FBI raids apartment in Palin hacking case

Reuters

HOT ON THE TRAIL: The FBI appears close to tracking down the person who hacked into US Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's (pictured) email account.

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US agents have searched the apartment of the son of a Democratic politician, looking for evidence linking him to the hacking of US Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's email account.

The FBI searched the apartment of the 20-year-old son of Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell over the weekend, the Associated Press reported.

Last week a hacker broke into Palin's personal Yahoo account, revealing a few inconsquential personal messages as evidence of the deed. Afterward a person claiming responsibility published a detailed chronology of how it was done.

That person used an email address identified with Kernell's son, AP reported.

The hacker broke into the account by researching and guessing enough of Palin's personal information to trick Yahoo into resetting her password.

The FBI traced the hacker to an internet anonymity service basd in the US state of Georgia. The owner of the service handed over its logs to the FBI, who further traced the hack to the Tennessee apartment of Mike Kernell's son.