Palin's E-Mail Hacker Sentenced

11/18/10

Although David Kernell received a year under custody, he will likely spend that year in a half-way house, as was recommended by Federal Judge Thomas W. Phillips, who handed down the sentence on Friday.

While federal guidelines for sentencing recommended anywhere between 15 and 21 months in prison, Kernell was facing a maximum penalty of 20 years in custody in addition to a fine of up to $250,000.

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Kernell's lawyer, Wade Davies, sought probation for his client. In a written statement, Davies wrote, ''The proof showed that Mr. Kernell very quickly took actions that resulted in the evidence being preserved.'' He included that Kernell suffered ''public humiliation'' that would deter him from committing future crimes.

The issue began in September 2008, soon after Palin was named as the Vice-Presidential nominee for John McCain's campaign. Word had spread that a hacker by the name of ''Rubico'' had gotten into Palin's personal Yahoo e-mail account.

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How did he do it? It was easier than you might think.

Kernell was able to reset Palin's password using publicly available information, including Palin's birth date and zip code. He reset the password to ''popcorn'' and took control of the email account.

It wasn't long before bloggers across the web tracked down the true identity of Kernell.

Kernell admitted after being caught that he had hoped to find incriminating information in the email account that could ruin Palin's candidacy. While Kernell did prove that Palin used the email account for official Alaska state business, Kernell did not find anything particularly damaging to Palin's campaign. Nonetheless, two pictures of Palin's children, as well as five email messages were posted on the web destinations 4Chan and Imageshack.