Summary: Both the FBI and now Apple have come forward to state that they had no involvement the ongoing 'UDID-gate,' which led to more than 1 million iOS device codes leaking to the Web.
Apple has said that it did not give the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation any device identity codes of its iPhone and iPad users.
Hackers associated with Anonymous claimed this week to have stolen more than 12 million device identifers from an FBI-owned laptop. 1 million and one unique device identifier (UDID) codes were released on Tuesday.
The FBI said in an earlier statement that the codes was "no evidence" that the data had been pilfered from one of their agents' computers, leading to further speculation as to where the device codes had actually come from.
Some then suggested that Apple had given the unique device codes to the FBI, among other rumors surrounding the sudden and unexpected event. But today, the Cupertino, CA.-based technology giant sent a statement to AllThingsD refuting such claims.
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
Earlier this year, Apple began nudging application developers away from UDIDs and would introduce a replacement to the system in form of new application interfaces.
According to New Zealand security consultant Aldo Cortesi, many iPhone and iPad-based applications regularly send device UDIDs to servers on the internet over insecure communication channels.
But nobody at this point knows where the UDIDs came from: Apple and the FBI certainly don't know, but one would bet any money that they'll find out sooner rather than later.
ZDNet has put in questions to Apple, and we'll update the piece if we hear back.
Hackers associated with Anonymous claimed this week to have stolen more than 12 million device identifers from an FBI-owned laptop. 1 million and one unique device identifier (UDID) codes were released on Tuesday.
The FBI said in an earlier statement that the codes was "no evidence" that the data had been pilfered from one of their agents' computers, leading to further speculation as to where the device codes had actually come from.
Some then suggested that Apple had given the unique device codes to the FBI, among other rumors surrounding the sudden and unexpected event. But today, the Cupertino, CA.-based technology giant sent a statement to AllThingsD refuting such claims.
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
Earlier this year, Apple began nudging application developers away from UDIDs and would introduce a replacement to the system in form of new application interfaces.
According to New Zealand security consultant Aldo Cortesi, many iPhone and iPad-based applications regularly send device UDIDs to servers on the internet over insecure communication channels.
But nobody at this point knows where the UDIDs came from: Apple and the FBI certainly don't know, but one would bet any money that they'll find out sooner rather than later.
ZDNet has put in questions to Apple, and we'll update the piece if we hear back.
