The Sarah Palin email hack occurred on September 16, 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaign when vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo! email account was subjected to unauthorized access. The hacker, David Kernell, obtained access to Palin's account by looking up biographical details, such as her high school and birthdate, and using Yahoo!'s account recovery for forgotten passwords. Kernell then posted several pages of Palin's email on 4chan's /b/ board. Kernell, who at the time of the offense was a 20-year-old college student, was the son of longtime Democratic state representative Mike Kernell of Memphis.