Intellectual Property Law

More Charges for Palin Hacker

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

A University of Tennessee student who was indicted last year for allegedly hacking into the private e-mail account of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is facing new charges.

A federal grand jury added three charges to the one count that 21-year-old David Kernell was previously facing. Kernell was indicted in October on one count of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Now in addition to that charge, Kernell faces one count of identity theft for allegedly impersonating Palin to access her e-mail account; one count of wire fraud related to posting information from and about Palin's account on a web forum; and one count of obstruction of justice for destroying evidence.

The new indictment (.pdf) was returned February 3, according to court records.

Threat Level broke the story last September that someone had obtained unauthorized access to Palin's e-mail account by using publicly available information about her to reset her password to "popcorn." He then posted the screenshots of e-mail in Palin's account, as well as her new password, to a forum at 4chan.org under the username "Rubico", enabling other intruders to access Palin's account. Bloggers quickly traced the name Rubico to an e-mail address -- Rubico10@yahoo.com -- that Kernell was known to use, prosecutors say.

A day or so after Palin's information was posted to the hacker forum, someone purporting to be Rubico published an account of how he broke into Palin's account and described deleting evidence from his computer after realizing that the FBI might be able to track him.

yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this shit ever got to the FBI I was fucked, I panicked, i still wanted the stuff out there but I didn?t know how to rapidshit 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

Kernell was re-arraigned on the new charges in a Tennessee courtroom Monday morning. His trial has been re-scheduled from May to October 27.

If convicted of all four charges, he likely faces a sentence of 18 to 24 months in prison and a fine of between $4,000 and $40,000, according to federal sentencing guidelines and the nature of his alleged crimes.

Information about the new charges was first reported by WBIR in Tennessee.

See Also:

• Palin Hacker Denies Felony Charge and 'Hacker' Label
• Tennessee Student Indicted for Hacking Palin E-Mail
• Palin Had a Third E-Mail Account
• FBI Searches Apartment of Tennessee Student Suspected of Palin Hack
• Little or No Jail Time Likely for Palin Hacker
• Palin E-Mail Hacker Says It Was Easy
• Group Posts E-Mail Hacked from Palin Account

Full post as published by Threat Level on March 09, 2009 (boomark / email).