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.
If we read about THE MULE, we will be surprised of Isaac Asimov´s prophetic ability: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule_(Foundation)
Has the University of East Anglia (UEA) commented on any of the following types of questions?
Why has there been no indication of the custodians et al being under investigation for the unlawful conversion and/or destruction of public property or data for which they had a custodial and/or fiduciary duty to preserve at the CRU and/or for public access?
Does the Climate Research Unit (CRU) and/or the University of East Anglia (UEA) need to first file a criminal complaint agaisnt the custodians et al? If so, is there some reason/s why UEA-CRU have not filed a complaint against the custodians who removed the public data from the publicly owned property and converted the public data to personal custody and personal use while denying the public FOI (Freedom of Information) access to the public data?
Is there any reason to suspect the current custodians may still be removing public data from the public property of CRU/UEA in an effort to deny the public FOI access to the public data or property, and would such actions constitute a violation/s of law? If so, is there some reason why CRU/UEA should not and/or have not filed a complaint?
Somebody high up must be really worried about THAT password getting out.
Are you following the work being done on Chefio’s forum?
He is not so much looking at the data the rest of the sites have been looking and what he is finding looks like political dynamite.
Let’s look at the humorous aspect of this daring police raid.
The Keystone Klimate Kops seized the computer of an innocent man, in an attempt to identify another innocent man who leaked emails that clearly implicate prominent scientists, journalists, government officials and others in criminal fraud that has caused society to squander a trillion dollars on the global warming scam. Other illegal activities identified in the leaked emails include counseling and practicing the destruction of evidence by deleting emails, and conspiracy to breach FOI statues. In addition, vicious attempts at academic intimidation and the deceitful corruption of academic journals were identified in these emails…
… and the KKK are pursuing the leaker!
This is so insane, it could be a new chapter in Alice in Wonderland, complete with a madd klimate scientist playing the Queen of Hearts! FIND THE LEAKERS! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! Nothing to see here. Move on.
But … … it’s not really that funny, is it?
.
! wrote this jokey post this time, last year – http://merovee.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/the-ministry-of-global-warming/ .Doesn’t seem funny any more !
Skiphil says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:28 pm
Raving says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:32 pm
“Yeah well at least he has the guts to nail his opinion to the masthead…”
===============================================================
In Laden’s case it has nothing at all to do with ‘guts’ or courage. I went and read some of his blog. The guy is a wild ranting unbalanced mental-masturbator, aka flaming narcissist. Courage has nothing to do with it at all. He gets off spewing his nonsense and that’s the story. To call what he does courageous is to abuse that virtue.
——————————————————————
And Laden has since rewritten his opinion and re-nailed it to the masthead. What guts…
BUT, if they catch FOIA will he not divulge the password in open court if they don’t cut him a deal? You might think it in their best interests not to find him, unless he is trying to use the password for leverage or they plan to “disappear” him.
Re “Getting traction in the press” It’s now on the Norwich local paper’s website:
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/norfolk_police_raid_home_in_yorkshire_as_part_of_uea_climategate_inquiry_1_1155467
According to the Churnalism search engine, this a copy/paste of the BBC article.
Why didn’t they use the well knownj Freedom of Information Act .
We all know why there is none when it comes to obvious criminals in UoEA,UP etc.
When it comes to finding a whistle blower,the police and men in suits go beserk.
Lets see them try this with jones ,man and co. lawsuits galore paid by the government.
@Blade says:
December 16, 2011 at 12:33 am
===========
Tallbloke’s laptop relates to his activity, not to WordPress server activity. If they are running down IP address activity related to FOIA, the first place to look would be on the Russia download server related to the uploaded file of emails. The uploaded file’s ISP address, or a portion of it, can then be used to confirm if the WordPress comments came from the same geographic location and or the same ISP service provider. Unless he was using a dedicated IP, which I highly doubt, they will not be able to pinpoint an individual but will be able to determine the geographic location and possibly an ISP.
The only reason to lift the laptops is to poke around in emails, contacts, activity?
sorry for my mistake about home routers – my ‘knowledge’ was obsoleted without my awareness.
but that’s not an excuse for spreading bad info – i’ll have to double check everything i think i know before posting next time.
Green policies have bankrupted Europe, in special by losing money building Windmills with a real power yield of 2.35%
Blade says:
December 16, 2011 at 12:33 am
Excerpted What does this mean for Tallbloke or anyone else that has their router confiscated or stolen? It means that if the whitelist is in use, the cops have the MAC addresses (think fingerprint) of each device he allowed to talk on his router. Since such devices necessarily broadcast this information when speaking to a router (e.g., another router compares your MAC to their whitelist), well now picture the cops checking routers at an Internet Cafe, or airport lounge or school or hospital. Picture anyplace that your Cellphone or Laptop or iPad connected to Wi-Fi (as opposed to Celluar). There are many ways to skin a cat. And yes, this would seem to suggest that when the coppers ask for your router, that you accidentally press the little ‘reset’ before you unplug it and dump the non-volatile memory.
Agree with the value of implementing a white list on the home router. However, unless they suspect that FOIA was locally connected to Tallbloke’s router, all the MAC addresses they might harvest are just this side of worthless. Perhaps they might serve to confirm a manual catalog of addresses gathered from TB’s individual devices, but that list wouldn’t get them one step closer to FOIA’s identity even if they compared it against the arp cache on every internet cafe router in a 50 mile radius. On a typical Cisco router, a given entry is going to time out and disappear after 4 hours, so unless they are right there when the connection is being made, they’re getting bupkis for their efforts. And since we’re talking MAC addresses, the cafe’s ISP is unlikely to ever see that info, as it stays on the LAN side of the router. And even if the ISP were to record the MAC of every device that ever connected to that router, the very best they could hope for would be some sort of log of sites/addresses visited by the IP address that was assigned to the device with that MAC address at that time. And good luck chasing those geese through a proxy or 3. Besides, if you really want to avoid even that slim risk, all you have to do is find the poor slob down the street who didn’t secure his network and borrow some bandwidth.
the world is after FOIAA,
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!!!!!
what a hero.
My conclusions: 1) the email leaks are having a profound effect and are effectively frustrating the scammers behind this entire hoax 2) the frustrated scammers know full well that there is another load of grapeshot in the breach and fear its release 3) authorities either do not know the identify of the leaker, or if they do, lack evidence 4) authorities are desperate to prevent CG3 5) authorities did not act between CG1 and CG2, and therefore, are responding to a complaint after the horse has left the CG2 barn.
If those trying to prevent CG3 will think for a minute, they will realize that strongarm tactics and propaganda through media will harm their cause, rather than help it. Allow them to consider for one moment whether they would board a commercial aircraft if they suspected that the engineering and manufacturing processes behind the aircraft were agenda-driven in a corrupt environment rather than pure, objective science. They would not board.
We will not board their AGW airplane, as we no longer trust the engineering and manufacturing processes behind it – which is a proper response on our part given a) the impact on our well being should they be wrong b) the emails expose the corruption of scientific process.
If AGW crowd really wanted to be sure their agenda was advanced, they would attend to this matter of trust immediately. Else the public will further cease boarding your aircraft. Repair the trust: a tedious and difficult process, but necessary. Repair it by discovering and disciplining those who put personal gain ahead of objective science. Repair it by conducting research openly. Repair it by allowing all of the emails to see sunlight – there is nothing to hide in science, correct?
What we have now is a case of “beatings will continue until morale improves” – or, “you will trust us, or else”. Only a tyrant proceeds in this line. So, if AGW is so compelling, and personal gain is not the agenda, why the tryannical approach?
This news cycle has served only to amplify my belief that behind this scam are operatives seeking massive personal gain. They sell it using deception – Mr. Gore – why have you not shrunk your footprint? Mr. Suzuki, same question. IPCC chair – disclose your financial interests.
Shame on those who have corrupted science. Shame on you pliable tools. Shame on you illiterate lay people in the media that promulgate the propaganda of the crooks behind this scheme.
Tallbloke seems computer savvy. I’d be surprised if any important information of any kind would be found outside a well encrypted TrueCrypt volume.
As far as treating the Climategate events as “theft” I’d argue that not only did the person behind this not steal the data (as in taking it away), they’ve actually provided a special service (above and beyond exposing the shenanigans of the scientists involved) to to society and UEA in particular: they made a more extensive backup of the mail database available so UEA can fully comply with their FOI requests.
My first thought when I saw that the police had been to Tallbloke’s home and had taken some of his electronic equipment was that the Norfolk police were reacting to the tremendous pressure to finally do something (after 2 years). The police may have been pressure to do something publically by the high level global publicity that resulted from the Nov 2011 CG2 release by the person or persons that have consistently called themselves “we” in CG1 and CG2. As to why Tallbloke was the one visited, perhaps the reason was that Tallbloke was merely the most convenient to visit of the blogs receiving CG2 from “we”.
After some further solitary thought, my focus drifted to the idea that the Norfolk Police (and the UK authorities assisting them) maybe are not as uninterested and/or incapable of investigation as they appear. I am considering the scenario where they (police) are goading the CG1 and CG2 releaser(s) “we” to carelessly release some of the info in the encrypted file ‘all.7z’ which is said to contain ~220,000 more emails. Police intimidation of skeptical bloggers could be a deliberate attempt to push “we” to do an impromptu release soon while the police could potentially be at a very high level of active surveillance to try to identify “we”. This train of thought assumes the police are both clever and actually interested in doing a serious investigation; both assumptions are arguably inadequate. However, this train of thought does open the doors to discussion about the current publically unknown police strategies.
John
Still, this event gives a new meaning to “PC Plod”.
Anthony,
On your home page I see that your blog stats are:
I think your Christmas present this year will be 100,000,000 views. Merry Christmas.
John
No they won’t. If the people who enforce the law are the same people who have have backed this shoddy research, then you will find obstacle after obstacle set up to prevent the law from being obeyed.
John,
(12/16 8:59)
I respectfully disagree; no amount of active surveillance could detect the release of the key.
Anyone could release it through printing 50,000 copies of the key and the download address on 8.5×11 paper and ‘dropping’ them at a few college physics labs. Someone would pick one up and take a look. It would be out in a matter of days if not hours.
There’s absolutely no way to trace that IP, especially if I mailed it to my friend (or several) in another town and asked him to do the dirty work.
The file is already available, all it needs is a key. That is simply untraceable.
If the bobbies are on their game, that is not their line of reasoning.
“Big thanks for all your support, suggestions, advice, comment, and humour.”
Tallbloke, if it comes to legal proceedings, don’t hesitate to ask for $$$$.
Meanwhile, enjoy the notoriety.
I’m as puzzled as everyone else about what they think they’re going to find. It’s a fair bet that FOIA is sophisticated enough to use proxy servers. Unless FOIA is a complete cyberyutz, there isn’t going to be a trace. Period.
John from CA and niall,
Agree with your comments just above. There is very little that we can say for sure about what they are trying to do with Tallblokes’s equipment. There are too many unknowns. For example, we don’t even know if he is the only one so far with private equipment confiscated, in the UK or in the USA or anywhere else. On the server side we don’t know what ISP’s or blogs have given up their log files and other information, nor would I automatically believe them if they said they did not. Seriously, we don’t even know what co-operation occurs between the Feds and locals in a given country, nor do we know the extent of international co-operation.
For us, operating in this near vacuum of intelligence I think it makes sense to assume that because of the post-2001 anti-terrorism enhancements, that nothing short of ’24’ CTU or ‘Alias’ levels of resources are available when someone deems it necessary. Whether these resources are available for the ClimateGate event is the question, so perhaps it is paranoid but logical to expect that someone somewhere bent someone else’s ear due to the embarrassment to powerful people, and we therefore should assume that everything that is possible, is happening.
Just to recap for any newcomers, all we really know is that in the recent ClimateGate II, the FOIA whistleblower posted a comment with a link to a file on Tallbloke’s blog and then several others. This is also what occurred in ClimateGate I two years ago at other blogs including WUWT and RC. (Note to the laughing climate trolls, this is what blogs are designed for, comments with links! It could easily have been your blogs too. Do you understand it yet Greg Laden?) To our public knowledge this is the extent of the involvement of the so-called skeptic blogosphere with the FOIA releases. Nothing more! The new development with local cops in the England confiscating a blogger’s (Tallbloke) equipment, stuff that is common to all of us, is what makes this strange and worrisome to all bloggers and really everyone that uses the Internet.
What I pointed out above are some of the possible bits of information the local cops can learn (in addition to the obvious like reading his email, having his bank records, family photos, etc. Worrisome to any normal human.) Some of the possible extra bits include the MAC addresses (fingerprint) of every device he allowed to talk on his Wi-Fi router and some rolling router IP logs. In truth, only Tallbloke knows what the router gave them, so I hope he saw and understood the part about a whitelist I mentioned above. Theoretically, having his MAC addresses allows them to place him at a scene where some Wi-Fi system recorded his connection (airport, cafe, hospital, school). This may be their thought process or maybe not.
I could easily envision (due to anti-terrorism) something more sophisticated than off-the-shelf routers being installed covertly in internet cafes (airports, schools, hospitals, etc.) around London (NYC, LA, DC, etc), something that sniffs and records all signals and just logs them to an offsite server for access by authorities (remember Google Streetview vans logging Wi-Fi signals?). Anyway, this might be used to track the movements of someone who has a smartphone, Laptop or iPad. For example, if a terrorist bombing occurred, and they recovered their phone or laptop, they might be able to backtrack all the locations they were previously at. Just assume it is possible, even though not necessarily probable. And remember that we are talking about the Wi-Fi equivalent of backtracking cellphone roaming from tower to tower (that is, if the battery is in place 😉
We all know that the thrust of the investigation is/was at the ISP and blog server side. The sudden interest in local consumer equipment is what has lead to all the speculation here and all the theories, and the perhaps correct suspicion that there are keystone cops on the job. I’m just trying to tamp down that latter suspicion (keystone cops) and point out that anything is possible.
If his MAC addresses were compromised (this is for sure for the laptops they took, and also for everything else if they were listed in the router) Tallbloke should be able to buy all new equipment when he writes his book on getting sucked into the ClimateGate tornado. If those smear merchants that libeled him get convicted, he might be able to buy lots of other stuff.
Personal data security tip of the day: SDHC, Mini, Micro-SD, etc. These tiny cards which easily fit inside a book on your shelf are not just for cameras 😉