David Kernell, a 20-year-old economics major at the University of Tennessee and the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, had his apartment searched by FBI agents over the weekend, The Associated Press and Knoxville, Tenn., TV station WBIR report.

Unnamed witnesses to the search told WBIR that FBI agents broke up a party at the younger Kernell’s apartment near campus and issued subpoenas to three of his roommates. Witnesses told the station that Kernell and his friends “fled the apartment when the FBI agents arrived.”

The hacker, going by the screen name “Rubico,” made claims that he broke into Palin’s personal Yahoo e-mail account by tricking the system’s security software into issuing him a new password, according to Wired.com. Bloggers were able to connect the “Rubico” name to David Kernell’s university e-mail account last Thursday.

The hacker’s public, yet anonymous confession, apparently allowed authorities to focus on the Tennessee college student.

“He might as well have taken a picture of his house and uploaded it,” Ken Pfeil, an Internet security expert, told the AP.

Source: Washington Post