14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like the rumor that David Kernell, a 20-year-old student at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, is the person responsible for illegally accessing Sarah Palin's e-mail account is shaping up to be true. The FBI searched an apartment at The Commons in Knoxville, a student housing complex located in the vicinity of the university's campus. A local witness reports that the apartment raided by the FBI belongs to David Kernell.
A few days ago, we reported that David Kernell was pointed out by the blogosphere as being the real name behind the user calling himself rubico, who posted a confession regarding the hack of Sarah Palin's e-mail account on the /b/ board of 4chan shortly after the incident. At that time, his father, Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell, confirmed that the rumors concern his son, but he refused any further comment.
As we previously wrote, the FBI contacted Gabriel Ramuglia, the owner of the Ctunel proxy service used in the hack, as well as Yahoo in order to obtain logs containing the hacker's IP address. Mr. Ramuglia commented for the Tech Observer that the FBI questioned him regarding a single IP address and that after he analyzed his logs, he found the activity related to the IP in question being "consistent with what websites the hacker was expected to have visited through [his] service”. In this regard, he noted that "the person visited Yahoo Mail, 4chan, and the Web addresses that were visible in the posted screenshots".
Even though Ramuglia refused to disclose the exact IP address, the Tech Observer claims they learned that the range the IP is part of belongs to Pavlov Media, an Illinois based ISP, which happens to provide Internet connectivity for The Commons complex in Knoxville. This is most likely what prompted the FBI to get a search warrant for Kernell's apartment.
According to a witness, the FBI showed up at the apartment close to midnight while a party was taking place. David Kernell is said to have fled the scene along with some of his friends when the agents arrived. The agents first identified everyone at the party then asked those who did not live there to go outside, while they spent approximately two hours taking pictures of everything in the apartment. No one was arrested following the search, but three of Kernell's roommates were subpoenaed to testify in Chattanooga this week.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice confirmed for WBIR that "investigatory activity" had taken place in Knoxville regarding the Palin hacking incident, but that no charges had been filed. WBIR also reports that a different source within law enforcement confirmed that a search warrant for Kernell's apartment had been served.
Meanwhile, several legal experts expressed their opinion regarding the case. Some of them don't expect the sentence to be too harsh.