Michelle Malkin » Closing in on the Palin e-mail hacker Updated

Closing in on the Palin e-mail hacker Updated

By Michelle Malkin • September 18, 2008 05:13 PM

Scroll for updates…conflicting info on Kernell

The Tennessean reports what blogs have been buzzing about all day:

The son of state Rep. Mike Kernell has been contacted by authorities in connection with a probe into the hacking of the personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Kernell confirmed on Thursday.

Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, said his 20-year-old son David had been contacted by authorities investigating the hacking of Palin’s personal email account.
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The FBI and the Secret Service started a formal investigation on Wednesday into the hacking.

David Kernell is a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Mike Kernell said he spoke to his son on Thursday, as he does on a regular basis.

Kernell otherwise declined to comment, or discuss his son’s whereabouts and whether he was in custody.

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:

The Webmaster of a proxy service called Ctunnel.com, which may have been used by a hacker to illegally access the e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is working with law enforcement authorities to track down the person behind the break-in.

Gabriel Ramuglia, the Athens, Ga.-based Webmaster of Ctunnel, said today that URLs in screenshots of Palin’s e-mail — photos were posted online yesterday on 4chan.org and other sites — suggested that whoever accessed her Yahoo! account had used his proxy service.

Ramuglia said in an interview that he was contacted by FBI officials last night and asked to retain computer logs of the last few days’ activity on his service and make sure nothing is deleted. Ramuglia, who normally stores only a week’s worth of log data, said he would not have deleted anything anyway because of the illegal nature of what had happened.

Ramuglia is now in the process of importing more than 80GB worth of log data into a database for analysis. He said he’s reasonably confident he can help authorities sift through the logs and trace access back to the originating IP address — especially because the self-professed hacker has admitted using just one proxy service to access Palin’s account.

The alleged hacker said in an online posting that he gained access by simply resetting the password to Palin’s Yahoo! e-mail account using its password recovery service. That’s according to a description of events posted on a blog site run by conservative syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin…

The Associated Press is still not cooperating with the feds. But it has published a new story about Ramuglia’s cooperation — and has recycled the story behind the hacking as an “original” report.

Oh, yeah, and they’re still blaming Sarah Palin for making herself a victim of the crime.

Keep carrying that Obama water, AP.

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Update: Conflicting info on whether Kernell is being investigated. See The Other McCain for the twists and turns.

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Previous:

9/17 Sarah Palin’s private e-mail hacked, family photos raided; cesspool blog gloats; feds investigate

9/17 The story behind the Palin e-mail hacking

9/17 Gawker lies again

9/18 Palin e-mail hack update: AP won’t help feds, tech operator will

Posted in: Media Bias, Sarah Palin

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#101

On September 19th, 2008 at 2:46 am, emjem24 said:

Isn’t it nice to know how little regard yahoo has for its own email customers that a security breach like this could even be possible?

The possible implication that the culprit is a TN Dem state rep’s son is an intriguing “kernel” of insight.

It’s nice to know that the worldwide hacker brigade think that breaching people’s personal privacy is such a major laugh. I would love more of these cyber anarchists to answer for their crimes.

If this “kid” thought he was pulling off some lark or stunt and would never be found out then he’s the one who really is clueless.
#102

On September 19th, 2008 at 4:32 am, ChrisFromGermany said:

@leepro:

Interesting that Representative Kernell’s personal website has a link to a blogger named leftwingcracker that is on blogspot. Hmmm…

Maybe you should report that to FBI???

Rep. Kernell’s website is already offline, provided that the link was correct… Too late to make any screenshots…
#103

On September 19th, 2008 at 8:12 am, purplepeep said:

On September 19th, 2008 at 4:32 am, ChrisFromGermany said:

leepro
Interesting that Representative Kernell’s personal website has a link to a blogger named leftwingcracker that is on blogspot. Hmmm…

Maybe you should report that to FBI???

Rep. Kernell’s website is already offline, provided that the link was correct… Too late to make any screenshots…

I believe you’re barking up a couple wrong trees there, fellas.

First, the site that links to the leftwingcracker blog isn’t associated/owned/run by either father or son. The son just posted there a few times. It would be like trying to make “linkage” (bad pun, I know) between any of us here and the sites Michelle has on her blogroll.

Second, the father’s personal site looks like it was just one of those long abandoned personal sites that people set up using a very generic template, but the person doesn’t have the time, interest or knowledge to really do anything with it. In fact, I just checked now and as of this moment, you can buy the father’s domain name. That means he didn’t bother to renew it some time after Nov 2007.

But you can easily view what little there was of a site using what’s called the “Wayback Machine”, the Internet Archive that - well - archives websites and their changes. You can check it out here:

Wayback - MikeKernell.Com

I checked the archived website for anything nefarious when this story first broke, but I got nuthin’. Other than he’s a Democrat, which is always disburbing news.
#104

On September 19th, 2008 at 8:29 am, purplepeep said:

TypicalWhite said:
Well, if this proves true, as a resident of the great state of Tennessee, I offer my apologies to the rest of the nation for our state having produced this failure of a human being.

No need to apologize, TW, you had nothing to do with producing it; a Democrat Dad did. Your state was simply the unwary host of a parasite.

The irony here is that your state was also host for the parasite who claims to have invented the internet and, in so doing, helped entrap this latest parasite.
#105

On September 19th, 2008 at 8:36 am, GraniteMan said:

Oh, yeah, and they’re still blaming Sarah Palin for making herself a victim of the crime.

Yep! When they break into your house and steal the furniture–It’s your fault for living in that neighborhood.
GO SARAH
#106

On September 19th, 2008 at 8:39 am, GraniteMan said:

Don’t feel bad TW our state gave the world Hillary and are partly to blame for the Obamas.
#107

On September 19th, 2008 at 9:58 am, RedDog said:

Leftists: They must go down. They must go down hard.
#108

On September 19th, 2008 at 10:01 am, geokstr said:

We should start a pool.

I say that Matt Damon will play the role of the hacker in the new blockbuster thriller on how the valiant patriotic college kid fought the evil Palinator who was trying to bring down the country by helping the satanic capitalist-roader McBusHitler to win the election so he could tear up the constitution, declare himself king and re-enslave the black race.

I’m sure there are dozens of screenwriters working on it as we speak.
#109

On September 19th, 2008 at 3:02 pm, atheling said:

If this guy’s son was so “troubled” with depression, do you think he should have stayed home and tended to his family instead of running for political office?

Has anyone in the media come to that conclusion? Or does it only apply to conservative women?
#110

On September 21st, 2008 at 9:51 am, BruceB said:

Hey chapoutier ! How about a class action lawsuit against yahoo?
I’ve used them once and since I heard they gave up Palin’s password so easy, I’ve been afraid to e-mail.
I’ve lost a lot of money because I run a spam forwarding e-mail company.