<A HREF="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/palin_hacked">The hunt for the hacker</A> who broke into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account is shaping up to be a remarkably simple investigation, by the standards of major cybersecurity whodunits.

U.S. investigators figure the hacker claimed responsibility in a detailed accounting that included his own personal e-mail address and that he tried to cover his trail using a U.S. Internet anonymity service that has been surprisingly cooperative with the FBI in efforts to peel away that anonymity.

In what may be a significant break in the case, the FBI searched the residence of the son of a Democratic state lawmaker in Tennessee over the weekend looking for evidence linking the young man to the break-in, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. The apartment the FBI searched is in a complex about five blocks from the University of Tennessee campus, in a neighborhood popular with students.