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You are here: News > News > Palin Hacker Claims Pilfered E-mails Public Record
| » IT Security NEWS |
| » 23 May 2009 |
| Palin Hacker Claims Pilfered E-mails Public Record |
| In a surprising legal maneuver by the defense in the Sarah Palin hacking case, he claimed that the e-mails procured by the cyber attack were part of public record. If this method proves successful, it could undermine important charges that carry some severe potential punishment. The legal representative of David Kernell, the Tennessee college student accused of infiltrating into the failed vice-presidential candidate's Yahoo e-mail account in 2008 states that his client couldn't have infringed on Palin's privacy since a judge had previously ruled that her e-mails were a matter of public record. A former Justice Department cyber crime prosecutor, Mark Rasch, explains that Kernell's lawyer isn't suggesting that e-mail cannot be private. He's just arguing that an e-mail that Kernell specifically stole was not personal or private "because of who (Palin) is and because it wasn't intimate communication." According to Kernell's attorney, pictures that the 20-year-old suspected hacker reportedly acquired of Palin and the rest of her family were not confidential or personal because the Palins are well-known figures that get a multitude of photo opportunities anyway. This was just one of an avalanche of memorandums and motions contending the government's four-count federal indictment of the supposed cyber criminal. The story of the hacking incident wherein a hacker gained illegal access to Palin's webmail account (gov.palin@yahoo.com) by using information readily obtainable through public records and the Internet broke last September. The hacker was able to change her password to "popcorn" and, under the name "Rubico", post screenshots of Palin's e-mail and her new password in a 4chan.org forum, which granted other invaders access into the webmail account. Bloggers soon tracked down the handle Rubico to the e-mail that Kernell was identified to have. In October of 2008, Tennessee federal prosecutors had the youth accused on one felony charge of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Afterwards, last March, prosecutors added three more counts; one of obstruction of justice by destroying evidence; one of identity theft for supposedly impersonating as Palin in order to hack into her webmail; and one of wire fraud for reportedly conniving to defraud Palin of property by stealing data from her e-mail account and publishing it on a website forum. Afterwards, defense lawyer Wade Davies requested a federal judge to dismiss the charges for various reasons, with particular emphasis to the wire fraud and hacking counts. The legal representative's pretrial arguments give insight into his defense strategy should the trial push through. |
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