Andrew Auernheimer, known by his handle “weev,” hacked into AT&T database and got hold of their list of customers using iPad 3G before alerting AT&T of the loophole in the server and then to Gawker news network. This became a serious breach of security and a case was filed immediately against Andrew. The court ruling that came in recently sentenced Andrew to jail for a period of 41 months and ordered $73,000 restitution payment to AT&T for the damages done according to The Verge, he was also sentenced to three years of supervised release after that.
Andrew got hold of 114,000 email IDs from AT&T for which he got sentenced to jail. Before the court hearing Andrew told the assembled crowd near the court that he was going to jail for doing arithmetic. He claimed that the arrest was politically motivated and to clarify more on his case he offered a Q&A session on Reddit. Most people participating in the Q&A session seems to have quite a negative opinion about him with users claiming that Andrew used to brag about himself being a hacker a lot and him being a sadistic person.
Right or wrong, the act done by Andrew is a severe breach of privacy that could have lead to serious setbacks for many iPad users.