Alleged Palin hacker indicted
A 20-year-old college student suspected of hacking into one of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail accounts was indicted Tuesday, a district court has announced.
David Kernell, a University of Tennessee student and son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell, turned himself into federal authorities and will be arraigned Wednesday before Judge C. Clifford Shirley in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
The indictment, unsealed Wednesday, charges that on September 16 Kernell intentionally accessed the vice presidential candidate's Yahoo e-mail account without authorization. According to the charges, Kernell is the individual responsible for posting screenshots of the account's content to a public Web site. He allegedly gained access to Palin's account by answering a set of security questions and changing the password. He then allegedly posted the new password online, enabling others to access the account.
Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison if convicted, along with a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release. The case is being investigated by the FBI's Anchorage and Knoxville field offices. No trial date is scheduled yet.
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. 
Proof positive that you are nuts.
Tens of millions of normal Americans use web based email, and millions of them deal with more senstive information than mere politicians. As it turns out, this Obama hacker of Gov Palin's email came up with NOTHING.
If you wanna throw someone out of office, go throw away the vermint Barney Franks, and his cohorts, who put in place the conditions (home loans to uncreditworthy individulals by Frddy and Sally) that made this current finacial metldown happen
Tens of millions of normal Americans use web based email, and millions of them deal with more senstive information than mere politicians. As it turns out, this Obama hacker of Gov Palin's email came up with NOTHING. "
That does not make it safe nor mean their information is secure. This hacker made things public because he meant no real harm: it was only meant to embarrass Palin. If someone REALLY wanted to do you harm, you would never know they did anything until it was too late. Also, Web-Based email is not the same a Cloud Computing, and Google, Yahoo and MS reads and records EVERY message you sent through their system.
Actually, the emails released to the public shows she was using it for official business and included emails to other members of her staff to do the same. This was to avoid normal discovery with the pending subpoenas. Very similar to what the Bush administration did, but at least they moved to another govt email system: just one that did not do any retention and was specifically not to be used for govt business.
The problem is that this is how the US GOVT views technology, and why government systems are hacked by children and mentally disabled brits.
We throw drug dealers out on the streets after a weekend in jail, release repeat sex offenders and drunk drivers back out on the streets with no supervision, yet you want to lock up a college student for reading someone else's yahoo email?
Now would you honestly have a problem if he read someone else's email or is it because it's Palin? Good old Hockey Mom should have a little more common sense when it comes to her privacy... I mean if she somehow manages to be our VP, I hope she doesn't make all her info that easy to obtain. We will end up with a whole slew of illegal Mexicans using her social, taking out credit cards in her name and all that other stuff that goes with identity fraud.
Leave prison for the REAL criminals! Reading yahoo email is no where near worthy of being tossed in the slammer with murders, rapists, child molesters, gang members etc.
Any correspondence she makes as the Governor is subject to the freedom of information act.
Sara FAILin used her authority AS GOVERNOR to run PERSONNAL VENDETTAS, even going as far as firing a government official because HE REFUSED to cooperate with her in BREAKING THE LAW. Then on top of it, SHE RFUSES TO COOPERATE WITH THE INVESTIGATION.
And we are susposed to buy YOUR OUTRAGE at what some 20 year old kid did AS A PRANK to a corrupt power drunk governor.
This would be fair, why don't they offer this kid the same deal Sara Palins son got, remember? Sara Palins son avoided JAIL TIME for the CRIMES HE COMMITED by making a deal with the judge to join the Military!
Who says hes a democrat?
Also its her fault entirely.
The only person who should be put in prison for a long time is Sarah Palin AND George W. Bush Jr. for his finagling with deleting government e-mails.
The judicial system is a joke. Nothing tops the Executive Branch though.
Get rid of the Repulicans, and we might FINALLY make drugs legal and regulated, stop interfering in the sexual choices of adults and children, and finally move to a world where we realize that "Privacy? No such thing if you ALIVE! Unless you are in your home!"
When anyone goes out of their way to violate another person's private e-mail for fun, that's pretty screwed up. And the fact the other person isn't tech savvy makes it WORSE. It's a schoolyard bully going after the weakest kid he can find.
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I can't argue with what you've said here, but I would like to point out the fact that the "weakest kid" is running for the office of Vice President of the United States of America. That should scare people.
Gov Palin for not securing her Yahoo account or the dumb kid who didn't know enough to cover his tracks?
Throw the book at him.
It's not like anyone is playing favoritism here just because the victim was a pit bull with lipstick running for VP on the corrupt GOP ticket. Honestly. Trust us, we're the government.
;-)
Really someone said that at a rally. How do you know? I have not heard any recordings of it, have you?
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I have (try watching real news and not faux news) and I thought it was a disgusting display of fear mongering, hatred and ignorance. Just like most everything that comes out of the barf hole of a repuke nazi or any other white supremacist rally.
That said, I'm struggling to see what this has to do with the story we're commenting on. If found guilty (IF), this kid should get the same punishment he would get if he "hacked" MY Yahoo! email. It's nice to know that includes midnight raids from the FBI, up to 5 years in prison and a quarter million dollar fine - but somehow I'm not buying it. I'd bet if it was my email he "hacked" (using the term VERY loosely) I'd be lucky to see a judge admonish him for it.
Umm..what about all those loony left crazies at Daily Kos, Air America, Democratic Underground etc etc who have ben calling for the murder of President Bush nonstop for the past 8 years?
Go jail them first, then we can talk.
His father should lose his job because of this.
Otherwise, they won't help you. I know that from experience!
If this was a planned attack the hacker would have hidden his computer behind multiple layers of Proxy, preferably outside the USA, so when the FBI started to investigate the responsible IP it would NOT point at a school l address it would point to an IP in Russia. Next screen shots would not be used, if you did manage to look at the screen shots you would see that some the headers of the emails were government related , I would also guess to say proof of Troopergate could also be found. So why just take screen shots a true hacker or group would take the entire account, put it on their own computers and go thought the content at their leisure find the most telling documents and release. Again when releasing the documents it would be done in a form that protects their identity, and probably to an open newsgroup server, the content would filter up by many people all over the world at the same time.
So for my rational of this 20 year old being a child,in this situation the hack was not done to expose Palin or hurt her politically, the hack was done by a child looking for instant fame from his local peers. This hack could have been far worse for Palin, she should thankful a child got the bast of her and not a reputable hacking group.
If you use a free email service, don't expect or demand security.
Follow advice freely available to better secure your existing accounts.
Invade someone's privacy, get punished. We have laws in place for a reason.
Young people go to jail all the time for "harmless pranks", like theft, vandalism, rape and murder.
Btw, so do older people. Again, the reason we have laws and should enforce them.
Understand that ANYTHING you post or send on or over the internet is not 100% secure from a privacy standpoint.
Whether this has anything to do with democrats or republicans is absurd. He willfully (hacked) invaded someone's privacy and then (maliciously) posted what he found in a public forum. This is against the law, regardless of whether you are a public figure or private citizen.
Could you please tell me what law he broke? looking for the law not a generalization of what you think.
- by jennessent October 8, 2008 8:45 AM PDT
- I agree that the kid shouldn't break in to personal email accounts, but it is pretty clear that Sarah Palin used her personal account for government business (see http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/091608/sta_333013278.shtml). I believe that government correspondence should be open to the public. The kid broke the law, but if he had not then Palin would have succeeded in keeping her official correspondence hidden.
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- by Lerianis October 8, 2008 9:49 AM PDT
- True. The ends justify the means in this case, and this is EXACTLY why this kid said he did this: he suspected that Palin was using her private IP address for GOVERNMENT BUSINESS, which is illegal and punishable by..... oh, 10 years in prison?
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- by Dalkorian October 8, 2008 9:54 AM PDT
- No, you're warping the issue. The law was not made to apply to the GOP, only to it's enemies.
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- by gdmaclew October 8, 2008 12:28 PM PDT
- Oh Please!
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (102 Comments)We should be going after PALIN, not this young man who was doing a courageous thing, even though he might end up in jail. Kinda analogous to the people who sat on the buses down south and refused to move during the protests 50 years ago!
Analogous to the people in the 60's who risked their very lives to secure basic civil rights?
You're not serious!!!!!!!!