Palin Email Hack Investigation Leads FBI to Son of TN State rep Mike Keller
Oh man… This just keeps getting better and better. Last week we told you about the recent invasion into an email account belonging to Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. At the time, it was thought that a group of hackers known as Anonymous sloppily battled their way into Palin’s Yahoo account, snapped some screen shots and stole a handful of family photos. Well people, the plot thickens. At around midnight Sunday evening, the FBI raided a party being held in the on-campus residence of University of Tennessee student David Kernell who has been implicated in the Palin email scandal. According to witnesses, Kernell reportedly fled the scene when agents arrived but that of course didn’t stop them from photographing his residence and collecting evidence. Kernell and his three roommates have been subpoenaed to appear in court in Chattanooga later this week, though no formal charges have been filed. So what, you might ask, is so interesting about David Kernell? It just so happens that he is the son of Mike Kernell - Tennessee’s Democratic state representative.
What lead the FBI to Kernell? Firstly, no one “hacked” Palin’s account. The intruder used Palin’s birthdate, zip code and other publicly available information to reset the password on her Yahoo account to “popcorn”. He or she then posted the password along with screen shots to a public forum where others used the information to access Palin’s account as well. The user name of the person who originally posted this information, “rubico”, also happens to be included in a yahoo email address used by David Kernell. In addition (and as suggested by San Fransisco blogger Dan Goodin), the proxy URL found in screen shots of Palin’s email account was eventually traced to an IP belonging to Pavlov Media, the ISP that provides internet access to the dormitory in which Kernell resides. It is likely, though not disclosed at this point, that the FBI worked with Pavlov Media to further trace the attack.
If Kernell is charged, it will likely be with a misdemeanor and he will face little or no time in prison.
Tags: David, Email, hack, Kernell, McCain, Michael, Palin, Sarah, Yahoo
ghey.
Permalink | Reply
idiot.
Permalink | Reply
Hope he gets in trouble for this and daddy can’t save him, even if he doesn’t get in much trouble. If he is allowed to break the law so should I be.
Kinda makes all that Dem whining about the Patriot Act sound silly.
However, I hope he didn’t do it because I’m sure his dad wouldn’t have gotten him into it and if he did do it, his dad will have to deal with the mud-slinging; unfairly nonetheless.
Permalink | Reply
Heh, subpoenaed? pshhh, just don’t go. Hey Palin’s husband ignored his subpoena, why can’t this kids friends do the same?
Permalink | Reply
He made a post on 4chan admitting the hack and telling people how he did it. Actually, I wouldn’t call it a hack - he just googled Palin and used the information he gathered to change her account password. Lack of security on Yahoo & Palin for allowing that. But no systems were “breached”.
Nonetheless - He can be charged under the computer abuse act. However, its a misdemeanor - so he will only serve under 1 year and 1 day. If they really want to get him, they could technically sentence him to exactly 1 year and 23 hours - I think. I know a judge did that once in PA, however I am not sure if that was overturned or not. It made the papers but they failed to follow up after that.
Permalink | Reply
Daddy can’t ave you this time maybe they might it a little bit easy on him. His father must be pissed!
Permalink | Reply
Daddy can’t save you this time maybe they just might take it a little bit easier on him because he’s not an average Joe. His father must be pissed! So much for Mike Kernell moving up in the ranks.
Permalink | Reply
BGR, love your site, but gotta correct you on the “no one really hacked” her account. Accessing someone’s account without their approval or knowledge is indeed hacking their account, regardless of the “sources” used to determine the p/w.
Now, actually, we can get into the debate of hacker vs. cracker, but that’s for old fogies like me.
Permalink | Reply
@EasyButton: Ignoring a subpoena turns into a bench warrant for their arrest and serves as an admission of guilt. Just running from the FBI is a very, very bad idea.
He’s a kid with little to no place to go. Right now they are in the evidence collection phase and really don’t care where the kid is. Once the subpoena turns into a bench warrant, they will look for and find him within a day or two, easy. His phone, credit cards, bank accounts and passport are all flagged and tapped by now. His father’s phones, tapped. They probably even have a trap on his attorney’s phone, so they can see who called - but they can’t poison the evidence by listening in to possibly protected calls.
The best thing for this kid is to go straight to a lawyer and turn himself in. If he sits down, comes clean and admits he was just being stupid and not malicious, then he will be okay. He will get 2 years probation and probably some sort of ARD-like program.
However he admitted he was looking for dirt on Palin to derail her campaign. That post on 4chan will probably bite him in the ass. With who his father is and if he has a really good lawyer - they might be able to save his college career.
Still, this kid is in a whole shitload of trouble.
Permalink | Reply
the whole thing is stupid and exactly why government officials shouldn’t be using Yahoo for business.
…and it’s not a hack, it’s social engineering. …and Palin’s an idiot.
Permalink | Reply
Well, at least we know no-one is going to hack McCain’s email account. Sometimes it’s good to be techno-illiterate
Permalink | Reply
It aint me, it aint me, I aint no senators son…. wait he is a senators son.
I can only imagine some ignorant senator asking his “smart” college kid to hack into her account to get dirt for the Dem party. Too bad this kid knew just enough to be dangerous to himself.
The sad part is the Republicans can turn this into a millennium mini Watergate with Democrats sending their kids to do cyber snooping on the election opposition.
Permalink | Reply
Sep 22, 2008 @ 12:21 pm, Easybutton Said:
Heh, subpoenaed? pshhh, just don’t go. Hey Palin’s husband ignored his subpoena, why can’t this kids friends do the same?
Easybutton, Palins husband is using a loophole in Alaska to avoid the subpoena for 90 days. After that time he must answer it. Lucky for him the subpoena came less than 90 days before the election so he can basically hold off on answering the subpoena until after the election.
As for this kid, he wont have that luxury. The crime took place in two places. None are in Alaska. Tennessee where the kid was located and whatever state the Yahoo servers reside (California?). Unless those states have similar laws to Alaska this kid wont be able to avoid the subpoena.
Permalink | Reply
McCain has an e-mail account and he uses a Blackberry. However, McCain has IT personnel. However, I am quite sure he doesn’t have a Yahoo! mail account.
I wouldn’t call this kid smart. He used Google and Wikipedia to answer her password recovery questions. He used a single proxy and his OWN internet connection. He even posted his doings on 4chan using his OWN e-mail address. He’s not even a script kiddie. Substituted social engineering is not hacking.
Now if he wrote a program that could use multiple encrypted tunnels through root shells while spoofing the origin IP address while using a hacked wifi account far from his own residence and actually used a documented or even undocumented security flaw in the system that allowed access to her e-mail - that would be cracking. He could of them used the hacked e-mail address to make the postings on 4chan and wikileaks. That would be worthy.
Permalink | Reply
techniciyl cracking by use of social engineering google mining mayby a bit of brute forcing.
Typical he did this cause he’s politicly motivated?! he an his dad ar dems Far left he is
just to find dirt on a rep.
feds find him in a few days I give it a week
2 days is giving the Feds way too much Credit
he ain’t Kevin mitnick (who dodged the FBI for 2 years)
doing it from a college dorm too? bad move epsicially if the colleg he’s at is state santioned. itiotic. he using proxys if you could cal it thqat he wasn’/t even trying to spoof his IP
Permalink | Reply
I wouldn’t call this kid smart either. I used sarcasm quotes around the word.
Permalink | Reply
Perhaps you should research a little more. There was no official business communicated via this e-mail account.
Palin Derangement Syndrome at it’s finest.
Permalink | Reply
Smooth move brainiac….
Permalink | Reply
woa Zach just outed Galvatrons identity, complete with pic!
Permalink | Reply
@Galvatron: I don’t know, he is a young college kid. Unless he’s living in the woods. This is a VP candidate (and a republican one at that), so the FBI might work overtime to nab this punk. I honestly think we will probably just turn himself in. Probably with a team of lawyers and his father at his side. They will try to spin this that he’s just an overzealous kid trying to do good by his party.
@JDS: You are correct, and the kid even says that in his 4chan confession. The whole “business on personal email” was a leftist spin done by the media.
Permalink | Reply
s/we/he/g
Permalink | Reply
On Sep 22, 2008 @ 1:34 pm, jds Said:
Perhaps you should research a little more. There was no official business communicated via this e-mail account.
You are correct, this email account wasn’t used for business purposes. But the person trying to access the email account doesn’t know what is being transacted in the email account so we can’t assume the “hackers” intention.
This access of the email account may have been a fishing mission by the Dems to gather information on Palin. Personal information as found in a personal email account is most helpful for a party looking to create a scandal to take down the opposition.
By the way, I am not for or against Palin. I am just against cyber crimes & really stupid Senator’s sons.
I’m glad he is over 18 and we can all see the face of this moron. His bragging online about what he did was funny - he thought he was a computer genius.
Permalink | Reply
The ignorant douche (Palin) had it coming to her for her paranoid/schizophrenic Nixonian, self-appointed right to operate above the Law. Welcome to the United States of America, bitch. Governor or not, your lowbrow ass doesn’t deserve any better treatment than the next lowlife criminal. Next time you try and subvert the Public’s business by using/abusing the system, maybe you’ll reconsider the price to be paid by 1)The right of the public for open, accountable government; and 2)The mentally abusive treatment you subject your children to by your very illegal actions.
All that aside, they’re focusing on the wrong guy as admitted by the proxy service the ‘guilty’ party used. But, being the sheeple nation the US has become, all the sheeple FBI/Fatherland Security need is a warm body to pin its guilty verdict upon while leaking to the Press its strategic agenda talking points.
Permalink | Reply
two words. douche bag.
Permalink | Reply
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/091608/sta_333013278.shtml
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/sarah-palins-inbox-reveal_b_127771.html
Maybe, instead of spending her well-paid time keeping her official involvement in her State’s affairs a secret, she should’ve paid closer attention to the real Alaska’s real role in energy supply and demand rather than this verbal excrement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8
Ya WHAT?!?
Permalink | Reply