UPDATE, November 12, 2010: Palin e-mail hacker sentenced to year in custody
A former University of Tennessee college student who hacked into Sarah Palin's e-mail during the 2008 presidential campaign was sentenced Friday to a year and a day with the judge recommending the term be served in a halfway house, not prison.
Federal Judge Thomas W. Phillips also said David Kernell, who was a 20-year-old economics major when he deduced the answers to security questions and read e-mail in Palin's private account, should get mental health treatment. Court filings said Kernell had suffered from depression since he was 11.
Kernell, who smiled when the sentence was announced, earlier apologized to Palin and her family. He said his mistake will affect him for the rest of his life.
The judge rejected a recommendation from prosecutors, who had argued for 18 months in prison. Prosecutors said outside court that they were satisfied with the sentence.
It will be up to the Bureau of Prisons to decide if Kernell is allowed to serve his term in a halfway house.
Depression.
Give me a break!
Of course Kernell smiled when he heard the sentence.
He wouldn't be smiling about his punishment if it hurt.
______________
UPDATE, November 14, 2008: Student's trial delayed in Palin hacking case
______________
UPDATE, October 8, 2008: Alleged Palin e-mail hacker goes to trial in December
______________
UPDATE, September 21, 2008: FBI serves search warrant against UT student in Palin case
(h/t Gateway Pundit)
______________
UPDATE, September 19, 2008: Hacker wanted to 'derail' Palin
A person taking credit for hacking into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo account claims to have read the Republican vice-presidential candidate's e-mails to find something that "would derail her campaign" after using publicly available biographical data to reset her password, according to a posting on the Internet.
"There was nothing there, nothing incriminating — all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor," the person wrote in a message on 4chan.org that was later erased, according to Wired.com, which copied the account on its Web site.
The hacker, who uses the screen name "Rubico" and used the e-mail account "rubico10@yahoo.com," read about Mrs. Palin's use of a Yahoo e-mail account in news reports and spent about 45 minutes on Google and Wikipedia tracking down answers to security questions, such as where she met her spouse, her birthdate and ZIP code, the hacker said. The person then changed Mrs. Palin's password to "popcorn."
Several conservative blogs, adding up circumstantial evidence, turned their focus Thursday on David Kernell, the son of a Democratic state lawmaker and a college student at the University of Tennessee.
But Tennessee state Rep. Mike Kernell, Memphis Democrat, last night disputed published newspaper reports, including one in the Tennessean that said his son was the focus of the Palin hack investigation.
"I talked to David today and he has not been contacted, not a target by any federal group, any investigation," Mr. Kernell told The Washington Times on Thursday night. He was answering phones at his office late into the evening to clear up inaccurate media reports, he said.
When asked whether his son is involved in the case in any way, Mr. Kernell said: "I can't talk about my son. I can just tell you no one has contacted him or I about this."
The hacker is not David Kernell.
Oh... Wait. It is.
Son Of Memphis Democratic Rep. Admits He's The Palin Hacker
Democratic Rep. Mike Kernell of Tennessee unveiled the hacker who broke into Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's e-mail—his 20-year-old son, David Kernell.
After a flurry of Internet discussions naming his son as the culprit, Rep. Kernell confirmed that his son was behind the infiltration, according to The Tennesseean. The paper said Kernell talked to his son Thursday.
"The person they're talking about is my son," said Kernell. "But we know of no investigation. I have not been contacted. He has not been contacted," Kernell told a Memphis TV station.
The FBI and Secret Service have not confirmed that David Kernell is a suspect. However, the TV station said the FBI in Anchorage, Alaska, has contacted the Memphis FBI bureau in the investigation.
...On the Internet 4chan forum David Kernell, using the pseudonym Rubico, detailed how easy it was to gain access to Palin's e-mail.
"After the password recovery was re-enabled, it took seriously 45 mins on wikipedia and google to find the info, Birthday? 15 seconds on wikipedia, zip code? well she had always been from wasilla, and it only has 2 zip codes (thanks online postal service!)," Rubico wrote.
"The second was somewhat harder, the question was "where did you meet your spouse?" did some research, and apparently she had eloped with mister palin after college, if youll look on some of the screensh*ts that I took and other fellow anon have so graciously put on photobucket you will see the google (NSDQ:GOOG) search for "palin eloped" or some such in one of the tabs.
"I found out later though more research that they met at high school, so I did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on "Wasilla high" I promptly changed the password to popcorn and took a cold shower."
The cold shower must've woken Kernell up. He said he later realized the seriousness of what he did.
"It finally set in, THIS internet was serious business, yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this sh*t ever got to the FBI I was f—ed, I panicked, i still wanted the stuff out there but I didn't know how to rapid [share] all that stuff, so I posted the pass on /b/, and then promptly deleted everything, and unplugged my internet and just sat there in a comatose state."
_________________
Michelle Malkin has "The story behind the Palin e-mail hacking."
More from Malkin:
Computerworld gives credit to this blog for telling the story behind the e-mail hacking, and reports that the Web proxy firm Ctunnel is now working with the feds, as owner Gabriel Ramuglia had promised he would do if asked.
Ctunnel's owner Gabriel Ramuglia has put the Associated Press to shame.
The AP refused to cooperate with the investigation.
What does that say about the AP's objectivity and journalistic integrity?
(Michelle Malkin)
Tennessee DEMOCRAT State Rep. Mike Kernell became nationally known this afternoon. He can thank his son, David.
Gateway Pundit has assembled a lot of information on David Kernell.
Kernell's may be the face of the DEMOCRATS' culture of corruption.
I love the Associated Press coverage of the hacker.
AP would not cooperate with the federal investigation, and now it must ruefully report the bad news that the case was cracked.
Keep grinding that axe, AP.
______________
More.
It looks like Sarah Palin wasn’t the only target of an online hacker. Law enforcement officials are investigating claims that the private e-mail accounts of the Republican vice presidential candidate’s family and staff were also compromised.
“Yesterday, the Department received a referral alleging that the personal e-mail accounts of Gov. Sarah Palin, her staff, and her family had been unlawfully hacked. The Department is reviewing the matter,” Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said on Thursday.
...[Gabriel] Ramuglia said the FBI told him they also reached out to Yahoo! to ask for help. The hope is that information from Yahoo! can be matched with something in the proxy site’s logs, identifying the hacker. The logs from both Ctunnel.com and Yahoo! should be delivered to the FBI by Friday, Ramuglia said.
“As long as they didn’t use a second proxy, I should be able to find them,” Ramuglia said. “I don’t think they were careful enough to do that.”
Meanwhile, there is widespread speculation about who was behind the attack and what the motivation was.
Jose Nazario, a senior security engineer with Arbor Networks Inc., said he knows “through personal contacts” that members of the group Anonymous were involved in the Palin e-mail attack.
He said Anonymous is a loose network of a few dozen people who live in the United States and abroad and range from teenagers to 30-year-olds who share what he said is a “sociopathic sense of humor.”
“Anonymous sort of takes pride in doing this publicly and pissing people off. There are other groups that do this, but they aren’t as public about it,” Nazario said.
Gateway Pundit, continuing to gather information on the story, writes:
FBI officials in Alaska confirmed they are in contact with their Memphis office regarding the Palin hacker attack.
The son of Tennessee Democratic State Representative Mike Kernell is targeted.
Gateway Pundit posts this video from WREG-TV and a transcript excerpt.
In addition, Gateway Pundit makes this important point:
The Associated Press, who said Palin deserved it, also started a FALSE RUMOR that Governor Palin was using her personal account for official state business. This is not true. This is an inaccurate statement by the Associated Press.
And this:
There is a connection between David Kernell and David Plouffe--- Barack Obama's Campaign Manager!
From a commenter at Terry Frank (who has screengrabs of David Kernell's Facebook page):
There is an apparent connection between David Kernell and David Plouffe. If you do a Technorati search for “david kernell” (http://www.technorati.com/search/%22david+kernell%22?authority=a4&language=en) and then click on Videos about David Kernell, the first video you see if of David Plouffe (Campaign manager for Obaman). He probably did the video for Plouffe.
This is not a casual connection.
18 comments:
Thanks for the info & links.
It's Bristol Palin all over again. Sarah can't control her and this guy can't control his kid. What Kernell did brought we Alaskans and the nation closer to know what sort of secret state business this woman ran through a very public server.
how do I shot web?
Who was fone?
i accidentally a email account is this dangerous?
Because when one wants only facts, one goes to Michelle Malkin's site, right? yuk.
Kernell acted alone in the incident, and it was a dumb thing to do, but some of those confidential items in the inbox looked a lot like the kind of govt. business that a public official is not supposed to be doing in such an opaque fashion.
Legion.
4chan was not behind any of this. It is well known that there has been an ongoing feud between 4chan and eBaum's World. The "1337 hack0rz" on eBaum's forums have been disseminating false information to get 4chan's administrator, Mr. Davidson, in deep sh*t. Seriously, Mary, don't believe everything you hear on the internet without doing just a little research first. Cheers, M. Henderson.
Mr. Kernell could never the cat
Anonymous does not forgive.
Anonymous does not forget.
THis is obviously the same people who did 911.
I totally agree with Michelle Malkin. Reading someone's email is like what the Nazi's did to the Jews when they searched their houses!
He has links to the Obama campaign. He himself says he hacked in to try to get something incriminating. He himself says he found nothing incriminating, but all the MSM is trying to make something out of nothing. There was no governmental business there at all. The way in which this is like Nazi Germany is the people who say it's alright that he did this because she's a republican and they don't deserve the same rights as democrats, kind of like the jews didn't deserve the same rights because they had different opinions.
ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH
Gwen Moore's son in '04, this leftist scumbag now. Democrats and their spawn behaving dishonorably isn't a new phenomenon.
To: jody.colombie@alaska.gov
CC: aogcc.customer.svc@alaska.gov, dan.seamount@alaska.gov, john.norman@alaska.gov, cathy.foerster@alaska.gov,
art.saltmarsh@alaska.gov, tom.maunder@alaska.gov, jane.williamson@alaska.gov, steve.davies@alaska.gov, dave.roby@alaska.gov, howard.okland@alaska.gov, jim.regg@alaska.gov, lou.grimaldi@alaska.gov, john.crisp@alaska.gov, bob.noble@alaska.gov, chuck.scheve@alaska.gov, jeff.jones@alaska.gov, bob.fleckenstein@alaska.gov, steve.mcmains@alaska.gov, elaine.johnson@alaska.gov, bren.mciver@alaska.gov, tracie.paladijczuk@alaska.gov, linda.laasch@alaska.gov, chasity.smith@alaska.gov, christine.mahnken@alaska.gov, maria.pasqual@alaska.gov, attorney.general@alaska.gov, governor@gov.state.ak.us,
==ROBERT D. NELSON==
September 18, 2008
ALASKA OIL AND GAS CONSERVATION COMMISSION
Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission
333 W. 7th Ave., Ste. 100
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
aogcc.customer.svc@alaska.gov
jody.colombie@alaska.gov
Attorney General Talis J. Colberg
P.O. Box 110300
Juneau, AK 99811-0300
tel: 907-465-2133
fax: 907-465-2075
email: attorney.general@alaska.gov
The Honorable Governor Sarah Palin
Alaska State Capitol Building Third Floor
P.O. Box 110001
Juneau, AK 99811-0001
Phone (907) 465-3500
Fax (907) 465-3532
governor@gov.state.ak.us
Hello -
This is a request for information. If I have sent this request to the wrong email address or department please forward it to the appropriate person, persons or department. Thank you.
In researching an investigation involving the AOGCC in 2004 I've learned that, according to
THE ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS, Mrs. Sarah Palin was assisted by an AOGCC technician while "hacking" into a computer belonging to Randy Ruedrich. I used the word "hacking" because it was the word used by the reporter in THE ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS article and the reporter apparently received the information about the "hacking" and information gathering from Mrs. Palin, herself, during the interview. The article reports that Sarah Palin stated the hacking was done at the "behest" of an assistant attorney general in Fairbanks.
http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/510276.html
I have some questions I'm hoping the governors office, the AOGCC and the attorney general's office may be able to help me with:
The AOGCC --
What, exactly, was the job description / duties of the AOGCC technician Mrs. Palin mentioned in the article?
Would it be possible to obtain the name of the technician that assisted Mrs. Palin?
Was Mrs. Palin authorized to do the "hacking" into the computer used by Randy Ruedrich?
If Mrs. Palin was authorized to do the "hacking" and information gathering, was it an authority she held by her position with the AOGCC or was she authorized by a specific member or official request / order of the AOGCC -- or was the authorization granted by order of the attorney general's office?
Can you give me information concerning use of email accounts by members of the AOGCC? Specifically, are members of the AOGCC allowed (by standard procedure and regulation) to access the email of other AOGCC members? Are email accounts of AOGCC members protected by the same rules and regulations that protect the email accounts of other Alaska state offices, such as the governor and the governor's administration?
Are members of the AOGCC allowed to do government business using email accounts that are not on the government server? Are members TODAY allowed to do government business on personal accounts using yahoo, etc.?
Have any current AOGCC members communicated with the governor using any account she may have other than on the government server?
Were any of the email communications retrieved by Sarah Palin in her investigation of Randy Ruedrich on a personal email account other than on the government server - such as yahoo, etc.?
The Department of Law / Attorney General's office --
The ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS article reports: "But as she and an AOGCC technician worked their way around his computer password at the behest of an assistant attorney general in Fairbanks, they found his cleanup had not extended to his electronic files."
Can you give me the name of the assistant attorney general who gave the order to hack into Mr. Ruedrich's computer to Mrs. Palin and the AOGCC technician?
Sarah Palin was involved in an investigation of Randy Ruedrich for mixing his political job with his state duties. At the "behest" of the attorney general's office Sarah Palin "hacked" into Mr. Ruedrich's computer seeking information from his email.
Has the attorney general's office been involved in any other investigations or situations where it has ordered members of another government agency or department - such as the AOGCC - to hack into a government computer to retrieve email?
Regarding the use of personal email accounts not on the government server to do government business -- does the attorney general's office deem that acceptable and legal?
In the current investigation of Governor Palin, will the attorney general's office participate in an effort to retrieve and disclose the emails of Governor Palin in the same manner that it did with the Randy Ruedrich investigation?
When there is an investigation involving a state of Alaska employee, is there a standard procedure for how that employee's computer will be accessed to retrieve information? Is the computer removed from the office of the employee? Is the employee informed that the computer and email address he was assigned by the state is being accessed and investigated? What are the steps and who is involved? How is the event documented?
I assume that employees of The Department Of Law do use email to contact Governor Palin from time to time. Does the attorney general - and do others at The Department Of Law - use the governor's official state of Alaska email address when contacting her by email?
The Honorable Governor Sarah Palin --
November 9, 2003 -- Anchorage Daily News -- Sean Cockerham
===But Palin, a well-known Republican and former mayor of Wasilla, is not so sure about that. She said that she has heard from a lot of Republicans who wondered why Ruedrich hadn't been able to see that he had a conflict of interest. "It was a very simple issue," Palin said. "It was black and white."===
Will the governor acknowledge that many Alaskans - and many other Americans - wonder if she is involved in ethics violations and a conflict of interest? Will the governor now allow for the same type of email retrieval that she undertook to assist in the investigation of Randy Ruedrich?
Will the governor offer for review all email on her personal email accounts so that investigators can properly investigate possible ethics violations and conflicts of interest -- and so investigators can determine if she has been using those accounts to do government / political business she did not wish to have made public and to avoid having her email communications documented and archived?
Thank you for any information you can give me.
Sincerely,
-Robert Nelson-
================
For reference I offer the following from adn.com
Palin explains her actions in Ruedrich case (11/19/2004) adn.com
http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/510276.html
(Please follow link above for the interview in it's entirety.)
*Sarah Palin never thought of herself as an investigator. Yet there she was, hacking uncomfortably into Randy Ruedrich's computer, looking for evidence that the state Republican Party boss had broken the state ethics law while a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
*The next week, when Palin went back to work at the AOGCC, she noticed that Ruedrich had removed his pictures from the walls and the personal effects from his desk. But as she and an AOGCC technician worked their way around his computer password at the behest of an assistant attorney general in Fairbanks, they found his cleanup had not extended to his electronic files.
*The technician "said it looked like he tried to delete this, but she knew a way to go around and get some of the deleted stuff," Palin said in an interview. "I didn't know what I was looking for, but I was there."
*Palin found dozens of e-mail messages and documents stacked up in trash folders ...
*When Palin went through Ruedrich's computer, she found an e-mail dated Nov. 3 that Ruedrich sent from his home computer to work.
*Palin printed out a batch of Ruedrich's e-mails on Nov. 12, 2003. The next day, she sent a message to Paul Lyle, the assistant attorney general in Fairbanks, and told him she was following his instructions. But was there an investigation or not? Palin couldn't get a straight answer.
*On Dec. 11, Palin sent Lyle a package of material: printed e-mails, staff comments, documents from Ruedrich's desk and recycle bin.
Robert writes:
Hello -
This is a request for information. If I have sent this request to the wrong email address or department please forward it to the appropriate person, persons or department. Thank you.
Yes, Robert. You have sent your request to the wrong "department."
Try the FBI. The bureau investigates hackers/criminals.
I'd conjugal visit that.
Post a Comment