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.
It used to be:
I work for $$$
Then it was:
I work for fish
Then it was:
Will work for broadband
Now, the bobbies work for
the crazed climate hippie communists,
but I do so wonder, if in the end that, the peace bobbies would have acted all differently had they but focused on that slight sliver of information they already possessed but, apparently, all, ignored?
So what could poor Mr Tallbloke do, to counter sue? Or are the UK peace officers claiming war time laws?
Otherwise, in EU you have to be a suspect of a crime for the bobbies to nick you hard drive even. :p
A 2008 quote from the Samizdat blog:
I guess I’m a paranoid loon.
I am not sure but the appearance of threatening to release a boatload of emails may somehow constitute some form of extortion.
At 7:13 PM on 14 December, Bernie had written:
Well, bubbie, I am sure. The “appearance or threatening to release a boatload of emails” could only be considered “some form of extortion” if the person or persons with the power to release those e-mails demanded of the potentially embarrassed (or incriminated) parties some form of consideration.
No demand for payment – or a job, or suicide, or marriage to an ugly chick, or doing the White House Intern kneepad routine, or whatever – no “extortion.”
Now, if somebody were to cuddle up to Prof. Jones or Dr. Mann or Dr. Briffa and whisper: “Tierra del Fuego, for the rest of your life, and not even so much as a cell phone or Internet access; you’ve got one hour, and then get the hell out of here,” that would count as “extortion.”
Also a public health measure, but “extortion” nevertheless.
That help you achieve surety, Bernie?
I am Spartacus
Streetcred;
So, what is their “reasonable cause” ?
They’d have a lot more “reasonable cause” to execute a search warrant of the ‘The Team’ at the University of Easy Access for climate fraud.>>>
As to reasonable cause, I don’t have a clue, but I could think of many possible reasons that would be legit. As for investigating the UEA, what makes you think they haven’t?
It is likely that the UEA would have had to report to any number of governing and regulatory bodies that their security had been breached. For all we know, the board of regents (or directors or whatever universities in the UK have) asked for an investigation. Or maybe the executive of the UEA lodged a complaint. Or maybe the minister of education asked for an investigation. Who knows at this point? Based on the info we have, we’re shooting in the dark as to “why”
The easiest explanation in my mind is that UEA filed a report or possibly even a complaint that the police have to investigate. Being the experienced professionals they are, they most likely interviewed a whole pile of people at UEA and asked each of them “do you know of anyone you think might of done this?”. If even one person said, yeah, I think it was this Tallbloke guy, he’s kinda shifty and he’s been publicly critical of us just look at his blog” then they’d pretty much have to follow up that “lead” no matter how ridiculous they themselves thought it to be. In that context, securing the cooperation of the US Dept of Justice to investigate the WordPress IT infrastructure (my understanding being that WordPress hosts Tallbloke’s blog) would make perfect sense.
All that said, I could come up with a few other scenarios that make sense too. Investigating a cyber crime is a tricky thing, and the first rule of thumb is that all the evidence you collect from the computers themselves points to innocent parties. But you still have to follow the leads no matter how illogical.
[Moderator’s Note: My guess: it was the word “shooting”. -REP]
Alvin says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:38 pm
gnomish says:
December 14, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Unless he was directly connected to the Russian server, MAC addresses recorded by his router will not tell the police anything other than: the MAC address of his ISP and those of his local machines. This type of consumer device is comparatively simple and isn’t capable of logging anything more than that. Depending on how it was set up, there may not even be logs of those things. In order to get any real information on Internet browsing behaviour they would need logs from the ISP providing his connection. If a VPN was used? They will get nothing. (As any real hacker will tell you, the MAC address is easily faked, so even THAT record is pretty meaningless.) I suspect someone tech savvy enough to post this stuff on multiple Russian servers is well aware how MAC address spoofing, VPNs and proxy servers work. Unless the authorities were looking in EXACTLY the right place at EXACTLY the right time, there is very little chance of them finding FOIA. From a technical standpoint a lawyer who also has a degree in Computer Science should be well aware that there is nothing to find here. This strikes me as nothing but intimidation and harassment, and suggests that there is something to find: In the emails not yet released.
When standing tall in pursuing the truth hidden by the party line, citizens of police states have to expect such summary seizures. The only surprise here is where the invasion happened.
I can’t help but wonder if the govt already cracked that encrypted file, knows what is in it, and that is why they are doing this. It doesn’t make sense. Government doesn’t usually come to the aid of the perpetrators of fraud like this.
If I were Tallbloke, I wold never use those hardrives again. Probably full of virses & etc.
My guess? Look at the date on the letter, the letterhead, and the date of the “raid” on Tallbloke. This thing is originating here and the Brits were responding to a US request.
Yoikes, maybe the aniti government militia “nuts” have a point.
OK What ight did the police have to invade an Englishman’s home and raid his property?
Ed D.
As a Canadian, I recognize the word mobile to mean what is colloquially called a cell phone here in North America. but then I have 3 more years of experience than you do. Although, given the level of technology I want in a cellular phone, (make/receive calls only) I would be more inclined to think of his “mobile” as a “smart phone” as opposed to a “cell phone”. Back on topic, I like many others who have posted here would be interested in the contents of the legal documents presented by the police in order to confiscate the computers that they took.
Hope those other 220,000 emails get distributed widely … and soon.
I am Spartacus (the short Irish version)!
TomB says:
December 14, 2011 at 4:57 pm
This is truly frightening. If they can get away with this, what next?
Tom yes they can the UK is now a police state
I don’t know if other comments mention this (I haven’t had time to read them all at this stage) but the US Justice Dept involvement is, I suggest, also on behalf of the Norfolk/Metropolitan police. As major servers are based in the USA the only way a foreign policee force can get access to them and their records is via a US Warrant, undertaken by the DOJ on their behalf. This is a bilateral, country-to-country arrangement, Attorney-General to DOJ request with documentation etc.
As the police are finally going on this (probably for completeness, rather than really seeking evidence of the perpetrator), I suspect that similar requests would have been made (through WordPress) for information from Americam sceptical sites also.
Yea go ahead and clone my truecrypt file. Let me know how that works out for you sport.
What a bunch of dolts. The probably took the laptops because they were running windows and the sparc stations were running unix and they have less than no clue on that. On the windows ones they probably think they know but I’d wager a pile against them having an clue.
1984 is a bit late.
We should form a fund to help a) defend Tallbloke or b) sue the pants of the British police and government.
Notice this happened immediately after the collapse of Durban. I suspect a Cleggeron to be thrashing out, hoping to intimidate the skeptics.
“If I were Tallbloke, I wold never use those hardrives again.”
Not only that, I would not connect them to a system that runs the same OS they originally ran or Microsoft Windows. I would not trust them not to put a key logger or some other surveillance on it.
Of course, if the filesystem is encrypted, they will look like unformatted disks without even a directory structure.
Does this mean somebody is nervous about what is in the encrypted part of the newest file? If so, finding out who leaked/hacked the email isn’t going to do any good, The info is out there all it takes is 1 or more people who are instructed to release the pass phrase if the leaker is arrested. All the authorities can do is speed up the process.
Every thing will eventually come out and it will be worse than we thought.
Robert of Ottawa says:
December 14, 2011 at 7:32 pm
We should form a fund to help a) defend Tallbloke or b) sue the pants of the British police and government.
—–
I’m in!
Actually Gail Combs it isn’t that the police are your enemies. But instead to be accurate that the police are not your friend. At the end of the day they just want to find a bad guy and close their case. Sadly they are not always interested in who thy catch if they can just close a case.
It is for that reason you need to be careful talking to the police. Not that they are actively trying to do ill but that if they are negligent it can go so badly for you. Because things have gone pear shaped with cooperating with police in the past it is wiser to take some precautions when dealing with them simply to avoid putting either them or you in a bad position.
Hey wake up!!
This what the Attorney demands! :
This request applies to the following items, whether in
electronic or other form, including information stored on backup media, if available:
1. The contents of any communication or file stored by or for the Accounts and any
associated accounts, and any information associated with those communications or files,
such as the source and destination email addresses or IP addresses.
2. All records and other information relating to the Accounts and any associated accounts
including the following:
a. Names (including subscriber names, user names, and screen names);
b. Addresses (including mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses,
and e-mail addresses);
c. Local and long distance telephone connection records;
d. Records of session times and durations, and the temporarily assigned network
addresses (such as Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses) associated with those
sessions, including any log history of when username “FOIA” uploaded posts to
the Accounts;
e. Length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized;
f. Telephone or instrument numbers (including MAC addresses);
g. Other subscriber numbers or identities (including the registration Internet Protocol
Well ! What information is she then NOT asking for? Dont open your door. McArthy was an amateur in comparence. They are mapping the hole sceptic community. Who think they wont save ALL information. Anyone who registred on the sites will be registred as “opposition”.
What are oyu all doing on Newe Years Eve? Wanna celebrate the New year 1985 anyone ?
Maybe someone have a big “animal farm” where we all can get together?