David Kernell, 20, indicted for Palin email hack

David C. Kernell, 20, the student at the University of Tennessee who net detectives fingered in the hacking of Gov. Sarah Palin's email account last month, has been indicted by a grand jury in Knoxville.  A release from the Department of Justice says the following:

The single count indictment, returned on Oct. 7, 2008, and unsealed today, alleges that on approximately Sept. 16, 2008, Kernell, a resident of Knoxville, obtained unauthorized access to Gov. Palin’s personal e-mail account by allegedly resetting the account password.  According to the indictment, after answering a series of security questions that allowed him to reset the password and gain access to the e-mail account, Kernell allegedly read the contents of the account and made screenshots of the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information.  According to the indictment, Kernell posted screenshots of the e-mails and other personal information to a public Web site.  Kernell also allegedly posted the new e-mail account password that he had created, thus providing access to the account by others.

If convicted, Kernell could face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.  This is a much stiffer penalty than some people around the Web had been guessing, and shows that the federal authorities are not treating Kernell like a kid, or the hacking crime as a prank. 

No date has been set for the trial.

Kernell is the son of a Tennessee Democratic legislator.  Because of a similarity to an e-mail address Kernell was linked to through various online accounts, those chasing the story believed Kernell was the pseudonymous "Rubico" who apparently posted a lengthy account of his exploits to the bulletin board 4chan.org, detailing the way he gained access to Palin's Yahoo email account. Essentially, Rubico looked up the publicly available answers to her security questions (What's your zip code? Where did you meet your spouse?).

Screenshots posted by Rubico appeared to contain information about  the address of the hacker's computer, which may have allowed authorities to narrow the search.

Federal agents reportedly served a search warrant on Kernell's apartment in late September, but no indictment was immediately handed down.

-- David Sarno

Photo of David Kernell by Emily Spence of the Associated Press 

Comments

[Kevin]

This is good news for everyone that uses email. Throw the book at him.

[Ron Kraus]

Why doesn't this article state the fact that David C. Kernell is the son of a Democratic state lawmaker?

[sit]

Hey Ron Kraus, Why doesn't this article state the fact that David C. Kernell has a friend that was dressed as a clown at a halloween party last year? Why was that not mentioned? This liberal media must be hiding something. GTFO and STFU

[David Sarno]

@Ron Kraus & sit:

That was a fair question. I posted an initial 'stub' of the article to get the basic news out there, and filled in more details in the ensuing few minutes. There's more info in there now.

[Bob]

@Ron Kraus:
What does that have to do with anything? It's completely irrelevant. This is about a 20 year old kid who's life is going to be ruined because of: 1. a dumb vp candidate and her lack of knowledge regarding simple security, 2. a lousy system on the part of yahoo. At no point has it ever been stated that a party affiliation was a motivation in this so called "hack". Like sit said, it wouldn't matter if he had a friend that dressed as a clown. I'm sure he has friends/family that are republican. Clearly this is a republican plot to destroy all life as we know it. And cue the eye rolling....

[Mike N]

And just think, the Democrats pretended to be spooked when Bush started listening in on terrorists. The Democrats are already destroying our privacy rights, and they only control Congress! THis is obviously a concerted Democrat effort, and they are lettting this young man be the fall guy for their disgusting display of disregard for every Americans personal rights.

[Mike N]

Het sit, that wasn;t a friend of Kernell's that was dressed as a clown. That was Barak Obama, and he IS a clown. A worthless, lying, socialist, trial lawyer clown.

[Socrates Six-Pack]

`This is ridiculous. Are they going to arrest and "throw the book" at all of the Bush hired goons who have been going through everyone elses email? What does Palin have to hide anyway? Oh, right, the whole unethical firing of a state employee because he wouldnt carry out her domestic dirty work. I say let the kid go same as Bush.

[J.A.]

Bob,
Typical of our society today, you advocate for no personal responsibility. Palin is victimized, and you blame the victim, and then Yahoo. Amazing. This kid's life is probably NOT going to be ruined. He'll get off with a slap on the wrist. If it were going to be ruined, it would be HIS fault, and none other. Party affiliation has nothing to do with it. He should not be hacking other people's accounts. I have nothing to "hide" at all, but I would not like my personal email posted on the internet. Would you?

[Fred]

The real national security threat would be Palin becoming president! The radical right is willing to put the country at risk by having an idiot like Palin on the ticket and they're worried about some kid hacking into an e-mail. Typical of republicans!

[Anonoses]

This is just another example of people in power getting preferential treatment from our justice system. If some random person got their e-mail hacked and they called police/FBI to get help they'd be laughed at. They would never have spent the same amount of resources for the average Joe and to pretend that they would is laughable.

[Bob]

"This is good news for everyone that uses email. Throw the book at him. "

More like, this is good news for idiots who don't know how to protect their own email account.

People are blowing this way out of proportion. I bet the kid was at first just wondering whether he could get into her account, and then decided to brag about it by showing off on 4chan, without realising how computer illiterate people would take this.

There's a reason why email websites suggest you had a password that only you know, made of random letters and numbers. It's your responsability to make sure your email account cannot be entered. If you had some very basic password, you should not rely on that whole "if illegal if you didn't give permission" bullshit, you should expect to have people get in your account, no?

[David]

This is ridiculous. Her e-mail wasn't even hacked. People really do have their e-mail accounts "hacked" every day, and nothing is done. Hotmail, gmail and yahoo will just send you an automated reply. And that's ALL that will happen.

Charging this kid is just ridiculous. He didn't hack the account. He guessed some simple answers that any 10 year old with an Internet connection could have found.

If he didn't do it, it would have been done by someone else. Just be glad it wasn't further down the track by one of your "evil terrorists" you Americans love to go on about.

The real issue here is that you have an idiot running for VP, who 1) Doesn't know how to safeguard a simple e-mail account. Seriously. SHE USED HER REAL POSTCODE AS A SECURITY QUESTION! And 2) She used that easily accessible e-mail account to discuss state issues.

This kid did you a favour. Palin should be the one in court.

[Lucretia]

Thank you, David. I agree completely. Reading the article, I kept thinking "Wait, Palin email *hack*?" They're calling looking up the answers to security questions *hacking*?! It really is pitiful. And the fact that she discussed state issues on such a vulnerable account. It's disgusting.