The FBI has searched a college apartment of David Kernell, the man suspected of hacking into Republican vice-president Sarah Palin’s e-mail account. It appears he, like Palin, has been caught out by some fairly simple detective work.

Kernell (pictured) is the son of a Democrat state representative. Mike Kernell has confirmed his son is the person talked about online, but denies any involvement himself, telling the Associated Press “I had nothing to do with it, I had no knowledge or anything. I was not a party to anything of this nature at all. I wasn’t in on this — and I wouldn’t know how to do anything like that.”

David Kernell was first tagged as the man claiming responsibility after message board posters noted the user name ‘Rubico’ matched up with rubico10@yahoo.com, an address Kernell had used on YouTube. (There’s a certain irony given that Palin’s hacked account was also provided by Yahoo.)

That wasn’t enough in itself for an FBI raid. However, after the hacker mistakenly left a website address in screenshots of Palin’s e-mails, it was clearly visible that he had used Ctunnel, a proxy service used for ‘anonymous browsing’.

Ctunnel’s staff had originally tracked the hacker down to an internet service provider based in Illinois, which appeared to put Kernell in the clear. It turns out, though, that the ISP also provides service to Knoxille, where Kernell studies.

Presumably working from the online rumours, the FBI asked Ctunnel to check for a specific IP address at the apartment block where Kernell lives; Ctunnel confirmed that it belonged to the culprit.

Feds then got a search warrant for the apartment and raided in the early hours of Sunday morning. Witnesses say Kernell and friends left the house during the raid (there is no report of any charges being filed), but three roommates were served with subpoena’s and must testify in Chattanooga this week.

Related:

Entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm under Hacking, Legal, Security, Yahoo!.

Read more entries by John Lister.
Stumble It!