Weev

Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer (born ), best known by his pseudonym weev, is an American computer hacker and professional Internet troll.

Affiliated with the alt-right, he has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and antisemitic conspiracy theorist.

He has used many aliases when he has contacted the media, but most sources state that his real first name is Andrew.

As a member of the hacker group Goatse Security, Auernheimer exposed a flaw in AT&T's security that compromised the e-mail addresses of iPad users.

When it revealed the flaw to the media, the group also exposed the personal data of over 100,000 people, which led to a criminal investigation and an indictment for identity fraud and conspiracy.

Auernheimer was sentenced to serve 41 months in a federal prison, of which he served approximately 13 months before his conviction was vacated by a higher court.

Auernheimer was born in Arkansas in 1985.

He is a member of the Gay Nigger Association of America, an anti-blogging trolling group who take their name from the 1992 Danish movie Gayniggers from Outer Space.

Members of Goatse Security involved with the iPad hack are also members of GNAA.

He was also formerly GNAA's president.

At age 14, in 1999, he enrolled at James Madison University to study mathematics, and dropped out in 2000.

Despite his neo-Nazi affiliations, Auernheimer's mother has stated that he "comes from a 'large, mixed-race family' with Native American heritage, and she has also stated that he most certainly has a Jewish lineage 'on both sides of his family.'"

Auernheimer claimed responsibility for the reclassification of many books on gay issues as pornography on Amazon's services in April 2009.

Amazon said that he was not responsible for the incident.

Even before the Amazon incident, several media publications profiled him regarding his hacking and trolling activities, including The New York Times, in which he claimed to be a member of a hacker group called "the organization", making $10 million annually.

He also claimed to be the owner of a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

After the Times story on Auernheimer was published, reporters sought him out for commentary on hacking-related stories.

Gawker published a story on the Sarah Palin email hacking incident and prominently featured Auernheimer's comments in the title of the story.

In the New York Times magazine interview, Auernheimer claimed responsibility for harassing the author and game developer Kathy Sierra in response to her "touchy" reaction to receiving threatening comments on her blog.

This included posting a false account of her career online, including charges that she was a former sex worker, along with her home address and Social Security number.

The post instigated further harassment and abuse of Sierra, which led her to withdraw from online activity for several years.

Author Bailey Poland calls the "highly gendered nature" of his attacks on women a form of "cybersexism".

In the same interview, Auernheimer "held forth on the Federal Reserve and about Jews" for "several minutes" during his first introduction with journalist Mattathias Schwartz.

Auernheimer was a member of the hacker group known as "Goatse Security" that exposed a flaw in AT&T security in June 2010, which allowed the e-mail addresses of iPad users to be revealed.

The flaw was part of a publicly-accessible URL, which allowed the group to collect the e-mails without having to break into AT&T's system.

Contrary to what it first claimed, the group revealed the security flaw to Gawker Media before AT&T had been notified, and also exposed the data of 114,000 iPad users, including those of celebrities, the government and the military.

The group's actions rekindled public debate on the disclosure of security flaws.

Auernheimer maintains that Goatse Security used common industry standard practices and has said that "we tried to be the good guys".

Jennifer Granick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has also defended the methods used by Goatse Security.

The FBI opened an investigation into the incident, which led to a criminal complaint in January 2011 under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Shortly after the investigation was opened, the FBI and local police raided Auernheimer's home in Arkansas.

The FBI search was related to its investigation of the AT&T security breach, but Auernheimer was instead detained on state drug charges.

Police alleged that, during their execution of the search warrant related to the AT&T breach, they found cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, and Schedule 2 and 3 pharmaceuticals.

He was released on a $3,160 bail pending state trial.

After his release on bail, he broke a gag order to protest what he maintained were violations of his civil rights.

In particular, he disputed the legality of the search of his house and denial of access to a public defender.

In 2016, Auernheimer was responsible for sending thousands of white-supremacist flyers to unsecured web-connected printers at multiple universities and other locations in the U.S. Since his release from prison, he has lived in several countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

In 2016, he told an interviewer that he was living in Kharkiv.

In 2017, it was reported that he was acting as webmaster for the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer.

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as "a neo-Nazi white supremacist" known for "extremely violent rhetoric advocating genocide of non-whites".