Democratic Rep. Mike Kernell of Tennessee has acknowledged that his 20-year son, David Kernell, is the subject of Internet postings alleging he is the person who hacked into Sarah Palin's e-mail, according to The Tennesseean.
"The person they're talking about is my son," said Kernell. "But we know of no investigation. I have not been contacted. He has not been contacted," Kernell told a Memphis TV station.
The FBI and Secret Service have not confirmed that David Kernell is a suspect. However, the TV station said the FBI in Anchorage, Alaska has contacted the Memphis FBI bureau in the investigation.
On the Internet 4chan forum, the hacker, using the pseudonym "Rubico," detailed how easily it was to gain access to Palin's e-mail. The poster said that the intrusion started off as a "prank."
"I really wanted to get something incriminating which I was sure there would be," the e-mails said. "I read though the e-mails ALL OF THEMbefore I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor and pictures of her family."
"After the password recovery was re-enabled, it took seriously 45 mins on wikipedia and google to find the info, Birthday? 15 seconds on wikipedia, zip code? well she had always been from wasilla, and it only has 2 zip codes (thanks online postal service!), "Rubico" wrote. "The second was somewhat harder, the question was "where did you meet your spouse?" did some research, and apparently she had eloped with mister palin after college, if youll look on some of the screensh*ts that I took and other fellow anon have so graciously put on photobucket you will see the google search for "palin eloped" or some such in one of the tabs."
"I found out later though more research that they met at high school, so I did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on "Wasilla high" I promptly changed the password to popcorn and took a cold shower"
That cold shower must've woken "Rubico" up. He said he later realized the seriousness of what he did. "It finally set in, THIS internet was serious business, yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this sh*t ever got to the FBI I was f—ed, I panicked, i still wanted the stuff out there but I didn't know how to rapid [share] 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."
Gabriel Ramuglia, the Web master and operator of Ctunnel.com, the browsing proxy service used by "Rubico" confirmed that he was contacted by the FBI and that he provided them with information.
Barack Obama spokesman Bill Burton called the hacking incident "outrageous."
Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz said, "The fact that a Democratic activist - and possibly an Obama supporter - could go to these lengths is deeply disturbing and criminal," according to The New York Post.
This article has been corrected from its original version.
