I feel bad for the dad

Idiot parents raise idiot children.

iirc the dumb chick used yahoo for her email address. On top of that our dumb vice presidential candidate used a secret question one could easily use google to answer. Hacking.....lolz

Good - have him spend some time in jail. Make an example of him and maybe it will cause one or two people to realize that people are accountable for their actions. Just don't simply fine him and let him buy his way out of it though.

And I wouldn't feel bad for the Dad as I know absolutely nothing about him or how he raised his child; but apparently the first poster does.

Why put him in jail? He showed the world on sad Palin is for a VP. She used a yahoo account that was protected with a password found on Google. That's not even hacking. Hacking would be hacking into their servers and getting control that way. All he did was login to her account.

Linching party.... Palin should be dq'd from being vp for being so stupid, and using a non-secure email for any goverment work *wither any or not was actually harmful is besides to the point*. Good thing the kid wasn't a terrorist. People should be thanking this kid, not trying to linch him.

I think that punishment is more than a bit harsh, I mean the guy gained access to her email without breaking any laws(other than the act itself). He did not use malware or phishing to retrieve her password, just some a simple google search. And it's not like he do any damage once he got in, he didn't delete her emails or anything else. If it was anyone else having their account compromised no one would even care.

Wow, I am amazed by these posts. Laws are laws, and if you break one you should be punished. Saying he did not do anything illegal except for the actually login does not matter. He broke the law, period.

The fact that no one would care if it was someone else is another problem entirely.

So /b/ figures out that the kid's name (David Kernell) a couple of hours after "The Incident" posting his name, IP address, home address and phone number... yet it takes the FBI until now to track him down?

It's a sad state of affairs when /b/tards are outdoing our government institutions.

Ditto. Some of you guys are letting your hate for palin get in the way of logic. Saying she's responsible because she used Yahoo is like saying the pissdrunk girl at the party deserves to be raped.

Yeah, its not smart to use Yahoo for you main confidential e-mail address and its also not smart to get pissdrunk at a party, but it never justifies another's crime against you. Plain and simple, this guy is a douche...

It is a crime, the kid should be punished but I would be lying if I said that I wasn't glad that the kid showed up Palin as a very nieve and incompetent person who is not ready to be trusted with our nations security.

Wow, are you an idiot? Reading someone elses mail (and e-mail since 2002) is a FEDERAL CRIME. So yeah, he broke no other laws except for the federal one.

That's like saying, "Well he impersonated a police office, but while he had the stolen badge he never broke any other laws..."

Come on guys, get over Palin. Some of you would be very bad jurors in a high profile case.

Police officer, not office... my mistake. (kinda wish toms had an edit buttom sometimes)

Well maybe this "hacker" needs to be punished just cuz he was so stupid by getting caught so easily... If I remember correctly, his name was circulating the same day. Gives a bad name to hackers everywhere.......

he's the son of a state lawmaker. Have any idea what kind of power his daddy has? nothing will happen. It'll be swept under the carpet and forgotten.

Yep, this will be a test of the integrity of the U.S. law system. Powerful people getting their friends and relatives off easily while the poor, powerless and dispossessed end up in the 'slammer' is an indictment on any society that considers itself democratic and law-abiding.

I'm not much into north american laws, but here in europe you can actually get away with a small crime if the aim was to benefit the society. If for instance you were to be lying in court as a witness, in order to expose a criminal, and would admit it to the judge once the job's succeeded or failed, you're very unlikely to get any fine for the wrong you did. Granted it's a different scale than gaining unauthorized access to goverment confidential material. But at least it should be considered a factor to lower the punishment a bit. After all his aim could've been to expose a bigger crime, although I'm not sure there is any law saying a goverment official can't risk her nations security by being outright stupid.

While I think the kid should be punished for 'the hack' I believe more severe consequences should be put in place for palin, or anyone else with a position to gamble away a whole nations security like this.

After all, what's the point of security tokens, constantly changing passwords and other security measures applied by the various military forces, if all it takes to win against the given nations military is to hack a public email account? Anyone working for any isp the login passes thru, anyone working at, or being contracted by, the public email provider, has the ability to access critical information. Taking such a risk unnessecarily is in my opinion a much more severe social offense, if not punishable by law.

Well let me be the first to welcome you to America, where you can't commit a crime and say... "well, well, well, she's an idiot so i'm doing society a favor."

What nation's security is has she risked? She's is not the vice-president! She has committed no crime, and he has. And this country, we punish people who commit crimes (apparently something that lacks in your part of Europe).

I understand what you are saying, but she is NOT THE VP (some of you keep on forgetting that), and there was nothing sensitive in those e-mail.

Now, if she had military secrets in there, than yes I would agree that she should be punished, BUT the boy should be punished fully regardless (that's how things work in America).

So until owning a yahoo account and being a US governor simultaneously becomes a crime, you can just chill with your whole argument.

Kinda unrelated, I'm just really curious about the whole deal with Palin. Democrats want to kill this woman. I'm an independent myself (former republican), but my God if you google her you'll see people who really want her dead ranging ages 15 to death.

I personally don't get it. She is not a treat... at ALL. If the democrats are going to win in November they need to put the focus back on McCain instead of wasting time trying to disqualify Palin. She was NEVER qualified in the first place so everybody just get over Palin in chill.

@ Wavebossa : I'm not saying he's innocent though you seem to read that from my statement. In europe we punish criminals as well, we're just not seeing the world in black and white like you guys. We don't kill our criminals or give everybody the max penalty for every felony. We investigate and then determine a penalty.
And as for military - perhaps I made a wrong example. Given my previous statement already has two 'useless post' ratings I must assume people didn't understand what I wrote, or found it irrelevant to the thread. Either way, no goverment confidential documents, being it trafic, health, military or commerce related (or any other) should in my opinion be stored on a public server belonging to a privately owned company, accessed thru privately owned service providers. I'm not saying it's a crime to do so, in fact I clearly stated I am not aware of it being a crime in the sence of law. However law and justice isn't really the same thing. Laws are made to preserve justice, and I think the lack of such law indicates a lacking effort of preserving justice.

As for what nations security she's putting at risk - you clearly aren't as dumb as you want to seem, so you know. And I can't tell you how exactly she's putting it at risk, as I don't have (or want to have) access to the documents she is, was or would have been storing there.

You're right, being pissdrunk at a party does not justify a crime against you, and our young suspect here may have to pay a pretty hefty price for breaking a law.

But at the same time, it's REALLY stupid to nominate the pissdrunk party girl to be the vice presidential candidate.

"While I think the kid should be punished for 'the hack' I believe more severe consequences should be put in place for palin, or anyone else with a position to gamble away a whole nations security like this."

I'm sorry what exactly was in these emails again? Was their Alaskan government secrets? What National secrets were exposed? Good grief people, put away the political agendas. The guy broken into someone's account (doesn't matter if it was easy or not), and should be punished for it.

Just curious - if you forget to lock the front door in your house and someone goes into your house and steals everything is it not a crime "as you made it easy" for the burglar? Should his punishment be lessened based on the easiness of committing the crime? Should you no longer be able to own a home because of your incompetence? Should you face "more severe consequences" then the burglar because of your own incompetence?

I have to respond to these guys saying he should be punished. You're right he should get something. Full extent of the law no way. And unless his daddy has more pull then the candiate running for vp he just might. But crimes are not equal. People here seem to think they are. Why is my tax money going only to protect the goverment officials. If you called the fbi and told them somebody broke into your email do you honestly believe they would care? Even though the goverment is supposed to work for us.

If somebody broke into my house, and got caught. Yes, he would go to jail. If somebody broke into palin's, mckain, biden, or barrok house he would go to the bay for terrorism or simply disappear. So quit pretending everything is equal even though by law it should be.

What this kid did was ultimately harmless. Maybe if he blew the cover of a CIA agent, misrepresented American military intelligence, or otherwise undermined national security I'd say he should be punished. In that sort of situation punitive measures would be perfectly justified. Given what the actual situation is, he should get fined something in the four figure range.