What’s next in the Palin hacking case?
By Chris Gaylord | 09.22.08
The case into who hacked Governor Sarah Palin’s email account continues. FBI agents searched the off-campus apartment of David Kernell, a 20-year-old economics major at the University of Tennessee.
The weekend sweep included breaking up a party thrown at Kernell’s apartment and issuing subpoenas to three of his roommates, according to an unnamed source quoted by the local WBIR TV station.
After finding an online post that details how the person broke into Palin’s email account, the FBI traced the hacker’s screen name – Rubico – to an email address used by Kernell.
Internet-security experts say the digital trail left by Rubico is pretty sloppy. “He might as well have taken a picture of his house and uploaded it,” Web-security guru Ken Pfeil told the AP. “He should have just set up a big beacon that said, ‘Here’s my house,’ or confessed.”
The hacker also showed the vulnerability of many web-mail services, such as the vice presidential candidate’s Yahoo email. Rubico describes sneaking into the personal account by guessing the simple security questions set up by the governor: where she met her husband, her birthday, and home Zip code. After answering them correctly, Yahoo issued the hacker a new password, “popcorn.”
A quick Google search could uncover such data for many public figures, yet many of us still use such easy hurdles to secure our email, banking, and credit-card accounts.
With little new news on the subject to report, many media reports have turned their attention to Kernell’s father, state Rep. Mike Kernell, the Democratic chairman of the Tennessee Government Operations Committee. “I was not a party to anything of this nature at all,” he told the AP. “I wasn’t in on this – and I wouldn’t know how to do anything like that.”
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2. ML | 09.22.08
Gwen Moore’s son in ‘04, this leftist scumbag now. Democrats and their spawn behaving dishonorably isn’t a new phenomenon.
This might get more interesting as we find out about Kernell’s apparent David Plouffe connection.(Obama’s campaign manager)
3. jokey | 09.23.08
How satisfying to see one of the trolls get caught — finally — even if it’s just a half-rate one. Hoist by his own petard, you might say.
4. Jojo | 09.23.08
Palin was an idiot for conducting government business on a Yahoo account and doubly an idiot for having such lame security questions. She may be a lawbreaker, too, for conducting government business using an outside mail service, presumably to conceal what she was doing from oversight. Clearly, she isn’t ready for prime time.
The guy who broke into her account is an idiot, too. Identity theft and impersonation, unauthorized use of computer services … talk about foolish. He’s almost as dumb as Palin is.
5. natnat | 09.23.08
do any of you people read? the kid who did this has stated himself that she had NOTHING in her emails.
he went to do this, because he heard the same stories you did, that she used her yahoo account for official business. that was his sole reason for doing it, in hopes of finding info to take her down (his words).
he said he went through EVERY blackberry message and every email and there was NOTHING. NOTHING as he had HOPED. so please, STFU about her using her yahoo account for gov business. you people act like she isn’t allowed to discuss anything related to her job at all. she cannot conduct business on the account, which is a big difference from what you are crying. for instance, i could discuss a budget plan with my co worker, but to do the actual business, we obviously would use official channels. desperate times call for desperate measures eh democrats?
and i notice that nobody in the above comments even MENTIONS the fact that this kid broke the law. you sidestepped it completely and went right to the palin bashing. i am going to laugh and laugh and laugh when november rolls around and you get duped once again. quit wasting your time to change things if you really want to change things. you blew it with bush twice already. how the hell can bush get in twice you ask? look in the mirror jerks.
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1. Ben | 09.22.08
It’s too bad they caught the guy, he certainly contributed to the common good by exposing Sarah Palin’s glaring stupidity — contacting state business with a yahoo account and then failing to take proper precautions. Can you imagine what it would be like if she failed to protect confidential information at the nation-wide level and the implications that could have for our national security? Scary. While I respect her traditional views, this is not a person competent enough to be in charge!