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Hunt for Palin Hacker Shaping up to Be Simple Case
Source: (AFP/File/Robyn Beck)
Lara Jakes Jordan / Associated Press
September 23, 2008
WASHINGTON – The hunt for the hacker who broke into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account is shaping up to be a remarkably simple investigation, by the standards of major cybersecurity whodunits.
U.S. investigators figure the hacker claimed responsibility in a detailed accounting that included his own personal e-mail address and that he tried to cover his trail using a U.S. Internet anonymity service that has been surprisingly cooperative with the FBI in efforts to peel away that anonymity.
Not exactly the plot of a Hollywood thriller.
In what may be a significant break in the case, the FBI searched the residence of the son of a Democratic state lawmaker in Tennessee over the weekend looking for evidence linking the young man to the break-in, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. The apartment the FBI searched is in a complex about five blocks from the University of Tennessee campus, in a neighborhood popular with students.
David Kernell, 20, has not returned repeated phone calls or e-mails from the AP since last week. His lawyer said Monday the family is going through a difficult period. Kernell is an economics major at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
“The Kernell family wants to do the right thing, and they want what is best for their son,” said attorney Wade V. Davies of Knoxville. “We are confident that the truth will emerge as we go through the process. David is a decent and intelligent young man, and I look forward to assisting him during this difficult period.”
Kernell is the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, a Memphis Democrat and chairman of Tennessee’s House Government Operations Committee. The father declined last week to discuss the possibility his son might be involved in the case.
“I had nothing to do with it, I had no knowledge or anything,” Mike Kernell told the AP last week.
“I was not a party to anything of this nature at all,” he added. “I wasn’t in on this — and I wouldn’t know how to do anything like that.”
No one answered the door at Mike Kernell’s home in Memphis on Monday, and he did not return repeated phone calls Monday from the AP.
Palin’s e-mail account with Yahoo Inc. was compromised last week by a hacker who revealed as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate. The McCain campaign confirmed the break-in and called it a “shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law.”
scastle
3 months ago
58 comments
I for one would not blame the parents. Personal responsibility can be a liberating and yet devastating thing. More should try it.
KennethCG
3 months ago
4 comments
Boys will be boys regardless of their upbringing, JPS. Careful, everyone, of your harsh criticism of the boy's parental guidance and be careful to check under the mattresses of your own!
riverboatsam
3 months ago
4 comments
Hey Meshallum! The grammar police are coming for you, that's who. Getting an education can cure that. Stupidity, unfortunately, is forever. :-)
checkel
3 months ago
12 comments
So many opinions... I don't really have one. Mostly, nationwide politics no longer matter to me, as we have recently seen that voting can be tampered with too easily, as well as the vetoing power of the electoral college. a nudge here, a call to a relative there, a handful of cash changes hands, and the balance is tipped in favor.
I prefer to stick with local politics. I find I actually have personal knowledge of the type of people I'm electing locally, which definitely helps determine how I vote.
Nay, articles like this just bring humor to my life. It's funny to think these tiny little scandals mean so much to the people of this country. To think, if a politician sneezes wrong, they get criticized for the way they sneezed that day. Don't we all have better things to do with our lives than pick apart every little thing a politician does?
cltGOV
3 months ago
2 comments
WHO CARES!!! Its people having nothing better to do in a days time, but to B*^CH about someone elses business. Who cares if she uses Yahoo...is it going to affect you? Heck No... Not takin out of your life or your pocket. I have a Gov. email and a local, plus have 13 GOV. certifications. I could hack into the system n get GOVERNMENT emails if I want. But, It's my job not to let others do it. Even if you are in the government you have a private life as well. For those of you that think that she only has a yahoo address, your wrong
KrimsonDemon
3 months ago
2 comments
Might I add that not only can mac address and ips be spoofed, but so can personal information, if the Email address was linked PUBLICLY to David Kernell, then there may be a chance that all the information that was provided to the anonymity service was false, also, if the hacker was doing what is called "Wireless surfing." A technique that basically means that you go down the road with a laptop and try to find a unsecured wireless network, and access the internet from there. If the hacker did this, then his IP address for the attack would have originated from David Kernell's residence. These are just some Ideas that I have had since reading the article, and I am by no means defending David Kernell, or the politician. Just pointing out some facts that had not yet been pointed out on here.
Charles_D
3 months ago
2 comments
If you are shocked and surprised about this hack, snap out of it. Email like yahoo is far from private. It is easy to hack. That is why GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS ARE PROVIDED SECURE EMAIL ACCOUNTS AND ARE REQUIRED TO USE THEM FOR GOVERNEMENT BUSINESS AND THE EMAILS ARE REQUIRED TO BE BACKED UP AND BE AVAILABLE TO THE PEOPLE IF NECESSARY.
If Sarah Palin was using a Yahoo account for governement business, then she is derelict in her responsibility to the People who elected her. If she was doing it to make government business secret from the People, then she should be removed from office for violating the People's trust and being too stupid to serve. Don't cry because her "private" email was hacked. THE INTERNET IS A PUBLIC MEDIA.
Charles
JPSeabury
3 months ago
6 comments
I love how dad, after declining to comment what involvement his son might have, immediately goes on this defensive tirade, "I had nothing to do with it, I had no knowledge or anything. I was not a party to anything of this nature at all. I wasn't in on this -- and I wouldn't know how to do anything like that."
Whoa, whoa, calm down, Mr. Kernell. No one's blaming you. Although, now that you're raising doubt, let me ask ... Do you think you've done a good job raising your son, imparting your values on him, and teaching him about ethics, privacy and personal responsibity? Are you proud of your third-rate cyber thug of a son?
BigBlueCuckoo
3 months ago
2 comments
I read her emails unfortunately as I was on /b/ as it as posted. I thought it was fake at first (not too hard to believe as many hoaxes are started by my fellow gremlins on /b/). I'm not defending old girl but the 'naive' meme is just silly. Her email box was as clean as a whistle - either she's the most honest/innocent person on earth or she clearly understands that stuff sitting on Yahoo servers is hardly 'private'. Even if you expected that your account was totally safe, the only way you have an account that clean is if you are mother theresa or , you figured that employees at Yahoo, opp researchers, political opponents etc might be able to read what you had stored and you conducted yourself accordingly.
All this stuff about using Yahoo making you naive is pretty much elitist BS by people who I suspect are only justifying it b/c they don't like this woman's politics. They keep saying "Public email" account as though it'd be less dumb to usea private ISP or whatever. I've had several ISPs as clients and I can tell you for certain that most of them are nowhere as near as secure as Yahoo.
If you use a private ISP, unless you encrypt the text of the messages and manage your keys carefully and are really d*mn sure no one has a keylogger on your computer and only communicate over secure wire, you'd be nuts to think your stuff is secure. So unless you secure the text and communications channel of your emails, and have the servers located in physicall secure buildings - you have no room to say what she did was stupid from a security perspective. P.I.s have bribed several ISP employees over the years to get copies of emails from people's accounts they wanted - and unless you take all the above steps you're just as 'vulnerable' as someone who uses Yahoo, Gmail etc.
As far as conducting business from personal accounts being illegal... That's silly too if you look at the content here. Many people work with folks they were friends with before starting that job and many people becom friends with co-workers. Many emails from work have a personal issue or two in them and vice versa. It's very difficult to completely compartmentalize things if you work with friends (all of the emails in question that I saw were to people that she's supposedly been friends with since high school). So it's rarely black and white in this regard, it's often a gray area and that's certainly the case here. In this political climate, if she 'really' broke the law, she'd be sacked already. The only reason she hasn't been is that she's definitely in the gray areas... and just b/c you want it to be so, that doesn't make it illegal. She may have done sometthing illegal - but as far as what was in that account last week, there's no evidence that I can see that she did something illegal. Conducting work stuff on a personal email isn't illegal in and of itself - that starts when you try to circumevent public records laws or are trying to dodge subpeonas - again, no evidence of that here. If you know for sure that a law is broken you must have more information than the rest of us.
Just as an aside, how many other politicians do you figure could have the entire contents of their personal email accounts (their two primary ones) handed over to people completelly hostile to their positions who had no compunction about breaching their privacy - and come out as clean as Palin did? Not many.
The other side of this though is the outrage of the privacy breach. Clearly the woman realized this wasn't secure - that's evidenced by how clean she kept her box. So if she didn't expect privacy, claiming tthe privacy was breached isn't a very strong claim. Admittedly, that doesn't justify someone doing this to you, but the point is still valid.
mavrik5150
3 months ago
2 comments
Hey Jontn_swift - Before you start beating out accusations about government officials using non-official e-mail accounts you should learn the facts first. First of all Republicans and Democrats have all used non-official e-mails in the past, whether or not they were used to conduct government business is mere hearsay. What actual proof does anyone have (besides saying they saw it on another blog) that any e-mails were used for government business?? Also what do you actually define as government work and just plain chatter?? If her relative asked her how was her day and she responded with "busy I had to go to this office and that office to meet some people" is that considered using a non-official e-mail to transmit government information?
By no means and I defending Palin in making a stupid choice for a non-official e-mail host , it's just funny that no one can actually make a sensible argument about this without sounding like a complete f-tard. The whole point about this fiasco is that he took her information and posted it on the internet for everyone to see, that's where the real crime stands.
DMJeremiah
3 months ago
6 comments
Relax, Meshallum. I just think there is no need to get all defensive for someone you probably have never met nor know anything about other than what you are told. And seriously who uses a yahoo account to conduct governmental business. I wouldn't even use yahoo to send a video of a baby dancing to my 8 year old. Seriously why get all bent out of shape? Everyone should be somewhat desensitized to political shenanigans by now.
jontn_swift
3 months ago
2 comments
RogueActual: Did you actually read the article (or any of the multitude of other articles about this story)? She WAS using the yahoo accounts for conducting state business, which is not only dumb, it's illegal. Bush and several members of his staff have been criticized for doing exactly the same thing.
Meshallum
3 months ago
4 comments
Hostility..it is OK to attack Palin...but not those who attack her...how does that work?
And who's coming for me....
DMJeremiah
3 months ago
6 comments
Why such hostility? There is no need to point towards prejudice of the tech enthusiast. We don't all live in a basement.
By the way, who you gunna call when they come for you?
Browser Jackers!
Meshallum
3 months ago
4 comments
for all you perople who keep referring her as Clueless and stupid...I bet you are not even CLOSE to successful or smart as she is...you have little lives and little brains and probably little everything else...and you cannot do anything else but tear other people up as you sit in your Mom's basements, probably jobless,feeling like you areactually somebody worth listening to.. Makes you feel important and smug...when in fact you are petty, cheap and basically worthless...especially you Riverboat Sam...and you graydoll... Get a real life and leave the wqorking people alone.