New Charges Brought Against Sarah Palin's Hacker

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During the presidential race in 2008, someone hacked into Sarah Palin’s personal email account and posted the contents online for the world to see. Whether or not it was “real hacking” is heavily debated (he used the forgotten password link and found the answer to her secret question on Wikipedia) but the FBI still had a huge problem with it. The Tennessee student was yesterday charged with a couple of new offenses: fraud and obstruction-of-justice.

ComputerWorld today reports that David Kernell, son of Mike Kernell, a Democratic state representative from Memphis, was arraigned five months after a federal grand jury first handed down charges against him. According to CW, he had been facing just one count of illegally accessing a protected computer, but prosecutors are now accusing him of three counts of computer fraud. Yikes.

Kernell pleaded not guilty to the charges; and when contacted by ComputerWorld last year, Gabriel Ramuglia (who runs Ctunnel the proxy site that the screenshots showed the attacker used) said he had identified the IP address and approximate location of whomever was responsible for the hack. He also said that it was not consistent with media reports. Interesting, no? Kernell’s trial is set for October 27. Plenty of time for the kid to sweat it out over summer.

Check out the full scoop on ComputerWorld.

Jane McEntegart
29 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Throw the book at him. I don't care who you voted for - you should be outraged when someone tries to disrupt the political process by sabotaging candidates.
    Reply
  • techtre2003
    If he were smart about the whole thing, he should have kept quiet about it and sold the information to one of Obama's goons. He is after all a Chicago politician right? (I can say that I'm from Illinois) :)
    Reply
  • SAL-e
    argyle1Throw the book at him. I don't care who you voted for - you should be outraged when someone tries to disrupt the political process by sabotaging candidates.
    How about if someone disrupt your life? Thousands of people get hacked their credit destroyed and the police say that they can not do anything about it. But If you are big cheese from Washington and have ‘free’ prosecutor on staff, the whole system jumps.
    This case is the biggest BS ever.
    Reply
  • thedipper
    YOU should be outraged when someone sabotages the political process with laughable candidates.
    Reply
  • ispyamoose
    And this is why you do not use free email services for anything business related.
    Reply
  • norbs
    If it wasn't for this illegal hacking i don't think Obama would of won. This is a travesty! That little boy needs to get the chair.









    LMAO...
    Reply
  • grieve
    SAL-eHow about if someone disrupt your life? Thousands of people get hacked their credit destroyed and the police say that they can not do anything about it. But If you are big cheese from Washington and have ‘free’ prosecutor on staff, the whole system jumps. This case is the biggest BS ever.Politic hijacking aside for the moment…

    I think you have a valid point, I often complain about this type of thing. To get any justice you need to be in the public eye…

    Everyday people get hacked, identities stolen, murdered, raped…far worse then what happened to Palin, but we only hear about these incidents in the form of statistics.
    Reply
  • NuclearShadow
    I don't believe this could be considered a form of hacking as the kid just researched to answer the secret question. However I recall a ruling that gave the same privacy laws when it came to emails in the same manner to physical mail. so him even opening the mail would be a crime and each email he opened would be a additional charge.
    Reply
  • curnel_D
    NuclearShadowI don't believe this could be considered a form of hacking as the kid just researched to answer the secret question. However I recall a ruling that gave the same privacy laws when it came to emails in the same manner to physical mail. so him even opening the mail would be a crime and each email he opened would be a additional charge.Yes, but I dont see them being able to legitamently prove that he opened more than what ever email he posted information from. Do they have proof that he opened 3 emails?
    Reply
  • jerreece
    SAL-eHow about if someone disrupt your life? Thousands of people get hacked their credit destroyed and the police say that they can not do anything about it. But If you are big cheese from Washington and have ‘free’ prosecutor on staff, the whole system jumps. This case is the biggest BS ever.
    Having been in Law Enforcement before, I can tell you local police departments don't generally have the equipment, expertise, or resources to investigate and prosecute this type of crime.

    Internet related crimes, credit fraud, theft of identity, and related crimes are a HUGE burden on local police agencies. The truth is, most of the point in reporting such crimes is to get the official documentation you need in order for the credit agencies or the insurance agencies to take care of the problem for you.

    Law Enforcement have their hands full with this stuff, and don't have the needed resources to take care of it. At the federal level, they do have the abilities to do it, but not enough personnel to investigate the MILLIONS of crimes reported along these lines.

    That's where the fundamental change has to be made. Better training, equipping, and resourcing to local law enforcement agencies.
    Reply