Paul DeHart told NBC News that after his company was alerted, representatives were able to confirm that they were the sources of the UDIDs. He added that they are taking appropriate legal actions.
It's typical for app developers to have access to users UDIDs. However as Apple spokesperson Trudy Miller pointed out that this information generally does not contain personal information about the user. BlueToad no longer collects UDIDs for app development.
Reported Sept 4, 2012: Today, the hacker group AntiSec claimed it has obtained over 12 million Unique Device Identifiers, or UDIDs as well other personal information from Apple device owners. These IDs are made up of 40 characters and serve almost like a social security number. Recently, Apple made headlines for rejecting apps that access UDIDs over privacy concerns.
Just to prove they aren't blowing smoke, the group released 1,000,001 of those UDIDs on Pastebin. They also included specifics on how they hacked the IDs from the FBI. The group claims they breached an agent's computer and accessed some files through a security vulnerability on Java. According the post, the file contained, "…a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers, user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zip desk cellphone numbers, addresses, etc."
The group is also claiming people's names addresses and telephone numbers are in their possession, although they haven't released any yet. It doesn't seem like AntiSec is out to hurt the public with the information they nabbed. According to a quote from their site, they want people to know that the FBI is "using your device details and info." Adding, "FBI will, as usual, deny or ignore this uncomfortable thingie and everybody will forget the whole thing at amazing speed."
To see if your info was leaked during this "uncomfortable thingie" check out this site.
via Mashable
Credit: James Leynse/Corbis
