Weev was sentenced to 3+ years in prison in March, for leaking 114,000 iPad users’ emails to a Gawker reporter, who posted the information online in a redacted format. Auernheimer and his partner in crime, Daniel Spitler, were convicted last year of identity theft and “conspiracy to access a computer without authorization.” The two used a flaw in AT&T’s set-up process for the iPad 3G to obtain unique SIM identifier numbers for iPads and from there, their owners’ email addresses.
Now, he’s coming at the public live from the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, one 140-character message at a time. Sample: “The most annoying whiners in federal prison are white NORPs in for tax fraud. The coolest prisoners are bank robbers.”
His tweets (Twitter handle: @rabite) started appearing beginning March 31, Easter Sunday. Fittingly, his tone verges into the beatific. He tweeted, “It is not hatred I feel in my heart for them, but pity knowing what hell awaits them. I pray for their souls,” and, “It is said, ‘no man becomes a prophet in his own land’ so I became one on the Internet.”
Other tweets tell of the travails he’s enduring in being able to get his good word out. “For lack of a Twitter client, replying is hard. I print out mentions and giggle at them during lockdown. They are cherished,” he wrote. And, “I'm now in the habit of drafting Tweets with relatively monospaced penmanship, for ease of counting length.”
And for those wondering about the miracle of being able to tweet from a place that has no cell phone or internet access, he explained, “FYI: I don't rly tweet, I send Corrlinks/TRULINCS messages to @maradydd who does what she wants with them. Follow her!”
TRULINCS is otherwise known as the Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System, which allows electronic messaging between prisoners and family members. It’s funded by profits from inmate purchases of commissary products, telephone services and TRULINCS time. Weev is simply sending his tweets as messages, and someone else posts them.
As for whether he’ll be able to continue doing so, it should be noted that he’s using Twitter as an activist pulpit as well. "Every day of this upcoming 3 years is worth it to defend the rights of the Internet. I'd do it all over again. [I do it for the lulz],” he tweeted.
And that could get him censored. But Auernheimer has no intention to let the veil drop back down on his communiques. “With no TRULINCS access, I'd turn to LJ phoneposts. If they took away phones, I will write tweets on paper,” he said. “If they censor my mail I'll ferret tweets away scrawled on toilet paper through guards, like de Sade.”