UPDATE: 12/21/11 4PM -BBC covers Tallbloke, finally, Richard Black still silent- Norfolk constabulary to share hand-off Climategate investigation, and Greg Laden caves – see below
Dec 14th -The first blogger to break the Climategate2 story has had a visit from the police and has had his computers seized. Tallbloke’s Talkshop first reported on CG2 due to the timing of the release being overnight in the USA. Today he was raided by six UK police (Norfolk Constabulary and Metropolitan police) and several of his computers were seized as evidence. He writes:
After surveying my ancient stack of Sun Sparcstations and PII 400 pc’s, they ended up settling for two laptops and an adsl broadband router. I’m blogging this post via my mobile.
That means his cellphone. In his blog report are all the details. including actions in the US involving WordPress and the US Department of Justice. Jeff Id at The Air Vent also has a report here.
Strange and troubling that they’d seize his computers for comments dropped onto a US service (wordpress.com) from the cloud. There wouldn’t be any record on his PC’s of the event from FOIA’s placing comments, that would be in the wordpress.com server logs.
Either there’s more than meets the eye or they have no idea how the blog system works.
UPDATE: I’ve been in contact with Roger (Tallbloke) and he tells me that he is not a suspect, and that they’ll clone his hard drives and return the computers to him. – Anthony
UPDATE2: 12/15/9AM It seems that the story has gone viral on blogs. Four skeptic blogs are in the top ten of all WordPress blogs today. While I’ve seen 2 at a time on CG1 and CG2, four has never happened before. This is from my wordpress.com dashboard:
From top to bottom, WUWT, The Air Vent, Tallbloke’s Talkshop, Climate Audit.
UPDATE3: Delingpole in the Telegraph thinks its going to escalate
UPDATE4: Horner in The Washington Examiner weighs in
UPDATE5: The Guardian picks up on the story here
UPDATE6: Jo Nova suggests it is a form of intimidation
UPDATE7: Josh weighs in with two cartoons
UPDATE8: Greg Laden on Scienceblogs accuses Tallbloke of being a “criminal” – a claim really over the line and over the top. Clearly this is outside of the Code of Conduct for Scienceblogs.com (contact page here) Of course, after reading the rant of hate this man has for anyone not like him, especially Americans in some states, I suppose it’s just another day for him. Update: I sent off a complaint to the editors of Sb about this, and it appears that Laden has been asked to remove the libelous language, though the post remains as does his hateful attitude in comments.
UPDATE9: Lord Monckton to pursue fraud charges against Climategate scientists: Will present to police the case for ‘numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud’
Monckton: ‘I have begun drafting a memorandum for prosecuting authorities…to establish…the existence of numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud in relation to the official ‘global warming’ storyline…they will act, for that is what the law requires them to do’
Story at ClimateDepot here
UPDATE10: More than a couple of people have asked me about computer security in the last couple of days, especially after the Tallbloke raid incident.
I’m offering a simple security solution for those that want to protect their files: a USB flash drive with built in hardware security. See it here
UPDATE11: A copy of the search warrant can be seen at Climate Audit
UPDATE 12: The BBC’s Richard Black is silent, probably because he can’t “… find an angle that will allow the BBC to maintain the usual warmists good, sceptics bad holding pattern”.
UPDATE13: Tallbloke apparently is going to take legal action against ScienceBlogs and blogger Greg Laden over his libelous article (now modified to not be libelous) accusing Tallbloke of being involved in criminal activity, and is soliciting barristers. Laden says on his blog in comments:
“I think he’s a criminal for being a climate denialist. Sue me. “
Looks like Greg Laden will get his wish.
UPDATE14: Rep Markey has an “off with their heads” moment, Jeff Id explains how the connections being made are preposterous.
UPDATE15: Tallbloke has decided to take the libel issue with Laden to tort. A letter from his attorney is posted.
UPDATE16: Planetsave makes another libel with the headline: “Criminal Who Manufactured Climategate Caught?” The clueless writer, Zachary Shahan, is about as far away from understanding journalism as anyone I’ve seen. He’s in for a nasty surprise as Tallbloke has added him to the tort list.
UPDATE18: UK cartoonist “Fenbeagle” has done up a Star Wars parody in the vein of The Empire Strikes Back. Mike Mann, Phil Jones, Jawas, and a Wookie are featured.
UPDATE19: Tom Nelson points out that Laden seems to have caved to impending legal action: Warmist Greg Laden: Did I say that tallbloke is a criminal? I meant he’s not a criminal. Details here
UPDATE20: Tallbloke reflects on the solstice and says that questions are starting to be asked in the UK.
UPDATE21: Tallbloke reports that:
In a sudden new development, your correspondent has learned that Norfolk Constabulary have decided that climategate is too big for them to handle. According to an un-named source, they intend to hand over the inquiry to another force.
This follows on the heels of a ‘request for a contact’ at Norfolk Constabulary by Lord Christopher Monckton in connection with his intention to have the police investigate revelations in the ‘climategate’ emails placed in the public domain.
UPDATE22: Donna LeFramboise writes in the Financial Post:
This is all rather chilling. It appears that being the proprietor of a blog in which strangers leave links pointing to material on third-party websites now exposes one to being raided by the police.
UPDATE23: The BBC finally gets around to covering the seizure episode almost a week later, unsurprisingly, the very biased Richard Black isn’t the reporter.
Paul Homewood says:
December 15, 2011 at 8:16 am
And remember that the Climategate Investigation is in the hands of the NDET (National Domestic Extremism Team), which is part of the Assocn of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). ACPO is a PRIVATE LIMITED COMPANY and not bound by FOI.
The Norfolk plods are simply foot soldiers and will know very little themselves.
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ACPO is a contracted PLC doing Govt police work??? You have to be kidding. And they bill by the hour.so this could take….well….how much money has their client got?? And they are answerable to Rupert Murdoch oooppps…..strike that……to….. Well, who do they answer to. And then FOIA their incoming information.
This world is going mad! Add it all up—greed is taking over the world….in all it’s disguises!
Several have commented that the returned computer might have something added to the drive. That ‘something’ would probably be a rootkit, which regular antivirus scans do NOT detect. I recently had some problems and had to do some study on that topic. One can download a good, fast, free antirootkit scanner from Kaspersky Labs — the TDSSkiller — which found my problem right away.
http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208280684
If you have not taken much time to study such matters, it would also be a good idea to get one of the ‘wipe drive’ utilities; there are several free programs. I use Eraser, which can overwrite at various levels of security. The high levels run slowly, however.
Beyond the easy level there is ComboFix, (which takes expertise, or consultation with experts), and reading books by Bruce Schneier, the high guru of computer security —
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Lies-Digital-Security-Networked/dp/0471453803/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1323971930&sr=8-2-spell
William Old;
No, there was no requirement to make a forensic image at the point of seizure (why, when that’s the first thing that will be undertaken on forensic examination?), and no, the chain of evidence isn’t broken accordingly. Have a look here: http://7safe.com/electronic_evidence/ACPO_guidelines_computer_evidence_v4_web.pdf >>>
Having read that document (thanks for the link) and also Tallbloke’s description of the events, either Tallbloke left out an AWFULL lot of detail, or these procedures were not followed. Further, in looking at the dcoument itself, in my opinion it has a variety of holes in the procedures themselves that could easily be exploited with ill intent, and these could be demonstrated to a court of law.
Hard drisks are called “volatile media” for a reason. If no attempt is made to preserve an independant copy of the data on premise prior to removal, then any data on the drive after it leaves the possession of the owner is by default suspect. If the courts accept this shoddy procedure, then I am aghast.
This document was written, in my estimation, by people who knew what they were doing as a guideline of sorts for people who don’t. As anyone with IT experience can tell you, making operating instructions fool proof is almost impossible because fools are so fiendishly clever.
BTW if you read no other links I post do read the article Mad SHEEP By Linda Faillace
http://jmyarlott.com/Articles/Mad%20Sheep/Default.asp
Her documentation of the pal review, back scratching and lying in her case shows why FOIA and release of e-mails is being fought tooth and nail when it comes to CAGW.
The next time a Warmist says anything about “Peer review” Phd Scientists or “Authority” whip out this article where the rot is laid bare in excruciating detail.
No one who reads this would EVER trust the legal system again. I certainly do not.
Hmmm … impractical considerations aside, like governments who have access to “high computational complexity” hardware and software.
I guess that clears things up.
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What’s odd about this to me is that if they succeed in figuring out the identity of FOIA, then it’s virtually guaranteed that the encrypted 225,000 e-mails will see the light of day.
So is it a bluff or a double bluff ??
Whatever, it sure as heck has nothing to do with carbon dioxide.
So…was any of this done to American or European servers due to wikileaks? If it was I missed it, which is certainly possible…but this seems…extreme.
OT Gail; mods, do you see the ‘hobby horse’ ridden with that (and other) posts?
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I don’t think it has been pointed out here, but the East Anglia CRU department, is in the Norfolk Constabulary.
Is this an inside job?
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Gail Combs says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:11 am
Gail. i checked the link but it came out in Mandarin Chinese? I can read onlty a very few characters in chinese: the numerals 1,2 and 3 and also the phrase; “danger: slippery floor”.
Thank you Anthony Watts for taking the risks from probable attacks by ‘Big Authority’ to provide your excellent platform which gives us, the free-minded people, the way to share and disseminate knowledge and information.
There are many worrying aspects to this story. Given the huge financial issues at stake here in the trillions of dollars market that is the Climate Change scam, and the resources that the warmists, their sponsors and their supporters have at their disposal, we all need to be on our guard.
The publishing and broadcasting to the wide world of stories such as this, is one of our greatest methods of defence against those who seek to close down any opposition.
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And if the plods from Norfolk are looking for FOIA, try Russia, not Leeds. That’s the trouble with Norfolk plods. They all look the same, you know. Funny, that.
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Ralph says:
“…try Russia, not Leeds.”
But the streetlight is better in Leeds. That might help them find their key.☺
I believe there are a couple of vital issues that most people are not even noticing here (I’m not at all suggesting the other issues aren’t worthy of discussion, just that the following is being neglected so far):
Assuming (big ‘if’) that the search and seizure as conducted is legal under the relevant laws where ‘Tallbloke’ lives,
1) think about what a huge change this is from traditional concepts of privacy, that nowadays with the web you could be subject to legal search (potentially) if you had any kind of digital contact at all with a total stranger(s) anywhere in the world, and/or police even suspect there might, possibly, somehow be digital evidence of anything on your hard drive;
2) a ‘blogger’ or any ‘ordinary’ citizen is subject at any instant to total disclosure to the police of every digital activity he’s ever conducted via said hard drive(s).
Even ‘if’ the police are acting within their legal rights and responsibilities it does not take a conspiratorial mind to worry about the state of modern privacy here. I don’t (in general) reject the right and duty of police to collect evidence of crimes, but unless they already had a “smoking gun” of a crime committed BY ‘Tallbloke’ (which has not been suggested anywhere and has been denied directly by a police rep to Tallbloke), what we have is a massive anti-privacy fishing expedition of police (legally) combing through all aspects of a person’s digital life for potential evidence of SOMEONE ELSE’s alleged crime.
I think this should give everyone serious pause, especially that political dissidence itself has become much more dangerous. I don’t think I’m conspiracy oriented but I would not (hypothetically) want to entrust anything of value to the kinds of scumbags we have seen in the CG1 and CG2 emails, or to the kinds of people running the CAGW scams.
Does anyone not think that govt agencies in the UK, USA, and worldwide have become thoroughly seeded with bureaucrats who have no respect for the privacy rights or well-being of CAGW dissenters?
Does anyone reading this really want to provide all of your personal digital info to the police and to the CAGW enforcers, simply because as an informed citizen you have opinions and judgments of your own?
Wikileaks? Not likely. I’d go for cryptome and besides that FOIA seems to have his act together. Strategy, tactics, planning and execution. Quick raid the university chess & go clubs and you are bound to catch your man!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/15/hacked-climate-emails-police-west-yorkshire?INTCMP=SRCH
Very insightful; Nota Bene: to anyone wishing to see a variety of UK govt names-named should see the above link to e-mail 5310.
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Skiphil – very well said. Precisely what I had in mind. The traditional goal posts seem as if they are being moved all the time.
Great quote by Tallbloke in the Guardian piece cited by Vukcevic (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/15/hacked-climate-emails-police-west-yorkshire?INTCMP=SRCH)
“I am happy to assist the police with their inquiries because I haven’t been hiding anything important like some people have.”
If you harbour stolen goods, the police might knock someday …
what are you all getting worked up about?
Some links!
https://sites.google.com/site/myteurastaja/
Oh Dear The Norfolk Plod are doing their masters bidding, could coincide with what they discovered on the UEA computers and are trying to hide what they found. After all UEA gave the plod £10.000 could be a bonus in it for them!
This is rich:
From the Guardian and the spokesman for the UEA
Mikael Pihlström says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:02 am
If you harbour stolen goods, the police might knock someday …
what are you all getting worked up about?
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This is potentially much much broader than that. Collecting “evidence” in digital terms can come to simply seeking a name, an IP address, an email address, a tiny piece of a digital puzzle, etc. You might not even have any idea that you possess such ‘evidence’ because you probably don’t actually ‘know’ the person they are investigating (someone operating under multiple internet aliases etc.).
Thus, your privacy could be obliterated at any moment if police merely suspect you ever received an email from a hacker, leaker, etc., or that such a person ever posted on a blog you run, or if you ever posted something on a blog they run etc.
_Jim says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:17 am
““As our attacks are of high computational complexity, they do not threaten the practical use of AES in any way.”
Hmmm … impractical considerations aside, like governments who have access to “high computational complexity” hardware and software.
I guess that clears things up.”
Jim, we are talking many orders of magnitude here, like 10 ^ 73 or so…and it is totally impossible that some government agency has access to such technology. That would be like technology from the year 2100 – and you would not hide that technology until you can crack an AES-256 encoded file with it, no, you would use it ALL THE TIME and TOTALLY RULE. So, they can’t have that technology, we would know. It would be like having a suitcase sized nuclear fusion reactor and not using it.