Palin Email Intrusion Investigation Moves Forward

According to Fox News, warrants have been served in the Governor Palin / Yahoo! Email breakin. As I wrote previously, the person of interest is one David Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Kernell is the son of Mike Kernell, a Democratic state representative in Tennessee. Per Fox News “A witness told the station they took photos inside Kernell’s apartment and that his three roommates were subpoenaed to testify this week in Chattanooga.”

Also of particular interest to me is that the perportrator used a service called CTunnel.com while committing this crime. For those who don’t know, such a service is a way of “hiding” where the network traffic is coming from, by proxying the connection. What I find interesting however is that I dont recall such a service actually aiding in the investigation of such a crime. The CTunnel.com owner Gabriel Ramuglia is cooperating with authorities, of his own volition it seems.

My point is that some people seem to think that if they just take a step or two to hide their electronic footprints, it’s not necesarily going to make them invisible. There is always a trail when it comes to the Internet. For better or worse, your actions online are tracked *somewhere*, even if you take steps to obfuscate your actions. CTunnel, for example, kept logs of the traffic it was proxying…and is now apparently handing them over to the Feds.

Also see: Michelle Malkin - On the Palin Hacker E-Mail Trail

Palin Email Intruder’s Father - Democratic Rep in Tennessee

According to an article at Wired.com -

“Threat Level was unable to reach the student by phone because his number is unlisted. A person who identified himself as the student’s father, when reached at home, said he could not talk about the matter and would have no comment. The father is a Democratic state representative in Tennessee. Threat Level is not identifying them by name because authorities have not identified any suspects in the case, and the link to the student so far is tenuous.”

This is unacceptable. I sincerely hope that the investigation of this issue is being handled seriously, and intensely. Out of all the people out there with the knowledge and skill (not that much needed, but still) to accomplish this breach, the person who does it just happens to be the child of a Democratic Party politician?

On another note, I sincerely urge all who read this blog to take seriously their online security. Yahoo mail has been demonstrated to be insecure, other online email services can be exploited as well. Regularly change your passwords. Regularly inspect your email for anything out of the ordinary.

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Also see:

• Password Security Tips
• BREAKING: Obama’s Email Hacked! UPDATED
• How Many Emails Accounts Do You Have?