College student at center of Palin hack chatter

A Tennessee legislator has acknowledged that his son, a 20-year old college student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, has been cited on blogs and message boards in connection with the hacking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's email account. Democratic State Rep. Mike Kernell told the Tennessean newspaper that his son, David Kernell, is at the center of speculation about the identity of the hacker who gained access to the Republican vice presidential candidate's email account.

An individual identified only as "rubico" last week posted a message to 4chan.org's popular /b/ board claiming to have gained access to Palin's e-mail by using Yahoo's password reset feature. The rubico handle on 4chan.org was later linked to the email address "rubico10@yahoo.com," which was in turn linked to David Kernell through Internet searches. Both the FBI and Secret Service have opened investigations. Palin shut down her Yahoo account, which included emails regarding state business.

For more on the Palin email scandal:
- see this ComputerWorld.com article