Tenn. Democratic Representative's Son Focus of Palin Email Hacking

Politics | Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 4:01:35 pm PDT

It’s not a good idea to break into a vice presidential candidate’s email account: State rep says son focus of Palin e-mail hacking rumors.

NASHVILLE - State Rep. Mike Kernell said today that he was aware of Internet rumors about his son being the subject of speculation that he accessed the personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Asked whether he or his son, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, had been contacted by authorities investigating the break-in of Palin’s account, he responded: “Me, no.”

As far as his 20-year-old son, David, he said: “I can’t say. That doesn’t mean he has or hasn’t (been contacted by investigators).”

Kernell, D-Memphis, cited the father-son relationship.

Note: there was really no “hacking” involved here. Just some good guesses combined with publicly available information, used to trick Yahoo’s password reset feature into assigning a new password to the account.