The investigation concerning the attack on Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail has not yet been completed, even though the matter quickly escalated into a nationwide concern about privacy.

The FBI is currently looking into the possibility that the son of Mike Kernell, a Memphis Democrat and chairman of Tennessee's House Government Operations Committee, might be involved in the incident. David Kernell, 20, had his apartment searched by the investigators, in their quest for clues and evidence relevant to the case. He is an economics major at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

The family’s lawyer explained that they are going through a tough time and are confident that the truth will eventually emerge. "The Kernell family wants to do the right thing, and they want what is best for their son," said the attorney, as quoted by the Associated Press. He also added "We are confident that the truth will emerge as we go through the process. David is a decent and intelligent young man, and I look forward to assisting him during this difficult period."

The student stated last week that he was not involved in any way in the matter, as he is not familiar with these Web hacking procedures.

The entire incident kicked off last week when Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo e-mail account was accessed by a hacker. He used a different method than what attackers usually use, passing through Yahoo’s steps needed for the password change. There were several fields that he had to complete and he managed to get the information needed by using Google searches. Once the verification was complete, he was able to change the password and access the account. From that point on, he read her e-mails and viewed her photos, placing all the details of his actions on a popular Internet forum called 4chan.org. He bragged with the fact that it only took him 45 minutes to compete the action. The forum’s visitors also used the info to access her e-mail account and several screenshots of messages and her personal photos were posted on various Web sites.

The hacker, known as Rubico, explained in the same post that he was looking for information that would derail Palin’s campaign but he admitted that he didn’t find anything with that kind of potential.

The situation is even worse for Sarah Palin, as she has been put against the wall on several occasions for using her personal e-mail account for conducting state business. Many accused her of a careless attitude that could lead to many complications if sensitive and classified information is being handled using a unverified and unprotected e-mail account.

The incident raised concerns about the security of all e-mail accounts and many wondered if it is indeed that easy to fool Yahoo’s protection system and gain control of another user’s account. Yahoo’s officials did not address the issue. Still, there are many who believe that the procedure was far more complex than presented, but at this point one can only take a guess. Once the investigation will be completed we’ll surely know and present more.