FBI searches apartment of alleged Palin hacker
Federal authorities are ramping up an investigation of a 20-year-old college student for allegedly hacking into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail account.
Sarah Palin
(Credit: Alaska governor's office)The FBI searched the apartment of alleged hacker David Kernell on Sunday morning, and three of Kernell's roommates could testify this week about the case before a grand jury in Chattanooga, according to local news reports.
After it was discovered that the Republican vice presidential candidate's personal Yahoo e-mail account was hacked into, reports began circulating that the hack could be traced back to Kernell, a University of Tennessee student and son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell.
Witnesses told a local television station that the FBI served a search warrant at Kernell's Knoxville, Tenn., apartment early Sunday morning, interrupting a party, and spent more than an hour taking pictures of the apartment. Kernell's three roommates were subpoenaed to testify this week, a witness also said.
The hacker gained access to Palin's account by guessing certain personal details about the governor's life and then resetting her password to "popcorn." ZIP files with content from Palin's account were posted on the Internet.
Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department public-affairs specialist, confirmed that there was investigatory activity relating to the Palin hack in Knoxville over the weekend but said no criminal charges have been filed against anyone.
Stephanie Condon is a staff writer for CNET News focused on the intersection of technology and politics. She is based in Washington, D.C. E-mail Stephanie.
The act of using Yahoo is not illegal you dolt, the act of using Yahoo Mail for Government Purposes without explicit authorization.. is.
As opposed to yelling out that something is illega, why don't you actually go out and find a law that was violated by using public email provider.
Don't bother actually, you won't find it.
On a different topic, there's the stupidity of hacking someone's e-mail account. In most states, unauthorized access to a computer system is illegal. Of course, I'm sure that daddy will pull all the strings he can reach to prevent junior from being punished for his deeds.
When a Abstinance only Republican politician's teen daughter gets pregnant, it is off-limits. But when a Democratic Representative's son hacks into e-mail accounts it is some how Political conspiracy by democrats.
I think the guys political zeal has something to do with break-in, but thats where it is and that is how it should be looked into.
In the end, Palin was a victim. Blaming her for what happened is like blaming JFK for riding in an open limousine in Dallas in 1963.
In the end, someone hacked her account and viewed her e-mails and that's all we've heard. Translation: there were NO controversial e-mails. She's clean! Suck it up, liberals!
REAL Translation: Actually there were, "Damage Control" was kicked into high gear though! Suck It Up Wannabees!
As well, I'm curious as to what was in her mail box because if it is government related emails, then she should be fired. Its a very serious security leak that defeats every effort to make sensitive materials "secret", and it afflicts you and the vast majority of America unfortunately and there is no known cure...
There is no patch for stupidity...
nevermind their own messiah was raised a muslim, confided in a communist and goes out of his way to avoid patriotism. nevermind that, they have more important things to do like pry around in someones personal email. just because THEY didn't hack into it (or illegally view) her email, its okay for them to view her personal info after the fact.
what happened to, if you sell stolen property, you're just as guilty as the one who stole it. liberals pay no attention to laws. either understanding how they work or applying them to their own actions.
Not to mention that if the DNC was also involved in the plan we are talking about RICO statutes and others going to jail under the same laws violated.
The fact that the two posters before me blame Palin is unbelievable - who's the next victim they plan to blame? God help them if they find their own credit information stolen - imagine using their logic, it would be their own fault for not protecting their information.
Pathetic!
You bear part of that risk when going online as much as you may not like it.
Most of the people making comments (everywhere) about Mrs Palin's use of Yahoo for her PERSONAL stuff also have no clue how it is to live in Alaska. Imagine that your state Capital is at Key West Florida and your 1st major city is at Washington DC - that is the distance between Juneau and Anchorage - oh yea, you can only FLY between the two - no driving. Now are you going to go to DC and make a long distance call to get your e-mail in Key West if you used a local porvider? No, you are going to use a service that is everywhere.
People have NO sense of scale and the problems faced in Alaska. I spent years up there and practices that are taken for granted in the Lower 48 are not there are or just will not work there.
Her account being hacked was not her doing - it was the password recovery feature of Yahoo asking for personal details that only she should know - however with lots of details about her (or anyone) online doing some data mining to guess at the possible (yet contrainsted by Yahoo) answers to the recovery questions is the problem - NOT her.
This use of the recovery feature can be used against ANY Yahoo account if those people answered them like she did.
Tom Philo
http://www.taphilo.com
If I get your SS# and go around telling people what it is - that's a crime. But it's typical of liberals to claim it's their self righteous privledge to get anything they want for free. Because if it's not free, it's capitalism.... and the liberals all know (thanks to left wing propaganda) that capitalism is evil. They don't have a single clue as to what the definition of capitalism is or how it works economically...but they are absolutely positively sure it's evil. Evil because it's not free.
Have you ever just simply wanted to flex your knowledge.. and see if you could do it?
Have you ever been.... curious what its like to be pirate?
There's one or two things I did at that age that could have ruined my life. I suspect I'm not in the minority when I say that. I hope this doesn't ruin is life...
E-Bosin
http://www.cnet.com/community/William+Crow/?tag=mncol;tback
Should Palin go to jail to for failing to secure her email?
Dragonwithaheadache, Please learn how to research and provide sources before posting what amounts to finger pointing.
email to a fellow politician: "I think that interview he did last week was unfair. That reporter sure was tough on him".
OMG, Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo glad this kid caught Palin skirtting regulations. She just admitted to reading an interview and THEN told a fellow politican about it! OMG, so glad they caught her on that.
Second, being an amateur (yes, that's the correct spelling) is not necessarily a bad thing... especially in the realm of politics. I, for one, am tired of the "professionals."
Finally, I don't see anything wrong with Palin's behavior here. For various reasons we do the same thing in our office, which is state run (but not Alaska).
This isn't a partisan issue (despite the fact that the kid in question is the son of a dem rep). The issue here is one of awareness. As technology becomes more advanced, the older generation needs to become aware of its pitfalls. This could have just as easily happened to Joe Biden as he does not belong to the nintendo generation either. My friend who works in IT for a university constantly has this problem with the professors who don't understand that you can't use a common word and a number for your password. All I'm saying is that this issue should be looked at as one of security, not of politics. This is simply the media spinning an issue to be political, ignoring the actual issue and, ultimately, a chance to do some good. $0.02 for what it's worth
It's political speech because it starkly shows that Gov Palin isn't competent to implement good computer security in her personal life. If she can't do it there, then she sure can't do it in public life, and she definately isn't competent to do it for the entire nation.
The current Administration has been playing massive games with personal versus private e-mail since day one in an effort to deceive and delude American citizens, and to circumvent any attempt by us to ensure that they are acting in an ethical, legal, and moral manner to uphold our goals that we elected them to work toward. Reports coming out of Alaska indicate that Ms. Palin is just as evasive as Bush/Cheney and Co.
If you want to argue that she's incompetent then do so. Arguing that the actions of this hacker should be covered under political speech.... just causes you to lose all credibility with me. To be honest I didn't even finish reading your post. There was no point after that remark...
Needless to say, you know all of those classic decadent traits of theirs.
You mean the guys in the pickup truck loaded with guns? Yea. I saw them. What about it?
Have you not seen all the lies that the Republican party has put out for public viewing?
"He's a Muslim. He was sworn into office on the Koran. He doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. His pastor is an anti-Semite. He's a tool of Louis Farrakhan. He's anti-Israel. His advisers are anti-Israel. He's friends with terrorists. The terrorists want him to win. He's the Antichrist." these are just a few lies told BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY...
You are obviously uninformed and Republicans are the ones that are hysterical. Actually, Dems are, too...but they are just hysterical - LAUGHING - about the Rep VP Candidate...lol.
Oh, and keep in mind that agnostic, liberal, pinko, gay Massachusetts not only puts its money where its mouth is regarding family values, but it is also where a huge proportion of the technology that you are using to spew venom comes from. Of course, the same technology is also being used to spread tolerance of people who disagree or differ from each other, among other, positive things.
Nanny governments? Hmmm...I seem to recall several Republican attempts to put the internet under explicit government control.
This is like me reading a story on a college website about students protesting republicans because they want to give you freedom -- and then posting a comment bashing the liberal's mom and then using facts I found on a blogg site I found on the 15th page of a Google search. Because I found it on the internet, it MUST be factual.
Moron libs - get off MY internet. It's not yours because Gore didn't invent it.
Oh - and if you're screaming "well McCain claimed to invent the blackberry!!!!" --- apparently McCain's assistant needs a raise for telling a well timed and funny joke that made the media bite on it and waste news space on it. ANYONE who knows more than what Olbermann spews out his nose about McCain will know John McCain doesn't care to even USE modern technology.
Which, in itself is a reason not to vote for him. Our society is technology-driven - or haven't you noticed. So, who's the moron, now?
If our own prospective president doesn't care to use modern technology, how can he deal with any upcoming issues that will actually deal with technology or techno-warfare? Hmmm...kinda makes ya' wonder.
I tihnk they made sci-fi movies about relying TOO much on technology. Whatever the movies were, I'm positive they all ended with technology NOT being the answer.
Give me a break!! This guy obviously didn't do it. He's just stupidly taking the credit for it.
All this kid did was try 10,000 different words until he got one right. That's not a hacker. That's a kid with too much time and not enough brains to be a hacker.
That is why he took credit for it. Stupid is as stupid does.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1842097,00.html
She used very poor judgment it doesn't matter what political party she belongs to or what political party you or I belong to - it was very poor judgment.
Mrgrupp: the reason for disallowing the use of personal email for business use is obvious: The business should not be represented by an employees personal email - period. That is what will happen. Also it presents a security nightmare for the IT professionals in charge of the business's network. Take a class in information security and you may understand. In this day and age our government communications need to be ultra safe.
Groan!
The ObamaNazi Kool Aid drinking vermin strike again.
Preay tell me this: Exactly where does it say in Alaska law or US law that government employees cannot use Yahoo or MSN or any mail system they want?
Are you telling me that Goverment mail sstyems or even snail mail is more secure than web based mail?
Exactly what stops yet another Obama crazy at the US Postal Service from say stealing Gov Palin's mail, like this son of a Democratic Party state legislator did?
It's not the type of mail stupid. Its the CRIME of stealing someone's mail by Obama crazies.
Well guys, to quote you, "If Gov. Palin isn't doing anything wrong, she has nothing to worry about!"
You're guilty of the same double standard you're accusing them of.
I'll be honest. I don't like the patriot act because it doesn't have enough oversight. But in general principle, if you're talking to a known terrorist I think we should be listening in whenever possible. What constitutes "known terrorist?" A very good question and something that would need oversight, but I still agree with the general principal. We have no reason to grant the same rights to non-citizens that we do to citizens. And we certainly don't grant any rights of privacy to people that have essentially declared war on us, or to the citizens that are speaking to them. I don't think that's unreasonable.
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by Len Bullard
September 22, 2008 11:16 AM PDT
- Reading the Spy Vs Spy comments here is like standing on the deck of the Titanic helping to load the boats and overhearing two crew members arguing about which of them will take the morning shift in the crow's nest.
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by Dreifort
September 22, 2008 12:37 PM PDT
- and some moron liberal above said since McCain wasn't hip enough to get on the internet, we shouldn't vote for him.
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (107 Comments)1. ANYONE using these free email systems should be aware they are easily cracked. The numbers of business emails I receive daily from gmail accounts makes me want to scream at the staff: THEY HARVEST AND SELL THIS STUFF.
2. For the kids who have grown up thinking they are smart because they Understand The Web, understand this: in the 1980s the forerunners of your little gang studied the Internet long and hard and came to the conclusion that architecturally it was unsafe for secure transactions regardless of the patch work engineering that could be provided. So far, none of you has proven them wrong so let's say most of you are on a ship with 2500 passengers and lifeboats for only 1200.
All they found in Palin's email showed she was clean as a houndstooth. I wonder how many of you could say the same.
sad that liberals believe whatever they hear on the internet... damn, there's that word internet again. can't get away from it...like a disease.