Slippery politicians: Watch out for those hack-happy, tech-savvy college students. Tech-savvy students: Beware your own desire for glory.
Newspapers in Tennessee are reporting that a University of Tennessee at Knoxville student may be at the center of the investigation of who hacked into the Yahoo e-mail account of Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. To make matters even more interesting, the newspapers say the investigation is focusing on the son of a Democratic state representative.
Over the past couple of days, a person who claims to have been the hacker has done something very stupid, given that he or she is the subject of an FBI investigation: bragging about how the deed was pulled off. The hacker used personal information about the Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate that has been made public recently — like where she met her husband — to trick Yahoo into reassigning the password to the hacker.
Early reports about the hacking had attributed it to a decentralized group of pranksters called Anonymous (read a great story about Anonymous here). But now newspapers and Internet sites are focusing on the son of Tennessee State Rep. Mike Kernell. The elder Mr. Kernell’s non-denial denial appears in the Knoxville News Sentinel:
Asked whether he or his son, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, had been contacted by authorities investigating the break-in of Palin’s account, he responded: ‘Me, no.’ As far as his 20-year-old son, David, he said: ‘I can’t say. That doesn’t mean he has or hasn’t (been contacted by investigators).’
A story in The Tennesseean says that Mr. Kernell confirmed that his son was a focus of the investigation.
The hacking has attracted attention not only for the evil genius by which it was pulled off, but also because it revealed that Ms. Palin was conducting state business on her private account. Now people are discussing whether the hacker, even if caught, could get away with it. —Scott Carlson
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