Did bloggers catch ‘Rubico?’

Democratic Rep. Mike Kernell of Tennessee told The Tennessean that his 20-year-old son David C. Kernell is being linked to the Sarah Palin Yahoo! e-mail hacking. Bloggers say they have connected the handle of the poster, "Rubico," to an e-mail address, and identified the owner as a college student in Tennessee.

David Kernell, a University of Tennessee-Knoxville college student, speaks to his dad, a Memphis, TN, lawmaker (photo left), on a regular basis, reports The Tennessean. Mike Kernell declined to comment further or discuss his son’s whereabouts. Meanwhile, political blog sites, such as TennesseeFree.com, are reporting that the young Kernell has been contacted by the authorities for questioning. When the Knoxville News Sentinel asked the Democratic politician 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 to the Sentinel: "I can’t say. That doesn’t mean he has or hasn’t (been contacted by investigators)."

According to the Daily Beacon, the university’s independent student newspaper, Kernell was a declared engineering physics major as of September, 2007. The FBI and Secret Service launched a formal probe Wednesday to find the hacker, reports the Associated Press. Yahoo declined to comment Thursday on details of the investigation, and the person who claimed responsibility for the break-in did not respond to an e-mail inquiry from the AP.

According to Wired.com, the e-mail thief wrote a presumptive first-person account of the hack (that was later erased) on 4chan.org. Reports say the hacker, who uses the screen name "Rubico" and used the e-mail account "rubico10@yahoo.com," read about Palin’s use of a Yahoo e-mail account in news reports. Researching just 45 minutes on Google and Wikipedia, the person was able to find where the Republican vice-presidential candidate met her spouse, her birthdate and ZIP code — which helped him answer her security questions. The person then changed Palin’s password to "popcorn."

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