Gearfuse

Having a father who’s the chairman of Tennessee’s House Government Operations Committee won’t help you much when you’ve wronged a vice presidential candidate. David Kernell of Knoxville, Tennessee pleaded not guilty in a federal court on Wednesday. Accused of intentionally accessing Palin’s e-mail account without authorization, he was later indicted for it and now faces up to 5 years of jail time, a $250,000 fine and three years parole.

The trial is set for December 16. We’ll keep you posted on the fate of poor David Kernell. We hope you’ve all learned a lesson here. You don’t mess with a politician, no matter how ridiculous he/she might be.

Link

I’m sure you’ve heard about Republican vice president candidate Sarah Palin’s e-mail account getting hacked. Turns out, the hacker knew more about her personal life than both the Republican party and the press. The hacker had guessed that Alaska’s governor had met her husband in high school, and also knew Palin’s date of birth and home Zip code. With those details, the hacker tricked Yahoo’s e-mail service into assigning a new password, “popcorn,” to the Alaska Governor’s e-mail account.

A formal investigation has been launched by both the FBI and the Secret Service against the hacker who has since come out anonymously via the Internet but there is no word on his identity. While it certainly was a violation of Palin’s privacy, the following question was raised: should Governor Palin have been using a non-government e-mail to conduct state business? Also, does this evidence imply improper political activity? I think not, but Sarah Palin definitely needs to think of some better password recovery questions.

Link