Gawker: valleywag, david kernell

Migrant Blogger

Owen Thomas — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:40:00 EDT

Will the punishment fit the crime? Migrant Blogger catches an important loophole in the punishment planned for David Kernell, the college kid charged with hacking into Sarah Palin's email:

Two problems with this ruling:
1. He can use the internet for e-mail. Did the judge specify whose account?
2. His next assignment for school: how to screw up a candidate's vice presidential hopes and dreams.

Palin email hacker pleads not guilty

Paul Boutin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:20:00 EDT

The twenty-year-old son of Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell, a Democrat, plead not guilty today at a federal court in Knoxville. Prosecutors had charged David Kernell with breaking into GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's email by guessing the answers to her password-recovery answers, and then posted her new password, "popcorn," on 4chan. A judge released Kernell without bail, but forbid him to own a computer or to use the Internet for anything other than email and classwork. Compared to Kevin Mitnick's eight-year ban from the Internet, that's a decree as level-headed as it is unenforceable.

Palin email hacker's biggest misstep? Not being an HP exec

theodp — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:20:00 EDT

As far as we know, David Kernell, the University of Tennessee student suspected of hacking into VP-wannabe Sarah Palin’s email account, isn't thought to have done anything near the scale of HP's pretexting efforts that yielded the private records of its directors, employees and journalists. Nor did he order physical surveillance of Palin. Or seek to obtain her father's or spouse's records. Or hatch plans to infiltrate the governor's office with stooges. Or go through her trash. Or eavesdrop on her instant messaging. Or bug her email.

So why did the HP execs and investigators get off scot-free (or with a 96-hours-of-community-service slap-on-the-wrist), while Kernell is having FBI agents raid his apartment? Ahhh, yes, money walks. Kernell may not.

(Photo by AP)

How visiting 4chan busted the alleged Palin hacker

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:40:00 EDT

Federal agents searched the apartment of a University of Tennessee student on Sunday they believe might be the ~~hacker~~ script kiddy who broke into Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin's Yahoo account and then posted its password to the subversive discussion board site 4chan.org. The feds pinpointed the accused's IP address after contacting the proxy service he used in an attempt to disguise his identity. Gabriel Ramuglia, who runs the proxy service, told Portfolio that only one of his users had activity which matched what the feds were looking for: someone who "visited Yahoo Mail, 4chan.org, and the Web addresses that were visible in the posted screenshots."

The authorities won't say, but consensus has it the Tennessee college student under investigation is one David Kernell, a 20-year-old whose father, Mike Kernell, is a Democrat in the Tennessee state legislature. His email address is rubicon10@yahoo.com, which matches the name of a 4chan user — Rubico — who posted a detailed confession of the hack on the site last week. Also, whoever broke into Palin's account first changed the password to "popcorn," which could be a pun on Kernell's last name.