There were mixed reports on Friday in the US whether or not the son of a Tennessee state representative has been contacted by the FBI or Secret Service in connection with US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's hacked Yahoo Mail account.

The father, Democratic Representative Mike Kernell has told Knoxville News Sentinel and The Tennessean that despite a lot of online chatter, no formal contact has been made.

The person who gained access to Palin's email account did so by guessing details of her life, then changed the email password to "popcorn."

Using the online nickname Rubico, someone posted details of the hack to a forum on the 4Chan.org web site starting on Tuesday last week. Password-protected zip files containing the contents of the now-deleted email account once belonging to the Republican vice presidential candidate have also been posted to the forum.

Subsequent posts by Rubico to the /b/ board over the last few days have provided additional insight into how the hack was carried out, although many of the posts have now been deleted.