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One of the leaders of Goatse Security, the hacker group that discovered a security flaw that revealed the emails of iPad early adopters, has been arrested – on drugs charges. According to CNET,

A hacker in a group that discovered the AT&T iPad-related flaw was arrested following the execution of an FBI search warrant of his home in Arkansas on Tuesday, authorities told CNET. Andrew Auernheimer, 24, was being held in Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville, Ark., according to Lt. Anthony Foster of the Washington County Sheriff’s office in that state. The drugs were found during the execution of the warrant, said Lt. Mike Perryman, of the Fayetteville Police Department. However, Perryman could not say what prompted the warrant.

Drugs aside, why the police were in his house to begin with is a pretty important question, especially since it’s unclear that he did anything wrong. As he told CNET and others, he had no intention of revealing any of the emails or revealing the flaw until after AT&T had closed the hole.

Maybe there’s more to the story.

Auernheimer also goes by the name Weev, a moniker he’s used for years to terrorize and wreck havoc on internet message boards. In a 2008 New York Times feature that exposed the online underworld of trolling – essentially, attempting to ruin people’s lives via virulent comments, or worse – Weev gets top billing (and photo, above) as the leader of a truth-bending, morally fluid culture that lives on message boards like 4chan and websites like Encyclopedia Dramatica – and that once in a while gets blamed for driving its enemies to suicide.

The section on Weev is worth reading in full:

Weev, the troll who thought hacking the epilepsy site was immoral, is legendary among trolls. He is said to have jammed the cellphones of daughters of C.E.O.’s and demanded ransom from their fathers; he is also said to have trashed his enemies’ credit ratings. Better documented are his repeated assaults on LiveJournal, an online diary site where he himself maintains a personal blog. Working with a group of fellow hackers and trolls, he once obtained access to thousands of user accounts.

I first met Weev in an online chat room that I visited while staying at Fortuny’s house. “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money,” he boasted. “I make people afraid for their lives.” On the phone that night, Weev displayed a misanthropy far harsher than Fortuny’s. “Trolling is basically Internet eugenics,” he said, his voice pitching up like a jet engine on the runway. “I want everyone off the Internet. Bloggers are filth. They need to be destroyed. Blogging gives the illusion of participation to a bunch of retards. . . . We need to put these people in the oven!”

I listened for a few more minutes as Weev held forth on the Federal Reserve and about Jews. Unlike Fortuny, he made no attempt to reconcile his trolling with conventional social norms. Two days later, I flew to Los Angeles and met Weev at a train station in Fullerton, a sleepy bungalow town folded into the vast Orange County grid. He is in his early 20s with full lips, darting eyes and a nest of hair falling back from his temples. He has a way of leaning in as he makes a point, inviting you to share what might or might not be a joke.

As we walked through Fullerton’s downtown, Weev told me about his day — he’d lost $10,000 on the commodities market, he claimed — and summarized his philosophy of “global ruin.” “We are headed for a Malthusian crisis,” he said, with professorial confidence. “Plankton levels are dropping. Bees are dying. There are tortilla riots in Mexico, the highest wheat prices in 30-odd years.” He paused. “The question we have to answer is: How do we kill four of the world’s six billion people in the most just way possible?” He seemed excited to have said this aloud.

Ideas like these bring trouble. Almost a year ago, while in the midst of an LSD-and-methamphetamine bender, a longer-haired, wilder-eyed Weev gave a talk called “Internet Crime” at a San Diego hacker convention. He expounded on diverse topics like hacking the Firefox browser, online trade in illegal weaponry and assassination markets — untraceable online betting pools that pay whoever predicts the exact date of a political leader’s demise. The talk led to two uncomfortable interviews with federal agents and the decision to shed his legal identity altogether. Weev now espouses “the ruin lifestyle” — moving from condo to condo, living out of three bags, no name, no possessions, all assets held offshore. As a member of a group of hackers called “the organization,” which, he says, bring in upward of $10 million annually, he says he can wreak ruin from anywhere.

We arrived at a strip mall. Out of the darkness, the coffinlike snout of a new Rolls Royce Phantom materialized. A flying lady winked on the hood. “Your bag, sir?” said the driver, a blond kid in a suit and tie.

“This is my car,” Weev said. “Get in.”

And it was, for that night and the next, at least. The car’s plush chamber accentuated the boyishness of Weev, who wore sneakers and jeans and hung from a leather strap like a subway rider. In the front seat sat Claudia, a pretty college-age girl.

I asked about the status of Weev’s campaign against humanity. Things seemed rather stable, I said, even with all this talk of trolling and hacking.

“We’re waiting,” Weev said. “We need someone to show us the way. The messiah.”

“How do you know it’s not you?” I asked.

“If it were me, I would know,” he said. “I would receive a sign.”

Zeno of Elea, Socrates and Jesus, Weev said, are his all-time favorite trolls. He also identifies with Coyote and Loki, the trickster gods, and especially with Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. “Loki was a hacker. The other gods feared him, but they needed his tools.”

“I was just thinking of Kali!” Claudia said with a giggle.

Over a candlelit dinner of tuna sashimi, Weev asked if I would attribute his comments to Memphis Two, the handle he used to troll Kathy Sierra, a blogger. Inspired by her touchy response to online commenters, Weev said he “dropped docs” on Sierra, posting a fabricated narrative of her career alongside her real Social Security number and address. This was part of a larger trolling campaign against Sierra, one that culminated in death threats. Weev says he has access to hundreds of thousands of Social Security numbers. About a month later, he sent me mine.

Weev, Claudia and I hung out in Fullerton for two more nights, always meeting and saying goodbye at the train station. I met their friend Kate, who has been repeatedly banned from playing XBox Live for racist slurs, which she also enjoys screaming at white pedestrians. Kate checked my head for lice and kept calling me “Jew.” Relations have since warmed. She now e-mails me puppy pictures and wants the names of fun places for her coming visit to New York. On the last night, Weev offered to take me to his apartment if I wore a blindfold and left my cellphone behind. I was in, but Claudia vetoed the idea. I think it was her apartment.

Take a moment to digest that. Then read how, in 2009, Auernheimer, apparently since un-masked, was investigated by the FBI over a few very troubling anti-semitic phone calls:

Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Community Relations Director Robert Horenstein said the suspect, whose name was not made public, “admitted making the calls and the FBI is now working with the U.S. Attorney’s office to determine if a crime has been committed.”

The alleged caller, whom authorities described to Horenstein as having “low intelligence and no means to carry out any threats,” reportedly said over the phone, “The Nazis are coming to get you; there will be another Holocaust” and “You killed my Lord. You will pay.”

Auernheimer – who used to make anti-Semetic remarks on his now-defunct website iprophet.blip.tv – denied the allegations, but the case clearly won him more enemies than he already had, and piqued the curiosity of the authorities. Said Horenstein, following the FBI investigation, “Portland police now believe him to be a much lower-level threat than was believed previously, but stress that they will continue to monitor him.”

Was the Search Warrant Warranted?
Putting aside Auernheimer’s history, the iPad hack investigation bears some resemblance to the March criminal probe of a Gizmodo editor that was requested by Apple, Inc., after Gizmodo published photos of that iPhone prototype.

But whether or not AT&T put any pressure on the FBI, did the hack itself – a scraping of data that was available through a security flaw – warrant a criminal warrant to search Auernheimer’s home? Or was it simply a good excuse to nab a young man with some very suspicious intentions, and an increasing array of digital firepower?

It will be interesting to see how this story ends, and how corporations, consumers and critics will respond to it.

For his sake, it may not matter that Weev intended to serve the public by revealing the iPad security leak. But in various ways, Weev has offered us a cautionary tale about the dangers of keeping our personal data on the internet – and the virulent risk of a culture of total anonymity, too.

See Motherboard’s documentary on Internet fame, read about the return of Star Wars Kid and explore the strange world of 4chan.