It looks like 22-year-old David Kernell is going to jail.

His crime?

Hacking into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account during the 2008 presidential election.

David Kernell’s lawyers say what he did was basically a college prank.

Clearly, the jury disagreed.

David Kernell faces up to 21 years of jail time for his crime.

And here’s what the rest of us can learn from this story:

EVEN WHEN YOU’RE ALONE…

…YOU’RE NEVER ALONE WHEN YOU’RE ONLINE

If you’re thinking about doing something naughty or embarrassing or illegal online…

…just don’t do it.

Or at least don’t do it from your OWN computer.

David Kernell is an experienced hacker, and HE got caught because he didn’t cover up his tracks.

And most people have no idea what kind of tracks they’re leaving when they’re online…

…let alone how to make those tracks disappear.

So if you’re an average web surfer…

…the smartest thing you can do is to always assume that anyone and everyone can see everything you’re doing while you’re online.

FACEBOOK AND TWITTER…

…NEVER FORGET WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU SAY

How did they link David Kernell to the Sarah Palin email break-in?

It started with him bragging while logged into a hacker website using an alias about the email break-in…

…but his identity was only revealed after someone connected the alias he used on the hacker site to the same alias he used on social networking sites.

The moral of the story:

If you’re doing or saying something you might regret later on one website…

…it won’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out you’re the same person using the same name on other sites.

EASY PASSWORDS ARE EASY TO HACK

David Kernell figured out how to hack into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email in less than an hour by reading her about her on Google and Wikipedia.

Yes, it was that easy.

Afterward, here’s what he wrote to describe how easy it was:

• “It took seriously 45 mins on wikipedia and google to find the info…Birthday? 15 seconds on wikipedia, zip code? well she had always been from wasilla, and it only has 2 zip codes”

• “The second was somewhat harder, the question was ‘where did you meet your spouse?’…I found out later though more research that they met at high school, so I did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on ‘Wasilla high’”

Now think about your own passwords:

Are you using your birthdate, your place of birth, or the name of your spouse or dog to protect something important?

If so, then it’s time to change that password.

WHEN YOU REALLY NEED TO GET ONLINE TO DO SOMETHING BAD OR SECRET OR SNEAKY…

…GO TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, OR KINKO’S OR AN INTERNET CAFÉ AND PAY CASH TO USE THEIR COMPUTERS

Want to send an anonymous email to your boss?

Want to do some research on something that’s kind of embarrassing?

Got some other problem or issue that requires you to get online in a completely secret and anonymous way?

Then don’t use your computer at home or work…

…but find a “safe computer” you can use somewhere else.

For instance:

• Most public libraries have free computers you can use…but if you really need to keep your identity shielded, make sure there’s no video cameras trained on the computers

• Every Kinko’s in the world has computers you can rent to get online…but only pay cash, because a credit card charge can be billed back to you

• Find a crowded nearby Internet café and pay cash to rent a computer…because most Internet cafes are small mom-and-pop operations, this is probably your safest bet.

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