It was just after midnight on September 16 2008. Somewhere in the heart of the United States, a web surfer known only by the nickname ‘Rubico’ flipped open his laptop and stared intently at the screen.It was the height of the US presidential election campaign and the television was filled with images of Sarah Palin, who had been confirmed as John McCain’s running mate.Earlier, Rubico had wondered whether a hunch he’d had about an email security flaw meant it would be possible to access her private messages. It was time to find out.The first piece of the puzzle – knowing which account belonged to Palin – was already in place.The governor’s personal email address had become public knowledge following a controversy that revealed she had been sending messages about official Alaska state business using a private account (gov.palin@yahoo.com), not illegal but seriously frowned upon.Rubico knew that the security procedures on Yahoo! email accounts were incredibly flimsy.Once he knew Palin’s address, all he had to do was guess the answers to a handful of ‘secret’ security questions about her – all of which, if she had answered them truthfully, could be easily deduced.So, he logged on, told Yahoo! that he had forgotten the password to Palin’s account and started trying to gain access. It could hardly have been easier.The first security question – asking him to confirm Palin’s birthday – was answered in a matter of seconds, courtesy of a quick visit to Wikipedia.Guessing her postcode took just a couple of attempts. The last question took longer to solve, since it asked where Palin met her husband, Todd.After a few failed guesses, Rubico punched in the name of the school that they had attended: Wasilla High.The system was fooled. Believing that he was the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States, it asked him to set a new password for the account. He chose ‘popcorn’.The screen flickered. He was in.Rubico was not some mastermind hacker or hard-core political activist. Instead, he was a middle-class, lanky economics student called David Kernell.And within minutes of breaking into Palin’s account, he was gripped by a terrible sense of foreboding. Had he just messed with powers he didn’t understand? What would Palin and the law enforcement agencies do if they found out?The 20 year-old was right to be alarmed. What he had just done was punishable with a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.Not that he’d found much of interest. After the excitement of getting into her account, sifting through Palin’s emails turned out to be something of a damp squib.The account contained little more than some boring emails with friends and colleagues, a stream of family photos and the candidate’s contacts book.But, buoyed by his success at gaining access, Kernell had bragged about it on an online messageboard called 4Chan.‘There was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped,’ he told them.‘All I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor… and pictures of her family.’Kernell posted some of the things he’d found as proof – photos, screen shots, the new password – before realising he could be in serious trouble.He suddenly got scared and a few seconds later, he disappeared.‘If this s--- ever got to the FBI I was f----d,’ he wrote later on the site. ‘I panicked… I posted the pass and then promptly deleted everything and unplugged my internet and just sat there in a comatose state.’Too late.Within hours, the news that Palin’s email had been breached was spreading.The account was shut down, but not before notorious whistleblower website Wikileaks had taken copies of the documents, a move which meant that the rest of the web started picking up on the story.Some outlets delighted in the muckraking, re-posting the photographs and private messages with glee, while others warned that the culprit could face severe repercussions.Palin’s family started receiving abusive emails and phone calls and the McCain campaign went into temporary panic mode.Later, Palin described the moment she discovered what had happened while watching the news on television.‘I thought: what kind of creep would break into a person’s files, steal them, read them, then give them to the press to broadcast… in order to influence a presidential campaign?'And what kind of responsible press outfit would broadcast stolen private correspondence?’Within hours of the incident, journalists and bloggers had already traced Rubico’s own email account and linked it back to its owner.Immediately, given Kernell’s high-profile victim and his comment about derailing her campaign, people began to ask questions. Had he been paid by the Obama campaign to dig up dirt on the Republican campaign?The accusations of political subterfuge increased to almost ear-splitting volume when it emerged that his father, Mike, happened to be a Democrat politician in Tennessee.Kernell senior – who has held a seat in the state’s House of Representatives for 36 years – was part of a local group trying to get Obama elected, a fact that proved to many that the intrusion must have been part of an organised plot to destabilise McCain and Palin.Bloggers and talk radio hosts vented their spleen, calling Kernell a ‘Left-wing scumbag’ and accusing him of ‘dirty tricks’.‘Democrats and their spawn behaving dishonourably isn’t a new phenomenon,’ wrote one online commenter.Another noted: ‘Obama and his mindless followers have been using these tactics all along. This time someone got caught.’Democrats defended Kernell with equal vehemence, denying any organised plot and accusing the authorities – and the media – of being in thrall to Palin.It didn’t matter that Kernell and his father denied the political plot: suddenly Rubico’s blunder had become a cause célèbre in the battle between Left and Right.‘Thousands have bank accounts hacked and their identities stolen and what happens to them? Nothing.'Palin gets her public Yahoo! account hacked into and suddenly the Feds are showing up at the door,’ blustered one Democrat supporter at the time, summing up a groundswell of Left-wing sentiment. ‘It’s a joke.’Little about David Kernell’s background or history suggested that he would end up in such a predicament. Growing up around Germantown, a well-to-do suburb of Memphis, he did well at school.Though his father had divorced his mother, military dentist Lt Col Lillian Landrigan, when David was young, they were each heavily involved in his upbringing. He was a smart student who hung around with a crowd of high-achievers.Tall with a pale face, ruddy cheeks and a mop of curly, reddish hair, Kernell fitted the geek stereotype: he was good at maths; enjoyed playing video games; and was a die-hard fan of the television science fiction series Battlestar Galactica.His Facebook profile, meanwhile, listed scientists like Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond as his favourite authors.He enjoyed the great outdoors, in particular rock climbing, but his favourite pastime was chess – he once made it through to the state championships as the top qualifier.‘I was one of the dumber smart kids, but David was the guy who’d play blindfolded chess,’ says Matthew Gabriel, who was in Kernell’s class at Germantown High School and – like him – is now studying at the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville. ‘It was impressive, but daunting.’Like most students at UT, Kernell enjoyed going out drinking and attending the parties held around the campus. At weekends he would often travel back to Memphis to visit his girlfriend.UT was awash with politics but Kernell was not part of the scene: friends say he was never preachy about his beliefs.What’s more, those around him say he never displayed any particular aptitude for computers. ‘He’s computer knowledgeable, but what college student isn’t?’ said Brett Ballinger, who knew Kernell from school in Memphis and is now in his final year at UT.‘At least 90 per cent of these people have a blog, Facebook – you just live on the internet.’David Omiecinski, his former flatmate, said he was amazed when Kernell tricked his way into Palin’s account. ‘There was a knock on my door,’ he said.‘It was David. He told me to come to his room to check this stuff out… I was kind of taken aback. I didn’t figure he’d be trying to do something like that.’It was just after midnight on Sunday, exactly five days after the initial intrusion, when the FBI pounced, making headlines with a raid on Kernell’s home, a four-bedroom flat near the university campus.The raid itself seemed orchestrated to maximise disruption and garner as much publicity as possible; it was staged in the middle of a party that had been organised weeks before by Kernell’s flatmates, with dozens of students in attendance.Witnesses describe how two armed FBI agents banged on the door to serve their search warrant, before bursting in to look for evidence that linked Kernell to the Rubico attack.The partygoers had their names taken and were forced to stand outside as a team of agents ransacked the flat for clues, photographing Kernell’s possessions, ripping posters from the walls and slashing open his mattress in the hunt for anything incriminating.In some ways, their frantic search was no surprise: in his messageboard postings, Rubico had admitted that he had deleted his internet browser’s history in the panicked minutes after the gravity of what he had done sank in.Later on, overwhelmed by the media attention, Kernell had tried to close down his Facebook account.He did not realise that it is almost impossible to erase your footprints online: his Facebook account was not deleted, merely hidden from public view, and his internet activity was easily traced through a website, CTunnel, that he had used to try to protect his identity.The truth is that even before they stepped foot inside his home, the agents had a detailed picture not only of who had accessed Palin’s account, but also of how he had done it.But their zeal seemed odd. By the time the raid happened, in fact, Kernell had already contacted the authorities.Scared and confused as his late-night prank snowballed into a national controversy, he had offered to help the FBI and Secret Service investigators looking into the affair – an offer they ignored because he did not talk to them through a lawyer.After a two-hour search, the FBI team emerged carrying bags of evidence, including Kernell’s computer.Nobody was arrested or charged, but his three flatmates were served subpoenas ordering them to appear in court the following week. Camera crews, egged on by the raid, surrounded the building. Reporters swarmed the block.Despite the publicity, progress was slow, partially because Palin was still in the teeth of the election.Within weeks an initial charge was brought against Kernell, who appeared in handcuffs in front of a judge, relating to the ‘unauthorised access’ to a secure computer, but the original trial date was pushed back.The youngster was released on bail, on the condition that he did not leave eastern Tennessee.He was also banned from owning a computer and using the internet for anything other than university work (although such a ban was, in practice, virtually impossible to police).Despite all this, experts thought the case would fade away. Lawyers experienced in computer crime said that the incident – which was not a serious computer ‘hack’ but more an amateurish con trick – would most likely warrant a slap on the wrists.Instead, six months after the initial incident, prosecutors suddenly filed three more charges: identity theft, based on the fact that he had ‘posed’ as Palin; wire fraud, because his actions had crossed state borders; and obstruction of justice, from his decision to delete computer files.Between them, they carried a maximum sentence of 50 years in jail.When the case finally came to trial last month, Palin played it for all it was worth. The former candidate, now a presenter on the Right-wing TV channel Fox News, arrived in a blacked-out four-wheel drive.After taking her place on the stand, she delivered her testimony in front of a packed courtroom.Kernell, she said, was responsible for ‘the most disruptive and discouraging’ moment of her failed campaign to reach the White House.Ignoring other setbacks during the election – the huge gaps in her knowledge of foreign affairs; the $150,000 bill for her wardrobe – she explained how her adolescent nemesis had affected her chances of success.‘I was told the account was probably still open because the media was showing more and more emails and screen shots,’ she said.‘People were still in there trying to find dirt on me. It caused a huge disruption in the campaign. If the intent was to disrupt it, it was successful.’To get the prosecutors’ message across, her daughter, Bristol, was also brought into the witness box to describe how she had been affected.Bristol – who was 17, pregnant and stuck at home under secret service guard while her mother hit the campaign trail – said she received a string of text messages, phone calls and emails in the wake of the breach.‘There was one that really scared me,’ she said, about a call where a group of boys said they were outside her front door.‘We live in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, in the middle of the woods,’ she added. Outside, Palin told reporters how she had wanted to step in. ‘A momma wants to be there to help the kids,’ she told them.In Kernell’s defence, his lawyer, Wade Davies, argued that his client was young and naive and was facing the harsh judgment of an overzealous prosecution.The defendant, he argued, had made ‘some stupid decisions’ but had conducted what amounted to a college prank.Kernell often appeared nervous and pensive while the arguments took place. His father, keen not to remind people of his son’s political connections, kept away from court, leaving David’s mother to provide parental support.At times he looked like an overgrown teenager, straining inside a suit that he appeared closer to growing out of with each passing day.He did not take the stand to defend his actions, notably breaking silence only when a reporter asked him, outside the courtroom, what he thought of Bristol Palin. ‘Not my type,’ he muttered.Even after the prosecution’s celebrity testimony, the jury struggled to make a decision. Their final decision, after four days’ deliberation, was not straightforward.Late on the afternoon of Friday April 30, Kernell was found not guilty of one of the most serious charges, wire fraud, but guilty of two more – unauthorised access and obstructing justice.They remained deadlocked on the final charge, identity theft.In response, Palin, not someone known for understatement, issued a press release comparing the case to Watergate.‘My family and I are thankful that the jury thoroughly and carefully weighed the evidence and issued a just verdict,’ she said.‘As Watergate taught us, we rightfully reject illegally breaking into candidates’ private communications for political intrigue in an attempt to derail an election.’Kernell, meanwhile, faces up to 20 years in prison. Experts suggest that the sentence will be significantly lighter, but the decision (which is not expected for at least three months) ultimately lies at the mercy of the judge, Thomas Phillips.In making his decision, there are several precedents to which he can refer.In 2008, newspapers in America had a field day when it was revealed that the TV newsreader Larry Mendte had been breaking into the email account of his co-anchor, Alycia Lane, and leaking messages to the press.He pleaded guilty and was ordered to serve 250 hours of community service.And in 2005, a 17-year-old from Massachusetts was found guilty of breaking into the mobile phone account of Paris Hilton and posting private pictures and messages online.The teenager, who had targeted a string of other victims besides Hilton, was sent to juvenile detention for 11 months.‘You can break a lot of systems with basic knowledge,’ says Dr Danah Boyd, a researcher with Microsoft and fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.‘Most people aren’t that technologically savvy and so they don’t properly secure systems. Sarah Palin is no different.’In Britain, the situation is similar. Thousands of us know people who have broken into the email accounts of spurned lovers or jealous colleagues.This sort of unauthorised access is prohibited under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act and punishable by up to six months in prison, but, in practice, few culprits are ever charged.The same goes for America. So why was the whole weight of the law brought down upon David Kernell? Many believe Palin used the case to stay in the limelight ahead of what may be another run for office in 2012.Others wonder whether the government lawyers were dazzled by celebrity – too eager to pursue serious charges because they saw the chance to take part in a high-profile trial.After the verdict was read out and David Kernell emerged into the Tennessee sunshine, I asked his prosecutors whether they would have pursued the case so zealously if the victim had been somebody less high-profile.Mark Krotoski, the Assistant US Attorney, played the question with the deadest of bats.‘We felt the conduct in this case warranted each one of those charges,’ he said. ‘The victim of this case certainly was mentioned, but it wasn’t a big part of the presentation of the government’s case.’That’s the official line, but, to others, it feels like youthful misdemeanours are being manipulated for political and professional gain.As Kernell’s friend Brett Ballinger - sitting in the quad of the university - asked: ‘What are they trying to push on him? Did any of them ever sit down and ask, “How did he really hurt these people and is it worth us going and destroying his life?’”
