The /b/tards are generally quite knowledgeable about such matters, mainly because they tend to be up to at least something illegal/illicit online. Be it trolling or more sinister stuff.

As such they're almost all aware of proxies and TOR. Indeed one of their numerous memes is “I'm behind seven proxies” and “Always use a proxycondom”. If they are up to cracking an email account I would have imagined that they would know how to use TOR or proxies, although in this instance it seems that they fouled up quite heavily.

But then, /b/ does have a far lower grade of hacker than some that can be found on other *chans, such as 711Chan or 420Chan. Those types occasionally use spoofed phone calls to set SWAT teams on their rivals. Comparatively 4Chan is fairly tame.

See http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID...

Consequently, the hand of Al Gore is evident behind this break-in.

As for Palin's use of the account, it depends entirely on Alaskan law. My guess, and it is only that, is that there may indeed be disclosure issues but the use is probably not wrongful per se. Surely a governor could use her home telephone line, for example, to receive business-related calls now and again.

And third, yes, something like Tor could make it more difficult, though not necessarily impossible, to track down the offenders. That said, one criminal in a thousand is a genius; one doubts that a person engaged in a spur-of-the-moment non-economic crime like this would take the time (or even have the know-how) to cover his tracks effectively.