Personally I don’t think Russian spies had anything to do with it. A our own Charles The Moderator recently explained in The CRUtape Letters™, an Alternative Explanation, it is looking more and more like a leak than a hack. I’ll have a much more detailed post on this soon.
From the Telegraph
Climategate: was Russian secret service behind email hacking plot?
There was growing speculation on Sunday that hackers working for the Russian secret service were responsible for the theft of controversial emails in the ‘Climategate’ scandal.
Thousands of emails, from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were first published on a small server in the city of Tomsk in Siberia.
So-called ‘patriot hackers’ from Tomsk have been used in the past by the Russian secret service, the FSB, to attack websites disliked by the Kremlin, such as the “denial of service” campaign launched against the Kavkaz-Tsentr website, over its reports about the war in Chechnya, in 2002.
Russia, a major oil exporter, may be trying to undermine calls to reduce carbon emissions ahead of the Copenhagen summit on global warming. The CRU emails included remarks which some claim show scientists had manipulated the figures to make them fit the theory that humans are causing global warming.
Achim Steiner, the director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said the theft of emails from CRU, which is a world-renowned centre for climate research, had similarities with the Watergate scandal which brought down US President Richard Nixon.
But he said: “This is not climategate, it’s hackergate. Let’s not forget the word ‘gate’ refers to a place [the Watergate building] where data was stolen by people who were paid to do so.
“So the media should direct its investigations into that.”
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said he believed the theft of the emails was not the work of amateur climate sceptics.
“It’s very common for hackers in Russia to be paid for their services,” he told The Times.
“If you look at that mass of emails a lot of work was done, not only to download the data but it’s a carefully made selection of emails and documents that’s not random at all.
“This is 13 years of data and it’s not a job of amateurs.”
Mr van Ypersele said the expose was making it more difficult to persuade the 192 countries going to Copenhagen of the need to cut carbon emissions.
“One effect of this is to make scientists lose lots of time checking things. We are spending a lot of useless time discussing this rather than spending time preparing information for the negotiators,” he said.
However he insisted the emails did not change the science. “It doesn’t change anything in the IPCC’s conclusions. It’s only one line of evidence out of dozens of lines of evidence,” he said.
A Russian hacking specialist told the Mail on Sunday: “There is no hard evidence that the hacking was done from Tomsk, though it might have been. There has been speculation the hackers were Russian.
“It appears to have been a sophisticated and well-run operation, that had a political motive given the timing in relation to Copenhagen.”
The UK MSM is an embarassment and a dangerous one at that. The BBC was actually sitting on the ClimateGate info for a month prompting the so called and very naive “hacker” to release the information to public scrutiny via a proxy server which happened to be in Russia. I don’t recall reading about that in any newspaper yesterday. But then, I can’t recall the last time any UK MSM hack bothered to research beyond the usual press release hand-outs from Government sources. It’s high time this particular teat was ripped from their mouths.
I think this is getting interesting. Thinking about this whole mess today and trying to figure out how everyone is going to do their best to not look like the bad guy(s) (because there isn’t an easy way out for anyone remotely involved with this research), I think the powers that be are going to make it look like just a very few at the center of this are all to blame. It’s sad, but I think it’s the only way out for the majority, and they’ll take it.
In this way I feel a little sorry for the guys who are going to take the fall. The fact is that they were encouraged to do what they did and were applauded and made to feel, purposely, like they were the world leading “who’s who”. But, they’ll now find out they were puppets and useful idiots at best. Here comes the bus!
As for this Russian spy business, bull! But, it is also very interesting. For all the world this looks like a whistle-blower. So why, in my opinion, try to twist this and cover up the identity of the real “culprit”? Ah! How much more information do they have???
As has been said already, the files do not come across as having been haphazardly lifted and splattered on the internet. They were cultivated and put in order. This wasn’t an overnight thing.
We’ll see . . .
This is probably one of the many spin lines they will try to discredit the information provided in the leak.
We’ve had the “its theft” line. Now its the Russians ( because after the MSM and BBC refusing to pay attention our information vigilante used a Russian ftp server – for reasons that should be obvious to everyone ).
If it was the Russians they would have used a Chinese or other server. They really aren’t that stupid. But of course its the smear that counts.
The only thing we can deduce from this is that the UN and Warmist politicians don’t intend to take the science serious but continue the campaign of hysteria and intimidation.
Finaly a good thing comming out grom GRU.
Not the Russians, I think. They are not that stupid as to stick the file on one of their own servers.
In my mind there is no doubt this was done by someone not happy about destroying the freedom of the world based on bad science from the UEA CRU/GISS/IPCC cabal. The person or persons involved obviously knew how bad things were and wanted to slow down the ‘Copenhagen’ process until the facts had been reassessed.
Based on this premiss, I’d say an internal leak is the most likely, or if it was an external hack then I’d be suspicious of GCHQ or the FBI – you don’t get any bodies more patriotic than these outfits, and they often have their own internal agendas which are independent of there political masters. With the Echelon system, they could have been monitoring the IPCC cabal for some time and they certainly have the skill to suck out the content of a server without leaving a trace.
Shussssh..The CIA did it.
I’m going to destroy Moose and Squirrel with “a hack”
“A hack”
I can’t be tricky all the time .. I’ve got other things to think about
In my opinion, this is clearly a whistleblower at work and not a hacker. The fact that the-mail archive was heavily edited plus the specific nature of the codes and data that were included speak to this.
OT – back in the real world (I hope Chad is reading this)
Up to 4 inches of snow in the foothills coming, a light dusting in Sacramento
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2374422.html
“The cold storm system dropping from the northeast out of Canada will be unusual since the coldest temperatures will bypass Northern California communities such as Red Bluff and Redding but drop Sacramento Valley temperatures Monday to a record 27 degrees.”
“That’s the coldest for Dec. 7 since the National Weather Service began tracking temperatures in Sacramento in1849.”
“The city of Sacramento last had 2 inches of snow in February 1976.”
I’ve been following how Wikipedia covers what they call the “Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident” since Nov. 22. The latest version, horresco referens, is even more biased towards the AGW consensus than previous versions.
(I must own that I have problem with Wikipedia’s insistence that the e-mails were stolen since stealing suggests to me that the rightful owners no longer possess them.)
Anyway, the general tenor of the article is that the AGW consensus is unharmed. Analysis of the computer code is absent.
Vincent and a few other people are correct, and I didn’t properly consider in my previous comment, where they noted:
”Since the collapse of the Soviet union in 1990, . . . they are nowhere near the CO2 emission levels they had then. This is why they will stand to gain as a net exporter of CO2 emission certificates . . .”
OTOH: That assumes that the whole ”CO2 emission certificates” house of cards doesn’t collapse in the near future (stay tuned); i.e.: Right now the chances there will continue be a good long-term market for large quantities of Russian oil seem better than the prospects for long-term value of emission certificates.
Either way, as per my prior and many other above:
It’s highly likely this was a well-executed inside job.
Meanwhile, the Boris Badenov cartoon was worth a good chuckle in passing.
There is no evidence that an outside hacker or government posted the emails and code. Common sense indicates that an insider posted them.
The last leaked email is dated one day before CRU made its decision to refuse to comply with the FOI request. Clearly, the emails and data had been aggregated to comply with FOIA, and when the decision was made to deny the FOI request, an insider leaked a copy of the code and emails. No other scenario makes sense.
What would be the motivation for an outside hacker to expend so much time and effort to select and edit just those particular emails, and the Harry code? If someone had hacked CRU, they would have simply dumped everything online. Certainly what was leaked is only a small fraction of what was on the CRU servers.
The constant drumbeat about mysterious, un-named hackers, Russians, etc. is classic misdirection: “Hey, look over there! It’s a hacker! Probably a Russian hacker, everyone knows about those Russian hackers.” But where is the evidence? Who are the suspects? Answer: they only exist in the talking points of the lock-step media, which has apparently done no investigation, but rather, parrots what the CRU people want them to say.
No shoe leather has been expended by reporters in investigating the obvious fraud and collusion of the tight knit clique of scientists who began their careers as nerds, but now have rock star status and $millions shoveled into their pockets by Leftist foundations, NGOs and quangos, all with a heavy AGW emphasis. They are clearly bought and paid for, and the taxpayers who pay their otherwise modest salaries can’t compete with the spectacular amounts paid by outside organizations buying an AGW agenda.
The inside CRU whistleblower simply ran the data through the Russian server, which effectively erased its origin. Anything else is rank speculation, endlessly repeated in order to take the spotlight off of the damning emails and coder comments showing the fraud being perpetrated on the public by the same climate scientists who tightly control the climate peer review process.
If the hacker speculation isn’t pure fantasy, then who is the suspect? Name one. Show us a “hacker” suspect. In fact, there is no credible evidence that this leak was done by anyone from outside the organization.
Anyone reading the emails, and watching the current finger pointing and suspicion among the CRU, Penn State and other actors can see that people like young Mann throw their weight around, and tactlessly put others in their place with no regard for their feelings or opinions. A mature scientist being slapped down by a 30-something star player like Michael Mann might not publicly protest at the time. But what goes around comes around.
Is it any wonder that one of many people involved in collating and preparing the FOI request, including other scientists, postdocs, paralegals, technicians, secretaries and lawyers, might have a personal motive to disclose the information when it became apparent that yet another FOI request was going to be stonewalled?
With Copenhagen approaching, someone with hurt feelings and a DVD of the FOI data, or one of the increasingly rare individuals with old time ethics, saw the opportunity to show the world the rampant corruption and dishonesty, fueled by money and status, in what passes for mainstream climate science and climate peer review.
The new talking points about hackers, with frantic arm-waving about supposed attempted break-ins are nothing but unfounded speculation; baseless stories specifically designed to get people talk about a “what if” scenario, instead of discussing the strong evidence of corruption contained in the leaked information.
Keep motive in mind when you read about “what if” hacker speculation. They are simply trying to deceive the public by avoiding discussion of the real crime: deliberately defrauding the taxpayers by following an agenda set by outside organizations funneling big bucks into these climate scientists’ pockets, rather than doing the unbiased job that the public pays them to do.
I saw this yesterday thought on icecap.us at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233562/Emails-rocked-climate-change-campaign-leaked-Siberian-closed-city-university-built-KGB.html. (Note, there’s a lot to be skeptical about in the article, let’s just say it advances the speculation.)
So, if we can believe the “strict security” part, then that adds support to someone finding the .zip file on an open FTP server. However, this article provides a plausible connection for how the file wound up at Tomsk. The whistleblower could be either one of the Russian students or a friend with one, and copied the file from UEA to the server. Assuming they used some UEA account that wasn’t theirs, the event could be extremely hard to trace.
I have no idea what evidence the investigators have, but if that’s what happened, then they’re stuck with looking into people with a motive, talking to their contacts and looking for any software used to format the Email directory.
BTW, the creator for Rocky & Bullwinkle lived in Cleveland OH and used a lot of place names from southwestern Pennsylvania. Oh, Potsylvania is likely a corruption
of Pennsylvania! When went to college in Pittsburgh I drove through some of those towns while trying to escape Pittsburgh, both the city and the pollution.
I have to agree… Never blame malice when incompetence will do!
Anyway, I have been reading through some of the emails, at random, by tag, and there’s several mentions of getting funding from Russia. Don’t have any links as to which ones, or recall how much (iirc, not much at all, at least at the time), but it is there. Just doesn’t make sense that the Kremlin would do so, then turn around and hack their data from them, when, ya know… they could have just not provided any funding to begin with (and spare the expense of professional hackers, of course)!
The Russian intelligence services aren’t subtle. In Chechnya they decapitated rebel leaders and sent their heads back in a box with a note attached. If they wanted to to disrupt Copenhagen they would have just poisoned Dr Phil Jones years ago. This would have terrified most other pro-AGW scientists into silence.
Actually, “Russian agent” and “CRU insider” can refer to the same person. Some Russian agent was so revolted by the vulgar Marxism shown among the CRU people that he became a CRU whistleblower.
It was an inside job … a leak:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/012827.html
REPLY: Yes I saw a preview Saturday – A
The media seems to be focusing on everything but the contents of the leaked material.
The immediate focus was trying to tell us since the data was stolen, what is says doesn’t matter. Then next focus was to tell us that the emails are out of context. The focus was not “what is the correct context,” no, just spin.
Focus then came back to the alleged hacking crime and calls the persecute (oops, prosecute) the unknown hacker(s) for computer crimes. There were attempts to draw focus away from all this by talking about climate change, levels of CO2, incorrect facts such as this decade was the hottest ever, etc., etc.
There has never been any focus on why CRU didn’t comply with the FIOA request, whether their stonewalling on these requests was a civil or criminal offense and no calls for release of all the documents, data, source code, etc.
The media has not questioned why CRU didn’t say in the first place that they lost the original data, as they now claim. They also did ask about New Zealand’s scandal.
This is such an easy thing to do. I work in education and delete my emails all the time. The emails get deleted on my computer but the server stores them regardless. The central office, which contracts out the business of technology, doesn’t keep track of this stuff. The contracting agency does. And the security as well as scrutiny is simply not there. Many people have access to our emails. If someone wanted to bundle these up and send them out, it would be a quick and easy thing to do without any planning at all.
If the investigation is heading towards a James Bond finish, it is for the purpose of distracting attention away from the emails.
SO, the Russians first tried to get the BBC to publish this data? Surely the Russians are smarter than to think the BBC will actually publish news. Or was this part of the diabolical plot to deflect attention? “Oh well,” the KGB men sigh when the BBC fail to take the bait. ” we’ll just have to put it on one of our own.”
Why don’t they simply release the computer logs?
To think that a hacker had penetrated the system and had collected this data over a period of time without someone in IT noticing is nonsense.
Well, I’m hoping that when you refer to much more later, you might be referring to something like this?
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/FOIA_Leaked/
Hopefully, you will translate from geekese to English! LOL I have been trying to learn Linux for months now, and actually understand most of what is discussed at that link. If you can distill it down and make it easy enough for Jon Stewart to use as a punchline…?
I am convinced it was a leak. The “illegal hack” meme is critical to the PR push back by the “Team” et al. This analysis tears apart any “the Russians did it” excuse.
REPLY: That exactly – I had a preview Saturday – Anthony
Also, take a look at this!
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/12/skeptics-in-wonderland
Love it!
These newspaper stories about Russian hackers are nothing but speculation. Could be, might be, if, many experts think it’s possible…… They don’t present a shred of evidence apart from the fact that this material was put on a Russian server. So what?
It’s a diversion. It hardly matters how this information came to be released. What does matter is the content and the questions it raises. These speculations are distracting attention from the important questions, one of which is why CRU have been so secretive about data and methods.
Note that the IPCC is very enthusiastically fueling these speculations.
Aligner (21:39:50) :
“The Times says upload to Russian server was done from Saudi. ”
Laughable, all they need now is to tie the Chinese and the Indians into the plot, meeting in a secret cave in a volcanic island with a pool with sharks that have lasers coming out of their heads. Where is 007 when you need him? Oh yeah, he’s the one who actually did the leak.
As was said during the trial on the killing of the gunman John Wesley Hardin, “If Hardin was shot in the eye it was excellent marksmanship, if he was shot in the back it was excellent Judgement.”
Hurrah to whomever released the secret FORTRAN code, which is the real smoking gun in this matter. Those who love science owe them a debt of gratitude.