Even as a seventh-grader, Kernell, the son of a Democratic state legislator in Tennessee, was politically astute, McDaniels said. "He could carry on a conversation about politics with me, and he was 12 years old," he said. "He could talk Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations and Machiavelli."

Being smart didn't necessarily help him make any friends, though. "The other seventh-graders kind of saw him as an anomaly and didn't want to hang out with him," he said.

McDaniels said he isn't sure exactly why Kernell accessed the school server. He wouldn't have been able to change his grades on the system, or indeed do much more than browse through worksheets and lesson plans. "He was a techno-geek," he said. " I think he did it just because he could. Just as a challenge maybe."