Palin e-mail ‘hacker’ disputes label

WASILLA — The trial of the man accused of breaking into Gov. Sarah Palin’s e-mail account has been postponed after prosecutors and defense attorneys asked for more time to prepare.

It seems the complex language of some computer crimes is new lingo to attorneys on both sides.

“A lot of this is in computer language that a lot of lawyers couldn’t just read and get,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle told The Associated Press.

David Kernell, the 20-year old son of Democratic Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis, faces up to five years in prison if convicted of breaking into Palin’s Yahoo! account.

The incident became national news because the break-in occurred after presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain tapped Palin as his running mate.

But some have taken issue with the courts calling Kernell’s actions hacking, which many computer enthusiasts say involves more sophisticated and high-tech means of getting past digital security.

In a blog frequented by many hackers, Kernell said he simply reset Palin’s password by correctly answering personal security questions.

Early accounts alleged that Kernell correctly answered the security question “Where did you meet your spouse?” to reset Palin’s password.

Since Palin had been in the national media, information about her personal life was readily available to anyone willing to Goggle it.

Kernell allegedly reset the password to “popcorn” before posting screen shots of Palin’s address book and some e-mails.

Ryan Gattis, a technician at ITS Alaska, a Wasilla-based computer store, said the problem with Yahoo e-mail accounts is the ease with which they can be broken into.

“Anyone who knows you reasonably well, or anyone who read about you in the paper, will probably have that type of information at the ready,” Gattis said.

He added anyone who wants to go out of their way to break into someone’s Web-based e-mail account will likely be able to succeed.

But users can protect themselves against such break-ins by writing a long line of gibberish as an answer to a personal question, Gattis said.

As for Kernell, it’s unknown when his trial will begin, but, like others in the computer world, Kernell’s attorney, Wade Davies, has taken exception to his client being branded as a hacker.

Davies told The Associated Press the word carries negative connotations, and his client did not hack but only guessed “three security questions based on readily available information from public sources.”

Contact Michael Rovito at michael.rovito@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.