Hasta La Gadget!

Hacking group AntiSec (connected to Anonymous and LulzSec) made some bold claims Tuesday that it had obtained the unique device identifiers (UDIDs) of 12 million iOS devices from an FBI laptop, setting more than a few people on edge. The FBI has already denied that anything was stolen, but Apple has gone one step further to argue that it had no involvement. Spokeswoman Natalie Kerris tells AllThingsD that Apple hasn’t given UDIDs to the FBI “or any organization” — suggesting that either AntiSec or the FBI isn’t telling the whole story of what data emerged and where. Even if there are real UDIDs floating around, Kerris adds that they don’t necessarily pose much danger. She notes that programming hooks in iOS 6 will provide an alternative to UDID for device-specific data, and that apps will eventually be forbidden from using the older identifiers altogether. While the truth in the situation is hard to pin down, the technical reality doesn’t leave much risk that our iPads and iPhones will be compromised. At least, not after this month.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Mobile

Apple denies giving FBI any iOS device UDIDs, raises questions over AntiSec claims originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple now has made an official statement on the UDID AntiSec fiasco we wrote about Tuesday. In a statement delivered to AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski by Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris, the company explained that it wasn’t the source of any UDIDs the FBI may have been stockpiling.

“The FBI has not requested this information from Apple, nor have we provided it to the FBI or any organization. Additionally, with iOS 6 we introduced a new set of APIs meant to replace the use of the UDID and will soon be banning the use of UDID,” Kerris told AllThingsD. It’s true that Apple recently put the kibosh on UDID tracking, and now seems to want to do away with them entirely to ensure they aren’t further abused.

The FBI denied hacker group AntiSec’s claims that the UDIDs were stolen from an FBI agency laptop, but that still hasn’t cleared up where they came from. Gawker’s Adrian Chen has donned a pink tutu to find out more, however, so we may have additional details soon.