Some bad (and scary) news that is doubly bad; in part for Apple, in part for the FBI, and all for the rest of us.

Hackers from the hacking group AntiSec breached the laptop of a federal agent and downloaded an Excel file that contained just under 12.5 million device IDs (UDIDs) of Apple products, meaning iPads, iPods, and  iPhones.

The first thing to know is that atomic data, say a device’s unique identifier, in and of itself is not of much use, but its ability to link to other pieces of information is the real problem. From what the reports say, there is associated data such as the owner of the device’s name, phone number, and address.

1 million IDs, without user information, were leaked online, but there about 12 million more to unleash.

This is of course bad for apple, but the real question seems to be ‘what was an FBI agent doing with an Excel spreadsheet containing the unique device IDs and associated owner information ?’ Even President Obama’s iPad was in the list.

This is bad for Apple, good for AntiSec, but i suspect it will turn out to be VERY bad for the FBI. If you would like to see if your iPad, and your info, is in the file, you check it online here. You can even see the plaintext version of the leaked info here (thanks to Ars Technica, and there is very heavy traffic). It’s an interesting read.

Update: Perhaps the FBI is off the hook after all; app developer Blue Toad publishing is claiming that the data was stolen from them, not the FBI. If conspiracy theory is your thing, you might be interested in the suggestion that the data was actually *planted* on the FBI laptop to implicate them in something.

Very interesting, I’m curious to see how this all falls out.