By John Leyden for The Register. This
story has been reproduced with permission.
They reportedly interrupted a student party to search the
apartment of David Kernell, 20, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Reports of
the raid itself remain confused amid reports that Kernell and his
flatmates fled the scene.
No charges have been filed against Kernell or anyone else yet,
but his three roommates have been served with court summons,
Wired reports.
A grand jury is reportedly due to convene and consider the case in
Chattanooga on Tuesday.
Kernell - son of state democrat rep Mike Kernell - came to the
attention of the feds after his email address was linked to an
admission in a post on the 4Chan discussion board made under the
pseudonym of Rubico.
Rubico claimed he was easily able to break into the Republican
Vice-Presidential candidate's email account after resetting her
password to popcorn, after a modicum of internet research and a
little guesswork turned up the likely responses the three challenge
questions needed. Palin's date of birth, zip address and
information on where she met her husband were all that were needed
to reset the gov.palin@yahoo.com account.
Not much of political substance was revealed by the attack.
Screenshots of the webmail account posted on the net showed the
hacker used a web proxy service called Ctunnel.com in an attempt to
cover his tracks. But he slipped up badly by posting the full URL
of screenshots. As previously reported, Ctunnel.com Gabriel
Ramuglia is in touch with federal investigators and willing to turn
over Ctunnel.com logs, a move likely to yield valuable clues.
The affair highlights concerns about how easy it might be to
reset a target's webmail account. Yahoo!, Gmail and Hotmail all use
similar systems. Political questions have also been raised by
Palin's use of a webmail account on government business.
Virus writers have wasted little time in posting booby-trapped
webpages that pose as screenshot's from Palin's email account, net
security firm Aladdin Knowledge Systems reports. Palin aides shut
down the account following the attack.
© The Register
2008
Disclaimer: We hope you find OUT-LAW’s content useful. It’s prepared by the lawyers at Pinsent Masons. Please remember, though, that it’s intended as general information only. It’s not legal advice. If that’s what you’re seeking, please
contact us. See also: our
full disclaimer
