Shortly after hacker group AntiSec posted what it said were one million unique Apple device identifiers (UDIDs) taken from an FBI laptop, Apple has denied that it provided any UDIDs to the agency. In a statement to AllThingsD, the company said that “the FBI has not requested this information from Apple, nor have we provided it to the FBI or any organization.” It also mentioned its ongoing move away from allowing apps to access UDIDs, reiterating that it “will soon be banning the use of UDID.”
Apple denies it gave leaked device IDs to FBI
Apple has said that it did not give the FBI any unique device identifiers after hacker group AntiSec posted what it said was one million of the IDs.
Apple has said that it did not give the FBI any unique device identifiers after hacker group AntiSec posted what it said was one million of the IDs.
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
When the UDIDs were released, AntiSec said it had pulled a file of 12 million identifiers from a laptop owned by Supervisory Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl. At that point, it seemed likely that the IDs in the file had been obtained from an app developer rather than Apple, so this news doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise. The FBI, meanwhile, has called the hacking claims “totally false,” saying it had no evidence that a laptop had been compromised and that it “never had” the information in question. Some individual users, however, have confirmed that they found their UDIDs on the list. If this is correct and the IDs are legitimate, it’s always possible the information was pulled from somewhere else, but it’s still a major leak.
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