OK, this is breaking fast and all over, so don’t expect this page to be pretty. I’ll add more as time allows.
For now, it’s got 2 main purposes.
1) Folks can post and talk here on this topic without it being spread all over other postings.
2) Provide a “link aggregator” to other coverage.
About Me
As I’m fond of saying “It isn’t about me”. In this case, too, it isn’t about me. When Climategate2 first broke I decided it was going to be all over the place and didn’t want to just do more “me too” postings. Still, this will impact me. AND you.
Tallbloke visits here some times. That means any forensics / investigation team worth there salt will have looked to see what he was doing and ‘check out the place’. Realize that you are likely being watched, (though also likely to a very small degree. In the grand scheme of things, I’m small potatoes and not very interesting to police activities).
I will be taking (have already taken) protective measures. I can’t say what all of them are, but as of now if my computers are taken, it will have roughly no impact. The backup copy is out of the house and I’m posting this from a Starbucks. (Not paranoid, just it was on the way…) There are also offsite computers available to me. Nuf said. In general I recommend to folks that they make duplicate copies of anything they care about and keep at least one copy off site anyway. Mine tend to live in a vault. It doesn’t cost much and if you have a fire in the house, it is WELL worth it. Ditto the random thief. It is just prudent behaviour.
Expect that there will be more postings from me that originate in “variety locations”. Not due to ‘expecting anything’ so much as to just leave a large trail of IP addresses that lead nowhere. (Or, rather, lead to the parking lot of places… a nice dish antenna gives a very nice range). If the “powers that be” are getting in the mood to play “Police State” the least I can do is help out in the scenario and get my Skilz back in shape…
Links To Other Places
As the basic story is already being covered, I’m just going to put up some links to those recantations. Besides, I only have an hour until I move again. (No, not for that reason… because that’s when the StarBucks closes, silly goose ;-)
First up, WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/14/uk-police-seize-computers-of-skeptic-in-england/
Next, the T2 link (h/t Another Ian and P.G. Sharrow):
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/crackdown-shooting-in-the-dark/
From the WUWT posting we find that Tallbloke is still posting, but from his mobile phone. So here is his site:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/tallbloke-towers-raided-many-computers-taken/
More as I find them.
The discussion so far from T2
Another Ian (01:11:13) :
E.M. Story breaking at Jeff Id’s
15 12 2011
P.G. Sharrow (01:44:00) :
ATTENTION Tallbloke’s home raided by the constabulary under direction of the US Dept. of Justice. see his blog site. pg
15 12 2011
George (02:33:41) : edit
This is huge. I would speculate that they are looking to see if he might have had the password for that file or they are looking to see if they can glean details of “foia”.
Now the interesting thing is, why is the government, actually two governments, pulling out all the stops to locate THESE particular email leaks. These leaks have done nothing but good. They have exposed fraud. This action speaks very loudly. It says that our government will stop at nothing to stamp out those who would expose the fraud of CAGW.
There are hundreds of billions of dollars to be made from CAGW and they aren’t going to let someone kill that goose.
15 12 2011
P.G. Sharrow (03:37:23) :
@ George; one of the emails that I read indicates that the US dept.of energy is a party to the AGW fraud. I have been trying to re locate that particular email. I can’t remember just where it was. Must be old timer’s disease. ;-( pg
15 12 2011
P.G. Sharrow (03:51:38) :
Damn George it was the link you pointed to above.
Jones:
[FOI, temperature data]
“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (US Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data”
Man ! I must be getting senile.
I hope that “the Bloke” is not their target. pg
15 12 2011
Musings from the Chiefio 
They could have done all of this after climategate1 but they didn’t. Those emails were focused main on the science and scientists involved “cooking the books” more or less, on climate change. This batch shows a much wider conspiracy including media, government, and non-government organizations in not only falsifying scientific data but to suppress any exposure of it in order to further a policy agenda.
This batch has them scared, apparently.
@George:
Well, something certainly kicked the hornet’s nest… I guess that “Climate Scientists” are disposable, but political hacks and government lackeys are not…
I’m trolling through some of the links trying to find out what it was that caused a focus on Tallbloke. Especially given the comment that he said he was not a “suspect”. If he isn’t a suspect, why are they confiscating his stuff and violating his privacy (if you think a blanket copy of everything on a hard disk is not a violation of privacy… ) Maybe it’s an English Law thing…
Something is missing from this picture…
Sidebar:
It’s amazing how out of shape a “bugout bag” can get in just a couple of months. Two months ago I was living on the road. Full kit in the car.
All I do, really, is come home an unload the car. Put away a few bits. Get a couple of others ready for an update / clean up.
So I go to ‘exercise the kit’ and find out it’s spread all over and parts are ‘who knows where’… Not a big deal, but still…
I originally put the kit strategy together when the threat of a USSR nuclear attack was real and an earthquake could happen at any time. Worked really well during the Loma Prieta Quake. The “requirement” was a 1 minute to car start and 6 minute to 3 miles away. (The reason was the distance to the first likely impact of a sub launched nuke…) It’s clear to me right now that I’m about 1/2 hour to an hour to get the most important ‘core’ loaded, at best.
I think the next day or two will be spent putting my “bugout bag” back in shape. The good thing is that it doesn’t need the Geiger Counter any more and I can down rate the need for a mobile kitchen. (Who knows where the G.C. is or where to get the 20 VDC battery it takes…) The bad thing is that some simple things, like the 200 W power pack and lighting got taken out (as I was not going to need them in Florida) and are now buried “somewhere” in the office… Oh Well. That’s why I do the “over the top” bolt out the door exercises. Just to see what’s missing…
At least now I have the ‘backup computer stuff’ pre-positioned.
Form what I understand Steven Mosher has dropped hints on both Climate Audit and The Blackboard that there was behind the scenes “negotiations” between FOIA and CRU prior to Climategate 2.
Then add in that password protected file and now this big push by not only the UK cops but the DOJ trying to find anything to help them track FOIA down and what does that give you the impression of?
My guess is that password protected file has got some that has some clout very nervous. Remember that the Norfolk Constab took away CRU backup servers and copied them after Climategate 1, so they should have a very good idea what exactly FOIA still has in his/her arsenal. Prior to the second release they could only guess from what FOIA had from the small amount of emails and docs Climategate 1 released and probably after 2 years thought FOIA didn’t have the goods on them. Now they know different and the screws are being turned.
@Boballab:
Interesting ideas…
I made a comment at Tallbloke’s site where I speculated that perhaps it isn’t ONE encryption key, maybe it’s multiple blocks that need decrypting and they are trying to find the source before he gets more of it decrypted. My comment is here:
“Houston, I think we have a Race Condition” ;-)
Whoever the leaker is, he gets all the free beer he wants from me ;-)
At any rate, now I need to find out what this “encrypted file”(s?) is and if there are copies anywhere in the web… My decryption skilz are a bit rusty and I could use some practice…
One thing for certain, with this level of “interest” by Authority, there is a Whole Lot More Good Stuff to be dug up.
@ EM Smith; If you haven’t read it yet here is the link to the Tallbloke original post on the FOIA 2 drop with links to the files;
good luck sir. pg
Sounds like you haven’t read the readme file yet from Climategate 2. Jeff Id on the Air Vent copied and here is what FOIA stated:
Here is a torrent link:
https://remote.utorrent.com/send?btih=EBD36AFC51AFEF4486028C1940739E6112964629&dn=FOIA2011.zip&message=&sid=e0c7873&cid=6592169267
The torrent link seems dead now but here is another link that looks to work:
http://dump.kurthbemis.com/climategate2/
The problem is that it is AES 256. Now that doesn’t mean the passphrase HAS to be as long as its potential length. But this is going to be nearly impossible to crack by brute force. To date there are no known cracks of AES 256.
These emails have the potential to place hundreds of billions of dollars and the political careers of very powerful people at risk.
If the word gets out to the average people that “global warming” is basically a scam, they are going to have hell to pay and they know it. They have to stamp this out because it could end not only their political career but it could be the end of the entire “Green” movement and they (the global socialists) would have to pick a third color (first it was red, then it was green).
This puts a lot of the US administration at risk politically.
This is certainly troubling. There is no plausible way to get to “terrorism” from the circumstances of these cases, and the US PATRIOT Act’s role in this is thus limited. The UK obviously has their own laws, but many of the players here (and the servers involved) are US-based.
This strikes me as a tacit admission of fear on the part of authorities regarding release of the rest of the encypted emails, of which there are a lot. And there’s no real way to prevent that, if the passwords are released by anyone (broken or known). The original encrypter knows the passwords, of course; he (or she) does not require a brute force method.
This action is to preserve the thread of Damocles. It seems futile, and risky, and guaranteed to cause concerns among much of the (voting) public, and yet it is being done anyway. Thus, it smells of desperation, as if at least one of the driving parties feels that there is not much time left.
If, for example, Holder expects to be impeached, overreaching here can’t cause him any more grief than he is already lined up for — but he has to initiate things while he still can. I’ve no idea if any logic like that is going through the perpetrators’ minds (in this case, I’m using “perpetrators” to refer to our “limited” government), but that seems plausible to me based upon the bits revealed so far.
It is also troubling to see the happiness on the alarmist side at these doings, the vicarious satisfaction that governments is moving to squash an irritant. Can they truly be so naive as to believe that they could never irritate this or any future administration?
I had no role in the process, but had both Climategate 1 and 2 files on my system very shortly after their release. Others are doing yeomans’ work on the emails; I’ve dabbled (but have been happy to contribute). I’ve noticed recently that many of the archive sites are gone. I don’t know if there is a connection to these events; probably not.
When I built my own composite files, I didn’t create headers with what text file held the email, so I can find something instantly and still not quite know where it is. Perhaps I’ll set up an online searchable index such as EastAngliaEmails and JunkScience used to have.
But in the meantime, if you can’t access the Climategate II files from the usual suspects, I can fix you up with a private link.
You are far more visible than I, and several here have been prominent and active figures in hashing through these documents. I wish you, and each of them, safety and strength. At least, so far, the charade of legality has been kept up. It could have been worse.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
If you dust off your Linux box and install RARCRACK you can brute force a 7-Zip file for a simple password (8 characters in a couple weeks or so). I tried it on my laptop, but the fan could not keep up with the heat. RARCRACK can use the multithread libs as well.
2^256 possible keys by brute force will take you too long to crack. Remember how long it too distributed.net to crack a 64-bit key with millions of computers?
I won’t say it it can’t be cracked by it would be pure luck to do it in my lifetime.
@P.G. Sharrow:
Thanks, opening that page now… Yeah, between wisdom teeth out, changing what coast I slept on, having some other health issues, Euro Zone Meltdown and markets not handing me much money, and general life disruption, I’d decided to “pass” on GC2 on the supposition it was just ‘more of the same’. Clearly I was wrong… now I’m playing catch up.
@Boballab:
I’d completely ignored it. Thanks for the pointers.
Looks like tomorrow I set up the “disposable download box” and let it suck on the torrent… or the dump ;-)
@George:
All encryption is uncrackable… until it is cracked. The DVD encryption was supposedly “safe” enough to risk $Billions on it, until a kid cracked it. (A VERY BRIGHT kid…) I still have a copy of the DeCSS code somewhere.
@Keith DeHavelle:
I think that just about sums it up.
FWIW, I doubt if I’ll get the thing cracked. I’m up to my eyeballs in other things (not the least of which is trying to figure out how to wring some money out of this market to pay some bills) and more importantly: My “cluster” is woefully out of date – that is, only 2 nodes survived the last pitch out of junk and they are about a half decade since last update, and my decryption skilz are even more out of date.
It will take me a couple of weeks just to get up to speed on how AES 256 works.
So my initial approach would be limited to taking a whack at it with “directed random” passphrases. That’s a very long path…
Then again… if I put together a simple ‘decrypt with phrase N from site’ distributed code base… and a million people all checked out a passphrase and tried it… and each trial took 1 minute… that would be 1 million phrases per minute. Even a couple of billion passphrases can be checked in ‘reasonable time’ that way… Hmmmm …. Crowdsourced Brute Force…
Mikey Likey ;-)
I think I have my direction… (If anyone else wants to beat me to it, I’d be more than happy to publish the code / site ;-)
Well, the AES algorithm has stood up against some pretty good minds and NSA has cleared AES 256 for Top Secret data transmission. I’m not saying it can’t be cracked, just saying that so far nobody seems to have done so. Might have better luck guessing the key than attempting brute force. I might start with “A miracle just happened”.
@George:
Much code breaking depends on some luck, blended with some skill, and some cleverness.
So you do a ‘brute force’ attack via just trying pass phrases, but you ‘direct it’ with some guesses about what is highly likely and highly unlikely. For example, it is almost certainly not 100% special characters, nor 100% upper case, nor 100% number, nor given human factors is it likely they even used all 256 characters, nor..
Essentially, you presort the pass phrase trial set into a most probable first, least probable last series. That cuts the time to crack WAY down. You add in some “simple and fast even if a bit stupid, but common” sets, that cuts it down more.
Yes, dealing with 10^77 (roughly) keys is going to take a LOT of ‘good guesses’ to work, but stranger things have been done.
For example, I’d start with a search that looked at phrases made from dictionary words, with leading and trailing numerals and/or special chars, and one with the names of the involved parties as a ‘first crack’. Then I’d move to the same thing with infixed digits and special chars. Oh, and a dictionary of proper names helps too.
That is a much smaller set than the whole 2^256, and searches much faster. Starting with the phrases shorter than 64 lets you get the “dumb short key” set out of the way fast. Oh, and I’d start a truly full character set increasing length search on a dedicated set of boxes too. That at least gets the “fully random but didn’t want to type a lot of text” set out of the way. Yes, it will run for Galactic Time, but will have searched the very short set fairly fast.
The way this approach fails, of course, is if the person did a ‘call random’ and just made a random 256 char string of all available characters. One is depending on them to have not done that. (Most folks don’t for the simple reason that it’s a pain in the ass to keep the key around and not lose it or have a computer crash wipe it out. i.e. you can’t just remember it. So most folks go for something like “Four score and twenty years…” while brighter ones go for “4 score and 20 years…” and pain in the ass folks go for “4!score@and#20$years%ago^…” (note the pattern to the special chars… easy to remember) Then there are folks that feed that to a hash algorithm and use the output… Sigh…
This kind of ‘directed brute force’ works much better than you’d expect. FWIW, there are bodies of work devoted to the best order in which to search such sets based on the human factors involved in how folks chose key methods. One hopes the encrypter is not familiar with those works and doesn’t compensate… (i.e. ‘call random’ or ‘hash’…)
Short form: “Hard yes, slow yes, impossible? Not always…”
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The encrypted messages have to be the issue. Although the note from FOIA seems to suggest that they were encrypted for various reasons which I would interpret as mostly irrelevance, maybe there are some really damning ones – ones involving criminal acts by governmental entities or their agents.
The originators of the messages know what they contain, and likely hope that if they can get hold of the leaker, doing so will sufficiently scare the other people who he may have shared the key with to prevent them from leaking it.
An alternative interpretation of this raid, might be that it is simply to do what police do when someone in high office asks if they have exhausted all of their options.
I sense “mostly irrelevance” isn’t clear in the above comment. What was intended was that I took that “various reasons” meant that they were laundry lists, mash notes, etc. not anything important.
Well, here’s one potential problem with 7zip. I get this from their page:
The grammar looks like it is a Russian writing this. So allow me to translate in my best “Boris” from Bullwinkle accent:
Not that I know this to be true, but it is possible that they limit the selection to only a certain number of hashed keys (which might take several iterations to hit one of them). For example, if I limit my hash keys to only those ending in an odd number, I cut the number in half. Anyway, I’m sleepy. I tend not to trust code written by Russians unless I know them personally.
Oh, this has gotta hurt… Randomly picking an email off the server, #32:
Stock ticker STD (yes, and no snickering about intercultural puns… maybe being Spanish they didn’t know…)
So in the last 2 years this thing has lost 1/2 it’s value. One can only hope they are long term investors.
Couple of things:
1) Doing stock trading on company time / computers? Isn’t that a violation of something or other?
2) Investing in Eurozone banks that are in the thick of the Spanish commitment to Solar and green jobs. Yes, one of the biggest banks in the world, so not exactly a ‘smoking gun’ of anything… but it DOES hint that theses guys are buying what they are pushing… LOTS of green subsidies going into Spanish investments not too long ago… I think it will be highly productive when the time comes to compare their “holdings” to what would benefit from their public advocacy…
3) Has a “Divisional Director” managing his accounts? That smells like he has some significant coin that might be tied up in Conflict Of Interest investments.
Yeah, nothing going to come from it for quite some time. But when the SHTF happens, well, all that stuff is kept recorded for a very long time.
I suspect that searching the archive with the words “stock”, “option”, “warrent”, “position”, “gain”, “account”, “client” and the names of selected brokerages / bankers might yield more of the same…
Oh Dear… I’m not going to have much free time in the next month or two ;-)
So the thing is do you attack the 2048 character passphrase or the 246 bit hash key?
I would look at z7’s key generation algorithm first to see if there are any bugs in that to be exploited.
@George:
The wiki is actually of some use here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7z
Basically they put in a CPU suck to slow down each trial.
This is fairly trivially defeated with more CPUs (yes, each CPU is ‘tied up’ in a serial process, but you can parallel the trials…)
So my first instinct of ‘parallel attack’ is probably the right one.
That is, the check out and set up time for a distributed machine is about the same as the artificial delay so the impact of this exponential CPU suck is closer to a linear one as seen by a cluster…
Or: Each trial is slowed, but it’s linear with cpu count to bypass it…
(On very large compute engines you can have several thousand CPUs in a core, so a few of them would also bypass this minor roadblock. It’s aimed at a single CPU, not hoards of them… Oh for a large room filled with Cray multiprocessor boxes…)
@J. Ferguson:
One can guess that since the encrypted part is a single archive and in a particular format, the bundle was encrypted by a single person as a single act.
The documents with the release stuff says that only a few key word searches were done, and much more remains. That implies that a full search was not done and each individual email was not looked at. That further implies that the ones chosen to encrypt were based on specific key word searches. Coupled with the ‘various reasons’ we can conclude ‘various interesting key words for things that we want to keep hidden right now’.
OK, put it together and speculate:
There are key persons names, and key topics, that the leaker does not want to release. That the encrypted file is sent out indicates they want them AVAILABLE to release at some future time, if needed. This (modestly) implies that at least some of them are pretty strong stuff, to be held in reserve. Perhaps things that would point to a friend of the leaker (if an inside person) or perhaps things that would get them and their department in trouble (but that would be irrelevant if exposed) so they want to hold them in reserve as long as they have inside access.
Some may have legal issues (like the one I quoted above that has a “private use only” tag on it that in some countries might cause legal grief. I think I’m OK to post it as it is already public and I’m pointing out a potential illegality related to the act.) or may have some private information in them (like, oh, a person making a date with their non-spouse significant other) that is not relevant to the moral issue driving the leaker and they simply feel it immoral to have that “dirt” exposed (unless they are cornered).
So, were I the leaker, what kind of key words would I use to select things to sequester?
Selected names (mine, my boss, friends, unrelated folks I noticed, the secretary who was nice to me, external Government Officials who might bring the police down on me and I’d rather not deal with the Prime Minister right now… or his secret police).
Selected agencies (Some ‘good guys’ who are mostly protesting, but agree to go along – don’t want to shoot folks who are generally trying to be good, agencies that fund MY budget – don’t shoot own toes off, Some “TLAs” with guns… Agencies where communications leaks bring penalties depending on local law. The “corporate lawyer” where a breach of legal privilege would get me left out in the cold if I needed them later, etc.)
Selected topics. (Irrelevant ones where it’s a distraction would most likely just be deleted, so I have to think these are ones with some ‘teeth’… Perhaps folks actually agreeing to commit fraud, or agreeing to box someone into a bad position. I could see “blackmail good guy” getting encrypted to protect the good guy. Budget discussions that expose ‘good guys’ budgets too, so can’t be disentangled. Topics that discussed my group or area – so I don’t get any light on me that might show me up as the leak.)
Proprietary Stuff (things that would damage the ability of my organization to make money and survive if exposed, but have minimal ‘dirt’ value, things that damage the proprietary works of a collaborating company that is a ‘good guy’ with minimal ‘dirt value’. Basically, stuff with SOME dirt, worth exposing if a SHTF moment comes, but not worth exposing Right Now as the collateral damage to ‘good guys and neutrals’ is too large. Avoidance of collateral damage for a minimal target value).
I think you get the picture. It COULD all be “the really juicy stuff”, but it is just as likely the “minimally juicy and with friends and neutrals involved”.
And, as you all can see, I’m whacking at this way too much way too late into the night. Someday folks will learn not to wave red flags in front of disinterested sleeping bulls… they tend to wake up, hit StarBucks, and start charging around the arena ;-)
If the police in question and the folks who sent them had 1/2 a brain, they would have sent one plain clothes detective and one personable Geek to visit Tallbloke and ask “Can we see if you have any cookies or other information accidentally left behind on your computer that might help us find a criminal?” I know I’d say “Sure, let’s take a look” and give them a guided tour of my machine… if asked politely. Then there would be no “Inflamed passions” factor… But no. It’s always “Bust in and demand first, ask forgiveness later”. With all that the behaviour then causes.
Authority never likes to ask permission. It always wants to show who’s the boss and who is under the boot… That always causes resentment. Eventually it brings down empires. Such has it always been. You’d think they would learn, but apparently that isn’t possible.
@George:
It has a 2 k key and a 256 hash? Odd… Changes things a bit.
Yes, you always look at the code first to find any way to ‘focus the search’.
I’ll need to look into the technicals of it a bit more before I can intelligently comment. I was assuming a 256 char key and a larger hash of it… Usually you don’t want the size going smaller at each step… otherwise you can find the smallest step and brute whack it due to the lower number of possibles.
For example, bypass the whole ‘multiple rehash’ step and just brute force at the step just after that… Unless that step blows out to more bits on the output, you just bypass it for the brute force entry point…
But that’s just being speculation. It will be much more efficient if I look into the method used for the encryption first, then talk about where to push on it…
“We’re here to copy the drives off all your computers but you are not a suspect.”
Translation:
“We don’t think you’re FOIA but we’ll be back to fry your bacon later. Rest assured that we’ll find something on your drives that puts you in our pockets.”
.
.
.
Did I just say on another thread that the next bubble was alternative energy? The encrypted e-mails might be perceived as a needle poised just inches away from that balloon.
Looking at the index of the emails is interesting
Notice anything?
First off, the dates are suspiciously like a freshly set up box where the date was left set at a zero start of year so as to leave no useful information….
But what interests me is the gap in the file names. Where is 117? 119 & 120? 123, 125, 126, 128, 130? A simple check of the embedded time stamps in the email will show for sure, but I’d bet they are in roughly chronological order. That means you can find out WHEN emails were ‘left out and encrypted’ and if they have time patterns. Looking at nearby emails for cc lists (where a response would be expected but is missing – a kind of ‘negative space contact tracing’) would give clue about WHO was elided while looking at topics being discussed will give some idea which topics likely had some sensitivity about them.
No, not perfect. There will be some ‘blind deletions’ that have no cc relationship and no ‘subject by context of nearby emails’. Those will stay a black hole. But for those that DO have a relationship, the shadows will show and some idea of who’s shadow and about what may be found….
It’s a small window, but it’s open just a crack…
This also says that the “unpack onto a blank date machine” was done, and the files named/numbered, BEFORE the separation and encryption was done. That is, it was likely done after the leaked data was offsite and on a dedicated ‘post processing’ private box.
Dr, Richard North Eureferendum is on it already:
Force for Evil
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/12/force-for-evil.html
Expect Booker and Delingpole to follow suit ASAP
Just a thought – They’ve already broken the code. This is all part of the clean-up cover story. Don’t know how it fits. Instead of the “beginning” we’re seeing “the rest of the story” and a cheery “G’day!”?
Well, It’s approaching morning and I’m still at it… Sometimes… Some things…
I think I’m getting a bit more clue about the non-technical reasons why the UK Government might have wanted to step on “some guy” who was helping to raise awareness. It is in one of the emails.
From number 5310. Notice the presence of folks with titles and in government. I’ve bolded the bit where they say they want to ‘shut things down’. It also ‘spills the beans’ somewhat about how the UK government was dealing with Russia. Nothing like having how you plan to manipulate Putin to get some folks worked up ;-) I’m not going to ‘block quote’ it as it’s rather long for that. The email addresses are in angle brackets, so may well get stolen by wordpress. I’m going to bold bits of a couple of them outside brackets so you can see the level involved.
IF there is more of this kind of stuff in the encrypted files, you have the potential for folks in the .gov and .imperial worlds to be leaning Very Hard on folks. You could even have some Russian folks pushing back hard on ‘the agenda’ now that this clear coordination of ‘western science’ and ‘political agenda’ is on display.
It also raises the possible issue, since these showed up on a Russian server, that Russian secret agencies are involved directly in the ‘leaking’… and that gets into the whole ‘spy vs spy’ world. THOSE folks could be very worried about who is inside what machines and institutions…
http://dump.kurthbemis.com/climategate2/FOIA/mail/5310.txt
date: Thu Jul 15 14:11:56 2004
from: Mike Hulme m.hulme@uea.ac.uk
subject: Fwd: RE: Science Article
to: a.minns,anderson_Kevin
Kevin (and Asher – if you’ve been following the fiasco),
Latest from OST press office. The attached note is the “official” line for SDK to take.
Mike
X-VirusChecked: Checked
X-Env-Sender: Tino.Hernandez@dti.gsi.gov.uk
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From: “Hernandez Tino (Mr AF)” Tino.Hernandez@dti.gsi.gov.uk
To: “‘Grubb, Michael J'” michael.grubb@imperial.ac.uk,
“Hernandez Tino (Mr AF)” Tino.Hernandez@dti.gsi.gov.uk, King MPST
MPST.KING@dti.gsi.gov.uk, Sir John Houghton john.houghton@jri.org.uk>
“Stott, Peter” peter.stott@metoffice.com, N.W.Arnell@soton.ac.uk,
mike hulme m.hulme@uea.ac.uk, “Jenkins, Geoff”
, john.ashton@co2.org,
chris.anastasi@british-energy.com, Oleg.Eletskiy@britishcouncil.ru,
Steve.Hunt@fco.gsi.gov.uk, “Korobova Liya [FCO] – Moscow, Russia”
liya.korobova@fco.gov.uk
Cc: “Evans Simon [FCO] – moscow, Russia” simon.evans@fco.gov.uk,
“Monks Alan (Mr AR)” Alan.Monks@dti.gsi.gov.uk, “Holmes John (Mr J)”
John.Holmes@dti.gsi.gov.uk, “Clayton Jeremy (Mr JP)”
Jeremy.Clayton@dti.gsi.gov.uk, “Hodges Joanne (Dr J)”
Joanne.Hodges@dti.gsi.gov.uk
Subject: RE: Science Article
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 11:45:05 +0100
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Michael
Please see our current lines. The whole strategy we are pursuing in media terms is to
close this down.
Tino
Tino Hernandez
Trade, Science and Innovation Press Team
Mike O’Brien,Lord Sainsbury, Sir David King
V754
Dep for Trade and Industry
1 Victoria Street
London SW1H 0ET
(: 020 7 215 5965
Mob: 07715 177502
7: 020 7 215 0494
:: [1]www.dti.gov.uk
8: tino.hernandez@dti.gsi.gov.uk
—–Original Message—–
From: Grubb, Michael J [[2]mailto:michael.grubb@imperial.ac.uk]
Sent: 15 July 2004 10:23
To: Hernandez Tino (Mr AF); King MPST; Sir John Houghton; Stott, Peter;
N.W.Arnell@soton.ac.uk; mike hulme; Jenkins, Geoff; john.ashton@co2.org;
chris.anastasi@british-energy.com; Oleg.Eletskiy@britishcouncil.ru;
Steve.Hunt@fco.gsi.gov.uk; Korobova Liya [FCO] – Moscow, Russia
Cc: Evans Simon [FCO] – moscow, Russia; Monks Alan (Mr AR); Holmes John (Mr J);
Clayton Jeremy (Mr JP); Hodges Joanne (Dr J)
Subject: RE: Science Article
Dear All,
I realise I risk ‘speaking out of place’, but I do so on the back of several years’
experience dealing with Russia on climate change. I think the objective must be to
calm things down to improve prospects for better and lower-key discussions in the
future. Every attempt I have seen to “play hardball” with Russia on Kyoto since
December 1997 has backfired, and fighting in open media would do worse. I have
impresion that Illarionov’s main aim is to paint Kyoto as a European-led conspiracy
(presumably claiming it would constrain Russia’s re-emergence as a Superpower), a
theme that has emotional resonance in Russia; every added bit of pressure from the
west makes life harder for his internal opponents in Russia, who are then painted as
western puppets. From that perspective, I can see no benefit at all to producing a
‘response’ to the Science article, and I can see big potential risks.
That’s my view anyway.
Michael
—–Original Message—–
From: Hernandez Tino (Mr AF) [[3]mailto:Tino.Hernandez@dti.gsi.gov.uk]
Sent: Wed 7/14/2004 11:48 AM
To: King MPST; ‘Sir John Houghton’; ‘Stott, Peter’; ‘N.W.Arnell@soton.ac.uk’;
‘mike hulme’; ‘Jenkins, Geoff’; ‘john.ashton@co2.org’; Grubb, Michael J;
‘chris.anastasi@british-energy.com’; ‘Oleg.Eletskiy@britishcouncil.ru’;
‘Steve.Hunt@fco.gsi.gov.uk’; Korobova Liya [FCO] – Moscow, Russia
Cc: Evans Simon [FCO] – moscow, Russia; Monks Alan (Mr AR); Holmes John (Mr J);
Clayton Jeremy (Mr JP); Hodges Joanne (Dr J)
Subject: RE: Science Article
Hot Controversy Over Climate Meeting
…OLE_Obj…
A political hurricane blew through an international scientific meeting on
climate change held in Moscow last week, sparking a major row between top
advisers to the British and Russian governments. U.K. scientists complained
that the meeting had been “hijacked” by opponents of the Kyoto Protocol,
while Russian officials accused the British delegation, led by Chief
Scientific Adviser David King, of trying to suppress dissenting views.
War cry. Russia’s Andrey Illarionov says Kyoto would trigger “undeclared
war.” CREDIT: STR/AP PHOTO
Russia holds the key to the Kyoto climate treaty, which enters into force
only if adopted by countries that together are responsible for at least 55%
of the world’s carbon dioxide output. In May, President Vladimir Putin
hinted that he might ratify the treaty in exchange for the European Union’s
support of Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. That came
shortly after the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) produced a report
criticizing the protocol, saying it lacks scientific validity and would not
be effective.
British climate experts expected the meeting, organized by RAS, to be a
forum to discuss global warming and the Kyoto treaty with RAS members. On
the eve of their departure for Moscow, however, the U.K. group learned about
the addition of several well-known “skeptics” in the climate change debate.
The list included Stockholm University’s Nils-Axel Mörner, who has cast
doubts on claims of rising sea levels, British climate maverick Piers
Corbyn, and the Pasteur Institute’s Paul Reiter, who disputes predictions
that infectious diseases will explode as temperatures rise.
The new program was “unacceptable” to King, says Peter Cox of the U.K.’s
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter. “We knew that
we would not get to the scientific issues if we went down every rabbit hole
of skepticism.” In fact, the opening session was delayed while King and RAS
President Yuri Osipov attempted to negotiate an alternative agenda. King
also asked British foreign secretary Jack Straw to intervene, several
participants say. “It’s very sad, but the Russian academy seems to have been
take over” by Andrey Illarionov, a top adviser to President Putin and a
vocal opponent of the Kyoto treaty, says John Houghton, another participant.
At a press conference after the meeting, Illarionov called the treaty an
“undeclared war against Russia,” based on a “totalitarian ideology.” But he
denies having a hand in the agenda and says he was “shocked” by British
attempts at “censorship.”
–MARTIN ENSERINK
> —–Original Message—–
> From: King MPST
> Sent: 14 July 2004 11:11
> To: ‘Sir John Houghton’; ‘Stott, Peter’; ‘N.W.Arnell@soton.ac.uk’; ‘mike
> hulme’; ‘Jenkins, Geoff’; ‘john.ashton@co2.org’; ‘Grubb, Michael J’;
> ‘chris.anastasi@british-energy.com’; King MPST;
> ‘Oleg.Eletskiy@britishcouncil.ru’; ‘Steve.Hunt@fco.gsi.gov.uk’; Korobova
> Liya [FCO] – Moscow, Russia
> Cc: Evans Simon [FCO] – moscow, Russia; Monks Alan (Mr AR); Hernandez
> Tino (Mr AF); Holmes John (Mr J); Clayton Jeremy (Mr JP); Hodges Joanne
> (Dr J)
> Subject: Science Article
>
>
>
> Dear Colleague
>
> You may have seen the article which appeared in Science this morning
> regarding our recent visit to Moscow (attached below).
>
> We are currently discussing the best way to deal with this here. If you
> are contacted by the media about this article, I would be very grateful if
> you would contact our press office here (details below). They are happy
> to dispense advice on how best to answer any press enquiries.
>
> Tino Hernandez
> Office: 0207 215 5965
> Mobile: 07715 177 502
>
> Marion Heywood
> Office: 0207 215 6140
>
> Many thanks
>
> Dave King
>
> ________________________________________
> Sir David King
> Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government
> Office of Science and Technology
> 1 Victoria Street
> London
> SW1H 0ET
>
> Tel +44 (0) 20 7215 3825
> Fax +44 (0) 20 7215 0314
>
>
> File: 1.url
>
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We’re at war if we like it or not.
These we kill
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/12/these-we-kill.html
@R.de Haan:
Um, I’m a bit ‘put off’ by suggestions that folks ought to be killed. Especially as an ‘energy assessment’, at least on this side of the globe, can mean just “telling me where I’m leaking energy like a sieve so I can save some money, at my request”. That is, not an ‘enforcement’ nor a ‘taxation’ function, but a rather helpful thing.
So can I please ask that you ‘dial it back’ a bit and keep this thread focused more on the issues related to the FOIA leaked emails and Tallbloke?
Besides being a bit rude, last time I looked killing folks was a criminal act… as is incitement to commit a criminal act…
Thanks
EM.
I’m sure that Tallbloke’s “ancient stack of SparcStations” set off a pang of familiarity. We sold a stack of 8 Sparc 2s to a department store chain for them to run the graphic system which they used to make print ads. Software was proprietary and i have no idea how it worked – they wouldn’t say. Another stack was sold to a flower importer, 4 this time. And yes they were stacked up, just like pizza boxes. We found that 10 could be stacked without undue load on the bottom. The department store kept their stack in a glass-fronted environmental cabinet which I think they got from Liebert. We used to call it the “tower of power”
I continue to think that the “worry” which prompted the raid on Tallbloke’s is over the damage which may follow the release of the key to some of the encrypted messages. The CL2 files are so widely held now that it is likely impossible to prevent publication should the key become public. They may
think that if they can find FOIA, they can “convince” him/her not to release the key and to, in turn, convince the people he has trusted it with not to release it as well.
The raid might be in the hope of discovering who FOIA is via analysis of Tallbloke’s email. The DOJ preservation order is just a disinforming dodge. Given ********’s intimation that he “knows” the situation of the leaker, it’s surprising that they haven’t gone after his hard drives.
@R.de Haan: We’re at war if we like it or not. Nobody will stop the “Apocalypse”:
(Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis; “lifting of the veil” or “revelation”) is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted
Why such a big “fear”? Surely it is about something far deeper and important, it is about power, gold and, again, power: It is about the silent two thousand years dark dominance of agnosticism, which it has been very “convenient” for the few to enjoy power on the many, over gnosticism.
E.M, the political dissension of Europe with Russia regarding Koyoto, all revealed in your quick search, is an entire new ball game to the 2nd release. Thanks for looking into this.
Regarding Tallbloke, it appears that a private citizen, “not a suspect” has a lot less privacy protection then the various GSE “rule the world Blackbeards”, all working on the public dime, who apparently make their own internal decision on what is FOI material, and what is not. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/14/ipcc-declares-itself-exempt-from-foia-laws/
@ Pascvaks “Just a thought – They’ve already broken the code. ”
That was my thought as well. One of the various governmental agencies with uber-computers has cracked the encryption and found that what is in the still-secret emails is something they very much wish does not become public. Hence the escalation in efforts to find and stop Foia, and possible release of the key.
My guess for the key is “Sic semper tyrannus.”
:)
I have written a short piece at Seablogger about the subject:
http://rarereaders.seablogger.com/2011/12/international-crack-down-on-skeptic-climate-blogs-the-empire-strikes-back/
You are indeed correct. The administration is trying to use a loophole in law, that will vanish if it is proven that the sources are not sound. Climate scientists are a dime a dozen, but the administration is banking literally trillions on what amounts to bad science.
@Jason Calley (14:44:26)
;-) “We have dreamed down Tyrants
We have dreamed down Kings
We have dreamed down War
And the end of evil things”
There is just no stopping human imagination
Why it even goes to its greatest heights and lows
When were not even awake.
IF this is a diversion,
I wonder who/what they’re really after?
Is Neville Chamberlain still PM?
This is still 1938, right?
Am I dreaming?
@R. de Haan:
Nicely done. BTW, you say it’s 5218 in your lead in, but it’s 5310 (as is correct in the link) Easy to do as the 8 is near the 0 and they look very similar (especially when my glasses have a smear on them ;-)
@PhilJourdan:
The money is high, and the Titles are large. Nuf Said…
@Jason Calley:
Cute, very cute…
Were I a TLA (Three Letter Agency) I’d have dumped it through some very large computer farms. Given the size of equipment that I know they had 2 decades ago, I figure it would take less than a week to crack.
THEN with our SuperComputer, we figured we could “pre-compute” all possible UNIX passwords and store them in a modest couple of TB tape robot. Then ANY Unix password crack would consist of a simple lookup of the cryptext. Shortly after that we went to hidden cryptext files and a changed passwd file format.
We had a very small supercomputer compared to one of ‘theirs’, and they had acres of them…
About 6 years later I worked with some ‘other folks’ and we learned that for about $200,000 custom hardware could be built to crack RSA in near real time…
That was before folks started making 4,000 CPU boxes and putting them in clusters…
So yeah, I figure they cracked it, they know what’s “to come”, and they are lighting fires under folks to try and stop it.
Given the kind of “named names” we’ve seen in the clear text, and that FOIA looks to have started with the minimum and is “ramping up”, and that the only reason to have the cryptext out there already is so a ‘dead man switch’ can release the key if SHTF… I figure ‘best bet’ is that it is high octane stuff. (Though always possible it’s just ‘CYA of friends’).
At any rate, the sun is rising and I’ve still not gotten to bed ;-)
Maybe tomorrow I’ll download the set to my Linux box where I can grep for “.imperial” and “Sir ” and …
It might just be an attempt to forestall another embarrassment like the one from wikileaks. Borrowing a phrase…” the main stream press” is really out of the loop isn’t it? Or, is it afraid, in which case its useless.
E.M, the article I linked is from Dr. Richard North and I can’t control the content of his articles. It’s pure sarcasm of course (British humor)
But I agree with your view to refrain from any raw and violent wordings and will avoid any such postings in the future.
Well, a grep of imperial.ac.uk shows it is “Imperial College” Not quite as exciting as that particular address first looked.
But…..is it not that the “King is naked”? We all knew that already…and through their silly actions, more people will be looking at the King´s nudity and his private parts!!.. :-)
Guys,
I don’t understand why you would think that a TLA would need to crack the code given that the source must be available in plaintext from CRU. Or maybe they lost it and the only version extant is the FOIA version.
OTROH, maybe the folks who wished they hadn’t emailed what they apparently did have kept mum about their indiscretions and have only been discovered via the kind of exercise you guys are conjecturing.
One (well me) wonders why it might not have occurred to the powers that be two years ago that the “relocated” files might include the whole thing and got more enthusiastic about finding the miscreants then? That they didn’t bespeaks the present action to be a more, “Well governor, we held off on a raid until now, but if you insist.” sort of venture. Activity substituting for achievement.
@ Pascvaks I did not know the opening poem you quoted:
““We have dreamed down Tyrants…” but took the liberty of looking it up.
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609
Wow! Wonderful piece. Reminds me of Carl Sandberg.
You say: “Is Neville Chamberlain still PM?
This is still 1938, right?”
That, of course is the question. Is this unwarranted raid on Tall Bloke a rare black swan or merely the first of a kettle of vultures? Much against our will, we may be forced to choose between Munich 1938 and Paris 1789.
adolfogiurfa (13:57:48) :
“@R.de Haan: We’re at war if we like it or not. Nobody will stop the “Apocalypse”:
(Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis; “lifting of the veil” or “revelation”) is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted
Why such a big “fear”? Surely it is about something far deeper and important, it is about power, gold and, again, power: It is about the silent two thousand years dark dominance of agnosticism, which it has been very “convenient” for the few to enjoy power on the many, over gnosticism.”
No Adolfo, it was not my intention to make such a dramatic statement.
I was more thinking in terms of an internet war, a propaganda war, a war without blood and arms.
We have been engaged in a propaganda war over the past decades which the “warmists” fought in the MSM, on TV and scientific magazines
After ClimateGate I, they found out that the epicenter of the propaganda war had moved to the blogsphere.
Now they are pulling every drawer to shut us down.
Take it from me that the crack down on Tallbloke is only the beginning.
It won’t take long before we will be confronted with much more intimidation. You only have to talk with Dr. Tim Ball or Anthony Watts for that matter.
But there is more:
The US Senate already adopted a new law that allows the US military indefinite detention of US citizens.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/obamas-u-turn-on-indefinite-detention-bill-a-historic-tragedy-for-rights.html
Congress is considering a new law that allows censorship of the internet.
They already have the tools to shut web sites down entirely.
So I see escalation.
With a little luck we can make the current crack down work for us plastering the event all over the blogs in the hope they think twice next time.
But if they go ballistic as I think they will, we will have quite a job to keep the skeptic community together and it will be much more difficult to keep sending the message out.
See http://green-agenda.com
Another possible explanation for the Tallbloke visitation might be harassment under colo(u)r of law.
@R. de Haan:
“Nicely done. BTW, you say it’s 5218 in your lead in, but it’s 5310 (as is correct in the link) Easy to do as the 8 is near the 0 and they look very similar (especially when my glasses have a smear on them ;-)”
Thanks E.M, I have corrected the number and yes, those bloody glasses….
Showing up in the news:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100124397/climategate-obamas-boot-boys-strike-back/
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
@ j ferguson: harassment or intimidation under color of law is an act of terrorism under international law. pg
@R. de Haan (16:56:05) : However, why such a fear?…..That “green-agenda” it is just to provide only a belief,…it`s about a disproportionate desire for unlimited power and money. I have always thought it began with the american and french revolution, but.., history teaches that such things also die in its due time, perhaps also following Solar cycles, minimums and maximums, so it is silly from their part trying to stop the world from spinning around. It`s the stupidity of cancer cells trying to govern upon the body and, while doing this, killing the body itself which sustains them.
If things go round and repeat in a different level, like following an spiral, then we are about to see many changes around the world. In ancient Greece, “democracy” cycles used to last for about 200 years to be replaced every time by monarchy or dictatorship…
What countries will replace the ones now ending its cycle?
grep -i minns * | cut -d”:” -f1 | sort | uniq
Gave me an interesting list of emails. Minns is sort of the propaganda minister of this outfit it seems like.
You could try doing the same thing with “hulme” too. He seems to be the “puppet master” in it all. He is, by the way, the fellow who founded Tyndall.
Someone really needs to just sit down and read through all of them because I have a feeling there are some blockbusters hiding in there that we aren’t going to find with keyword searches.
Some of them are “missing” too as if they had been deleted after selection. There is no 0009, or 0022 – 0026, no 0029 etc.
And it appears the file dates were munged in both climategate releases.
The README of the release said these emails weren’t even carefully selected, they were simply pulled out of the archive using general keyword searches. Some personal information in some of them has been redacted so it does appear someone went through each of the mails and as I mentioned some of the mails have been deleted so they were likely of some personal nature. The two years between releases might have more to do with reading 5000 emails than with timing them to Durban.
Notice this from Gene Wahl to Briffa in 0030.txt
30 is quite an interesting one as it seems to be about Wahl and Briffa talking about “divergence” issues. But what stands out to me here is Wahl coaching a lefty NGO on testimony.
emails referencing “brewin.co.uk” are Briffa’s investments.
adolfogiurfa (17:58:36) :
“@R. de Haan (16:56:05) : However, why such a fear?…..That “green-agenda” it is just to provide only a belief,…it`s about a disproportionate desire for unlimited power and money. I have always thought it began with the american and french revolution, but.., history teaches that such things also die in its due time, perhaps also following Solar cycles, minimums and maximums, so it is silly from their part trying to stop the world from spinning around. It`s the stupidity of cancer cells trying to govern upon the body and, while doing this, killing the body itself which sustains them.
If things go round and repeat in a different level, like following an spiral, then we are about to see many changes around the world. In ancient Greece, “democracy” cycles used to last for about 200 years to be replaced every time by monarchy or dictatorship…
What countries will replace the ones now ending its cycle?”
Adolfo, the green agenda is an agenda if idiots.
At least that;s how I think about it.
I don’t think they can get away with this.
As for the democracy cycles….
We can’t compare the old day’s with the new.
The globalists are already running out of steam.
There are no countries to replace Europe and the US.
We only have to replace administrations.
Even if we have to make Ron Paul President.
We will manage all right.
No doubt about it.
0037.txt is “interesting” too. I guess all of these need to be read.
Here is James Delingpole on the subject
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100124397/climategate-obamas-boot-boys-strike-back/
“The old ways will end when a net covers the world.” 200 year old Hopi Indian prophecy 8-) pg
E-mail 5310:
For context, and for details of the press conference in Moscow, see blog post at Donna Laframboise’s:
“In essence, the UK delegation tried to censor the proceedings. The head of the delegation, Sir David King (then Tony Blair’s top science adviser), insisted that two-thirds of the scheduled presenters should not be allowed to speak and proposed his own agenda, comprised of topics he considered more suitable. Warning that the entire British delegation would walk out if his demands weren’t met, King apparently insisted that his atrocious behaviour was supported by the highest levels of the British government.”
@J Ferguson:
There are many reasons a TLA may choose to crack rather than “acquire” the original. Among them are:
1) No paper trail.
2) No leakage of “interest”
3) No need for legalities, like asking for warrants.
4) No tracks for a future FOIA to find. (Both the legal process and the leaker)
5) Convenience. You do have the hardware after all.
6) Practice. If it’s a new code system, proof you can handle it.
7) Avoidance of tipping off ‘allies’ of your interest. (I.e. a US TLA would not let a UK 2L1NA know they were poking around in what the UK Govt was up to on this Climate thing…)
8) Initial curiosity did not justify the inquiry in legal terms, but then you found something ‘in your spare time’ while looking busy doing the crack.
9) Your department is the Code Breakers and you don’t want the Political Relations guys to get the credit.
10) You desire a bigger budget next year for more computer toys so need to show them fully loaded and finding useful things. (Monetary Variation on #9)
11) As a US agency the UK said “NO” to you.
12) You know a mole is “inside” and do not want them tipped off. Could even be they think that FOIA is inside and don’t want them to know who’s looking. Or, given the Russian Connection, don’t what to confirm to a Russian Mole that there is more of value here. (Specific variation on #2)
and more… but secrecy and “plausible deniablity” are a common theme.
@Adolfo:
You have an interesting and poetic way of phrasing things at time… nice historical perspective too.
@George:
Well, I finally got some sleep… Next is set up the box and download. Then I’ll do that grep….
Wonder if it would be possible to ‘crowd source’ a reading binge. Have a post where folks can say “I’ve got 454” then report back on what is in it. 1000 readers could have it done in a couple of hours… Probably take a bigger site than I have.
@P.G. Sharrow:
Wow! Add in the one about ending when a “lodge is in the sky” (i.e. Intl. Space Station) and you start to wonder what they were smoking (and how do I get some ;-)
@All
I wonder if the folks involved have any idea how much attention they will have focused on exactly what they didn’t want noticed…
@E.M. I wonder if the folks involved have any idea how much attention they will have focused on exactly what they didn’t want noticed…
That made me remember of the “Pink Panther” LOL!…perhaps if those policemen went to Rog´s place in disguise :-)
And now they find themselves to be known, as rock stars, all over the world!
You know, in thinking about it…
I think I WOULD use the laptops once returned….
I would use them to regularly visit “warmers” sites. To send email to warmers. To visit Government sites and send email to politicians of several ranks. One could even do things like say “Mr. Representative, I recently got a visit by the police. I think our cover is working.” and “Honorable Sir, will need additional funding in the usual account.” and “Mission accomplished”…
Aikido, gotta love it…
I think there are other copies –other collections — of this archive that might be easier to obtain than by cracking the encrypted file.
For one thing, it should be possible to crowd source series of FOIA requests for emails known — and those +/- 30 days around the known ones among the same addressees for “context”. I wouldn’t request in UK, either. For instance, I might ask under state law in Colorado.
But maybe just nicely FOI the East Anglia P.D. for the data on the thumbdrive they had made for themselves…
I should probably also add:
13) Policy.
14) Your agency “doesn’t exist”…
15) Need a fishing expedition before you can get a warrant
16) Beats running “IdleDaemon”
17) Senator WhoHaw who asked does not want it known
18) Not your jurisdiction
@Pouncer:
Ah, the memories…
Back when DeCSS was new, a bunch of the recording industry tried to make it a criminal act to publish it.. and sued some guy. So, a bit of searching… and I found a copy. So I published a link to it in a newsnet discussion group.
The link was to the County Courthouse where the suit was filed… Seems there was a legal requirement that court records be “open” and the county put them online and, well, it was entered as “evidence”…
Doohhh!!! That’s gotta hurt….
Shortly after that I stopped hearing much about suing folks who published DeCSS code… No idea if it was related… But I can hope ;-)
Wonder if getting sued in the right district could get the email entered into evidence…
This pretty much sums it up, particularly the first comment:
http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doctype_code=Article&doc_id=2319
@EM
That trick of sourcing to open court records was something that bit Righthaven and the Las Vegas Review Journal in the ass last year. Righthaven sued the Las Vegas Sun over a artists rendering of the so called “Deathray” that the mirrored windows of one hotel was reputed to make. In the court documents there was a copy of the drawing. Prior to the court case the story of the hotel was a novelty and only the Sun copied that picture, after the case was filed lots more papers and blogs covered the story and they all copied that drawing and sourced it to the court records. Talk about self defeating!
Lord Monckton is soliciting help in bringing individuals to charges for fraud with regard to Global Warming.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/14156/Fmr-Thatcher-advisor-Lord-Monckton-to-pursue-fraud-charges-against-Climategate-scientists-Will-present-to-police-the-case-for-numerous-specific-instances-of-scientific-or-economic-fraud
0038.txt
from: “D.HISTAGEO – Manola Brunet-India”
Accuses Climate Audit of being funded by Exxon?
Notes that his “left-ring” government is on the side of real climate scientists.
Notes that he was going to make some sort of agreement with their Met Office.
E.M Bravo – good reasons all. But then the action taken belies the wisdom of your take on the TLA pov. But maybe it’s ok for the cousins to do something really stupid, which is what the tallbloke visitation looks like.
or on the other hand, they already have the information but would like to imply that it was obtained by rinsing clones of Talbloke’s disks. wouldn’t want anyone to think that they’d been eavesdropping.
Let’s see, why not raid the embassy, but let it be discovered. this way everyone will think we got the info in the raid.
0043.txt from Christoph Kull mentioning that Eduardo Zorita would not be attending “the Wengen workshop”. He seems concerned because “I am a bit concerned due to the fact that we decided to have a broad representation of working groups and expertise. We shouldn’t loose the GKSS participation.”
Mann replies in rather prickish form “Frankly, this is a blessing in disguise. As you may remember, I was very upset earlier when the invitation went out to Zorita even though as far as I had understood, we had agreed not to invite and his name was not on the list we had agreed too. I believe that the field is more than adequately covered by those attending, and I would definitely not support any effort to recruit a proxy for Von Storch or Zorita at this point, or even to ask Zorita to change his mind.”
Seems like an obvious “stacking of the deck” at the workshop. Nobody with “inconvenient” viewpoints need attend is what it looks like to me.
—————
0044.txt discussion of UHI in china between Jones and “Qingxiang”
—————
0045.txt fortran code for program getgales. Apparently produces “gale index” of a given location.
—————
0046.txt David Ellis asking Mike Hulme if he wants to be a speaker at an “Agenda 21” event in Norwich on the subject of “Global Warming”
—-
0050.txt Steig sending a copy of a review he did to Briffa. Wishes to remain anonymous. I personally find Steig’s comments fascinating, particularly:
“The paper reaches three main conclusions. First, that the early Holocene optimum occurs early in Antarctica than at lower latitudes; second, that site and source temperatures co-vary after about 5000 years ago (which is tentatively attributed to an increase in ENSO-type variability); third, that there is significant temperature variability on timescales of ~800 years at the Antarctic site, but not at lower latitudes. Each of these conclusions is important, if correct, because each provides insights into how the climate system has evolved through the Holocene. I find particularly interesting the suggestion that the millennial-scale variability in the Antarctic is probably of regional origin, since it does not appear to occur at lower latitudes and is on a different timescale than the often-discussed 1500-year cycles of the North Atlantic.”
I particularly take issue with the notion that the 800 year cycle being local. In the CET data and in very long tree ring core time series we see evidence of a 600 to 800 year cycle. The 800 year cycle is very clearly seen with the tree rings. (precipitation regime changes often accompany temperature regime changes). It would be in Steig’s interest, though, as a member of “the team” to show this as local variability because there is no way they want any additional natural variability showing up in the data. I do agree that the cycles in both the Antarctic and the Arctic are much muted at lower latitudes. Temperatures do not vary in the tropics, for example, nearly as much as they do at the poles. Nevertheless, we do see evidence of an 800 year cycle in data in the Northern Hemisphere.
The rest of his comments seem to be attempting to “nudge” the authors more toward local impact and to encourage them to remove other variations they find. In other words, he apparently needs to help ensure the notion of a stable climate outside of the poles in order to back up AGW hypothesis. (until Exxon destabilized it)
———-
0058.txt from Keith Briffa to “Toumi, Ralf”
“Finally, might I ask that you note and then erase this email. I have found that recent enquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, or Data Protection Act, can become considerable time sinks , or the basis of some inconvenient subsequent distractions. with best wishes
Keith”
Keith Briffa instructing Toumi to delete email in order to avoid FOIA requests.
————-
Apparently “climate justice” was born in 2003 at UEA. And it is in fact not about the science but a political agenda to make the world a better place in their minds.
4687.txt The “Justice and Adaptation” meeting. Email with a member of the IPCC asking him to come.
“I also sympathise with having a ‘dangerous moron for a President’ – indeed
the world has gone mad. So let’s make a difference in what we can do to
promote justice and equity.”
@E.M.Smith (23:43:50) :
“You know, in thinking about it…
I think I WOULD use the laptops once returned….
I would use them to regularly visit “warmers” sites. To send email to warmers. To visit Government sites and send email to politicians of several ranks. One could even do things like say “Mr. Representative, I recently got a visit by the police. I think our cover is working.” and “Honorable Sir, will need additional funding in the usual account.” and “Mission accomplished”…
Aikido, gotta love it…”
You’re a natural E. M.
There is always a job available for you with us at the CIA.
Read this
Click to access wp23.pdf
and 4687.txt
That working paper describes Kyoto 2 and COP17
This is the Genesis of “Climate Justice”
@E. M
@All
“I wonder if the folks involved have any idea how much attention they will have focused on exactly what they didn’t want noticed…”
Right, I have noticed that many people within the skeptic community haven’t been prepared to put their valuable time in reading the second batch of e-mails. This has totally changed after today.
ClimateGate is 100% back and will trigger hundreds of articles in the near future.
The entire story has gone viral on the blogs all over the world.
Talllbloke has been offered assistance, donations, legal support, you name it and I think that’s really, really great.
But although this specific crackdown has backfired I think we’re going to have some fierce headwind to deal with in the near future.
It has become clear that the UN IPCC can never defend their vies and policies based on their science simply because we are right. But the interests are so big that they want to shut us up anyhow if possible before the 2012 climate meeting and now we’re no longer dealing with a few crooked scientists who are covered by their universities, institutions and equally crooked commissions.
We now have been offered the full attention of the US and UK Government including the US Ministry of Justice.
This is going to be a whole different ball game.
Tyndall working paper 8 “Social Capital and Climate Change” might be interesting too. I haven’t read it yet but the title sounds rather Marxist to me.
@George:
From me: Look at time.org. For me, it’s 10:41 pm
From “Climate Scientist”: It depends on how you average the time zones… what time would you like it to be?
EM,
for parallel power, how about the SETI software. Distribute it to the climate community and any others we can rope in and fire it up!!
@Boballab:
Nice… I remember seeing a video on that… Concave building, “green” reflective windows. Summer Desert Sun… Cooked Pool Users.
@Kuhnkat:
There is a newer version of the software that lets you plug in the problem set. Might need some friends in that org though…
@George:
Looks to me like you have started at the front and are working forward, so you have the 0-100 block ;-)
I’m starting some postings on the emails. If you find particular ones that you thing “deserve a posting”, put a comment in:
For now, the ‘up to 100’ comments probably ought to still go in this thread ‘for completion’, but when you hit 101-200 comments should move to the newer posting.
If you’ve already ‘finished’ a block, you can note that, too, and I’ll look in ‘other blocks’. I’m currently working the 5300 block ;-)
Anyone else who wants to ‘work a block’, just pick a 100 range and go for it. Coordination comment helpful, but not required…
Emails here: http://dump.kurthbemis.com/climategate2/FOIA/mail/
Good Stuff, BTW. I’ll likely make a posting out of the Climate Justice bit… and the Agenda21 reference makes me think maybe it isn’t just a delusion to be worried about it… we now have evidence folks are actually working to it…
@R. de Haan: 8-)
To quote some folks at WUWT: “I am Spartacus!”
Perhaps we need a T-Shirt with that on it…
Somehow appropriate, it having been a slave revolt and all… Let’s hope it ends differently this time.
(Then again, I could use a book deal and a movie script…. Maybe if I try Real Hard I can get Foia to put a comment here, too. But I need to get the cameras installed for the Viral Video Police Bust first ;-)
What it would really help is if someone decrypts all encrypted emails in Climate Gate II, the sooner the better.
@Adofo:
While that would be good, so far Foia.2011 has done an excellent job of controlling the releases to best match the planned warmer events. So I trust they will continue to do well.
Realize that even if the key is NEVER released, decryption techniques and hardware always improve. It is inevitable that at some time that will have ‘crossover’ and the file will be decrypted.
Basically, with so many copies ‘out there’, the fuse has been lit. It can be made to go faster, but not slower, and it WILL be decrypted…
Were I doing it, I’d have made the passphrase something IN the released batch. Hidden in plane sight. Then letting the passphrase out would be as simple as having a letter with my will at the lawyers office saying “in the even… put in my obituary and on my facebook page that the Foia passphrase is the first line of the first email… or one of my favorite ‘obvious be never used’ is “The name of the file”… The combination written right on the safe…
From what I’ve read of the encrypt method, it can be broken but takes an intelligent directed approach and LOTS of hardware. Either a distributed attack with millions of machines or one heck of TLA scale cracking lab…
We have a LOT of clear text. That ought to make a comparison of clear and cryptext attack easier to do… (basically, encrypt the first block of emails, see what you get, look at the code transform and select a closer / smarter key, repeat….) Knowing the transform in the code, and doing the encrypt, then doing a differential on the two sets of cryptext, can sometimes give very important clues …
On the downside, it could easily be a couple of decades before enough hardware and attention could get the thing cracked…
For now, it will be more fruitful to just mine the stuff that his already in the open text files….
E.M.
I’ve savored your comments regarding the TLA’s possible preference for doing their own decryption of the files rather than simply asking for a copy of the plaintext and now would offer another view. That this thing could be more complex than a first look might reveal was suggested by Patagon at Bishop’s who suggested that the raid might have been intended to provoke the release of the key. The purpose, in Patagon’s view, would be to get all of the embarrassment out in public and perhaps reveal governmental misdeeds of such magnitude that the whole madness incorporated so expensively in English climate legislation might be seen, understood, and thence repealed under pressure of public reaction.
I find it unimaginable that the “authorities” (politicians whose actions might be exposed to their detriment) do not have digests of the rosier emails likely contained in the leak – and not yet made public. Can you imagine a minister in any position of authority not demanding a brief of “what else” could be in the leak, not yet made public?
I can’t believe you’ve never been present at a damage control (maybe better “extent of damage comprehension”) meeting following the discovery of a problem and addressed to appraising what else might be wrong. The goal of such a meeting would be to come to understand how bad it could get and to try to devise a response if it actually did get that bad. The several in which I’ve been involved traded indemnification of the confessors against the certainty of their dismissal with prejudice if they failed to reveal things needing revelation and it was later discovered.
The idea that plaintext copies of the contents of the files don’t exist in the possession of the highly concerned seems preposterous to me.
I find it unimaginable that competent politicians whose private activities might, or might not, be exposed by publication of the emails, would not have complete copies in hand.
That this is very likely, to my mind, makes your speculation that the TLAs would rather roll their own, a bit over the top. Why bother if there are already 5 or 6 compendiums of the whole thing floating around?
We then return to the question of why the raid on Tall Bloke’s laptops. Maybe action taken in support of enquiries, maybe provocation as suggested by Patagon, maybe response to poke from MP, maybe cover for discovery made by eavesdropping, but unlikely not a legitimate attempt to get information?
Lastly, if i ran the TLA, no way in hell would i allow public surfacing of any action which would suggest that the agency could decrypt something like this in near real time.
Yah, you know and I know, but…
Here is Timothy Birdnow’s article about the subject at American Thinker
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/12/british_police_raid_climategate_bloggers_home.html
E.M.
in thinking about damage control, I recall the sad case of an IO who discovered that the tape drive which had been dutifully writing the nightly back-ups of everything at a highly regulated medical device maker had quit writing – tapes were empty. It turned out that the failure had occurred 6 months earlier – no backups for 6 months. It had never occurred to anyone to read one of the tapes from time to time to see if there was anything there.
Fortunately there had been a server change a couple of months earlier and the loss was confined to maybe a month of data.
IO was summarily dismissed the second time the same thing happened, this time with 3 months loss.
A little different from the TallBloke raid, but a lot of time was devoted to inventorying what was missing – a bit like inventorying what was leaked.
EMS
You can meet Illarionov here. He gave a superb presentation at the Heartland conference.
@J. Ferguson:
I reported to The Corporate Lawyer for a few years… Staff meetings were, um, “interesting”… Once saw a most amazing dissection and roasting of the V.P. of Marketing… He had hired ONE guy in France, without asking legal about it, thus exposing the ENTIRE revenue stream from France to French Taxes. About $6 MILLION tax bill… “they talked”… in front of the entire staff of peers…
BTW, I was not advocating that the TLAs would prefer to ‘roll their own’. I was just presenting a list of plausible reasons why one of them MIGHT choose to do it.
It is absolutely certain that the Involved Ranking Individuals know what is in the emails. They sent them or read them upon receipt… It’s the OTHER Ranking Individuals who will be ‘sniffing about’ for Valuable Dirt… to get a ‘ticket in the big game’…
So, say you know that the police have a copy; but the police report to His Royal Arsehole, your rival. What chance you get a copy? However, you have a Friend in the USA who’s agency has lots of computers…. and curiosity… and maybe owes you a favor…
Modest probability at best, but to be kept in the realm of ‘possible’…
In essence, there are many players with many levels of access and interest. What fits one may not fit another at all…
Now, the TLA involved would NEVER admit to the decrypt. BUT, since there are known plain text copies about, you just arrange for the plain text to show up in a convenient place… “Dear Honored Representatives, today in my mail box I received a copy of the purloined emails from a fellow called ‘White Hat Hacker’ who claims to have gotten them from a server in Kazakhstan where he says Foia-2011 had hidden them…”
Why Tallbloke:
Well, I have my theories… In looking at this kind of case, the negative space of things tells a lot. What did they NOT take? The machines that were old, and not in current connected status. Those with OLD MAC Addresses.
What did they take? The two laptops and the boundary router. Those with NEW MAC Addresses.
WHY Take a boundary router at all? Well, some equipment lets you change the MAC address and / or store multiple configs. The guys doing the collecting would not know a Cisco Router from a Cheap Thing, so will have been given the one order “collect IT, whatever IT is”.
Further, the “lock down data” at WordPress was dated some time back. They already had the WordPress info (that included IP addresses) and had likely gotten an IP address and used that to figure some MAC Addresses and / or pick them up from some routers logs along the way.
When Foia-2011 made the comments / postings, he left a ‘bit-trail’ of IPs and MAC addresses…
These most likely lead back to the part of the UK where Tallbloke is located. (And he would have been on a ‘watch list’ as he was ‘given’ the link to the files…) Any modest competence investigator would glue those two bits together at once (and likely not realize it might be a spoof) and figure if Tallbloke got the files link, and has a ‘near’ IP address, why, he “maybe probably gave them to himself”.
Thus you raid his place so you can find the “smoking gun” of his MAC addresses on his laptops (if the ‘nearby’ was a StarBucks open WiFi) or the hidden config file if his router was configurable that way. (Either on the router or on the laptops as a ‘saved config’).
BTW, I know you can do this as one of my $80 cheap disposable router boxes lets me store several configs on it, and download them to my laptop if desired.
This all ignores a few important points, but cops are like that:
1) Foia-2011 could easily have used some tools to have bounced off an IP “near” Tallbloke. He knows he is dealing with a tech savvy guy, so if you make your stuff look like it is coming from HIS IP, kinda says “don’t mess with me”. IFF instead it cracked into a neighbors box on the Cable (some astounding number of home boxes are compromised already and picking one off is not that hard) then it looks like “I live next door and may know where you live – don’t betray me…” Not really polite to a ‘friendly’ if the cops see the IP and go knock on his door, but that’s part of the game…
2) IFF the person doing the commenting / posting is at all bright, and Foia has shown himself to be very bright, he will only do ‘risky business’ from a disposable platform. I have an old Compaq Armada laptop with Linux on it that I haven’t booted in a couple of years. I have 3 or 4 PCMCIA NIC cards for it (which each get their own MAC). Were I going to do this, I’d use that box, or put a Knoppix CD in it, and use a NIC from “the pile” at some random internet cafe NOT in my home town. Probably from the parking lot… At the end of the session, the cd comes out leaving nothing on the machine, the NIC card gets the chips blown with a nice voltage spike (spark plugs wires are convenient…) and gets tossed off a high bridge into deep salty water on the way home…
3) Combine 1 & 2 with an intermediate VPN some place overseas, then back to a box “near” the target address (so more traffic that originates from there stays local to that set of routers and leaves fewer foot prints…)
It all “fits”, but has Tallbloke getting his MACs sniffed…
(No, I’ve not done anything like that. I’ve defended against it for a few decades though… But frankly, I’m about a decade out of date now, so there is probably some newer kit that works even better).
Now, to the raid itself:
WHY 6 guys from 3 agencies? If it was to cart out loads of stuff, they would have carted out loads of stuff. The ‘negative space’ of what was NOT done says they were not there to DO, but to be SEEN.
That then says that at the pre-raid meeting the several agencies were already deciding to all be seen and all get some credit. They already had the press release in mind “6 Officers from Agency List… confiscated equipment… no arrests (yet…)” See, we are all SEEN doing SOMETHING and it was BIG (lots of guys and agencies).
THAT says it was a planned PR stunt with the hope that the fishing expedition paid out, but if it didn’t, they still get the PR. IFF they find stuff on TallBlokes box, one can only hope Tallbloke can demonstrate HE was hacked… IFF they find nothing, then he only has to deal with a damaged reputation the rest of his life…
At any rate, I think it is easy to conclude that they had an IP address and a MAC address from the postings (WordPress stores the IP, the upstream routers may have been configed under another secret order to store IP/MAC translation tables) and were trying to swim back up stream. I think they are fools as anyone who’s got decent Skilz (and mine are mediocre at best) will have dealt with that issue (see above)…
Posted from a WiFi Hotspot at WholeFoods ;-) Hey, since Tallbloke visited MY site, I’m sure to be on the ‘watch list’, so I might as well use all the Green Liberal WiFi spots I can to leave a trail of interesting names in any reports generated… This laptop doesn’t use my pile of old PCMCIA cards, though… Maybe I need to get some USB NICs… ;-)
@Lucy Skywalker:
Thanks!
I’ll take a look.
chiefio wrote:
[re cracking the encryption code]
I completely agree with you on this. FOIA (whom I prefer to call The Saint) specifically said that s/he (they) don’t “plan” to release the passphrase. This suggests to me that it is a warning to those (who must by now) know the contents that more could well be forthcoming if certain events do not turn out as they should [one that comes to mind is the Mann emails].
But even if that were not the case, can you imagine how long it would have taken (far fewer of) us two years ago to pull out the threads that were reveleaed in CG1, if we’d had to deal with 5,000 – 6,000 [some of the CG1 emails are included in CG2, btw, and there are a few duplicates that I’ve spotted]. So, I think The Saint knows what s/he’s doing, and we should respect the current constraints, and focus our efforts on the available emails.
Note that the file is a compressed archive so it won’t be in plain text. It would be looking a lot like a “zip” archive (in this case a z7 archive) so it might not be immediately obvious that you have cracked it.
@E. M. Smith:
I think there’s a subtlety here: Each of certain key players knows (vaguely) what was in his or her own communication stream. But:
* Their memory of this is not exact
* They don’t know how much “delete” really deleted
* The incriminating stuff won’t “feel” incriminating until they see it dissected, since they don’t remember feeling like criminals
* They did not see material that did not include them.
With the Climategate emails, everyone sees it all, fresh, and often placed in context of the ongoing discussions. But no one person involved knows the totality of what’s in that big batch.
And I expect that there are archives of the server content that they were made from (unabstracted), but that file is not floating around anywhere. Even making it available to someone on the Team to look at isn’t something they’re likely to do, as:
(1) They don’t trust their own security competence, and
(2) Evidence suggests that someone on their team is the source of the leak.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
From the first batch, I found the “Harry_Read_Me.txt” to be the most interesting — the programmer’s notes are almost a Twitter-stream of someone watching a horrific accident in slow motion.
He quit in despair, but left one doozy of a set of notes on how the data is compiled … and fabricated as needed.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
@Keith DeHavelle : You are dead on with your evaluation of the team member’s view point of their actions……………………….Conspiracy!
as to #1, the university’s security is likely to be as competent as the climate organization is.
as to #2,I believe you are correct, Logic would dictate this took a lot of time and planning.as well a lot of work creating the CG1& CG2 dumps.
FOIA is an idealist not a bomb thrower and not a hacker. pg
@George:
That is a valid subtlety, yet, compression is just another kind of encryption. The two fields are tightly linked.
@Keith deHavelle:
Um.. murfpt…
I’d not thought about that… Each person knows what THEY said and what they were cc’d on, but might still want what the others said and might see enough in the other cc lists to know they were ‘outside’ some groups..
Oh My. The social dynamic of that is just fascinating…
@P.G. Sharrow:
In my experience, University staff are pretty darned good.
@hro001:
The time it is taking me to just read the stuff is way long. I’d hate to think how long it took to make the extracts, redact them, etc.
FWIW I just looked at the README in some depth. It’s got good stuff in it. The first half, with my comments, is here:
I’m still working my through the second half. It starts with UHI issues.
The guy clearly has some clue about the climate science involved. It’s not just some Joe Hacker.
My point is that if you did successfully guess the key and decrypted the file, you couldn’t tell by looking at it because it would still look like “gobbledegook”. You wouldn’t be able to see plain text. Also we don’t know that we have any of the plain text that is in that file. The emails that have so far been released might have been deleted from that zip file. That’s what I would do.
I would say the only way anyone is going to crack that file is by guessing the key, not by brute force. A 2048 char key is too hard, I would go for the 256 bit hashes that the key would hash to. Still 2^256 is a huge number. I don’t think people appreciate HOW large that is. Think 10^76. So if you had 9 billion people on the planet and each person could process a billion keys a second, it would still take longer than my remaining lifetime to exhaust the key space.
It just can’t be done that way. You are going to need to either attack the AES cipher in some way, or attempt to guess the key.
In other words, there are only 10^57 hydrogen atoms in the Sun. How fast do you think you can count them? And even then you aren’t even anywhere near through. We are talking about a number closer to the number of atoms in the observable universe (10^80)
E.M. and all. No, not the participants. The guys who have compendiums are guys who can say, “What the hell is this about? I want a compendium on my desk by Tuesday next.” and make it happen. That sort will not have missives in the files, but his/her minions might, or those of another government (parliamentary sense).
Senators in the US can do that based on my time in a government (not TLA) agency. And to follow path suggested by Patagon, one of them may think to make hay by prodding/plodding a sceptic.
@Keith d.H.. Not remembering feeling like criminals is spot on – a great insight – one of very best I’ve seen.
FOIA has had two years to read through and pick out the emails for the second release.They decided not to release a single email from Jones et al that went upwards to political or government figures.
Pointman
I can only vaguely imagine –in the poorest light– how much good training all this is for any number of spook agency Basic Training Academies around the world. Well, at least someone is getting some value out of Anthroprogenic Global Warming. Who would have ever thought it would be the best thing since Omega to test current capabilities and the next generation of Widgets and Widget-Masters. Why even little folks like Scotland Yard and the FBI are getting some overtime out of it. And money! Oh, I’ll bet comptrollers in places that don’t even exist are going ga-ga and eeee-gads at all the new appropriation pipe-dreams everyone is throwing at them now. (Not to mention all the things I can’t even imagine;-) All thanks to some guy(s) named “FOIA”.
Old Caveman saying – “Throw Rocks at Sound, Maybe get Lucky!”
@Pascvaks:
Caveman note to self: No name dog “Lucky”!
@J. Ferguson:
Second the notion about “not seeing themselves” in a negative light. They think they are doing God’s Own Work and there’s nothing wrong with it…
@Pointman:
Ooooh! Good catch! That’s the kind of thing that contact tracing and affiliate group matching (with volumes) would catch…
The Tallbloke Search Warrant
http://tbirdnow.mee.nu/the_tallbloke_search_warrant
Must Read: Congressman Rohrabachers speech on climate
Highlighted a couple I thought were especially nice.
0101.txt from Phill Jones to Vicky Carrol.
Jones says they don’t know the climate system well enough to know how it will respond to technical solutions.
——————–
0102.txt from: “Mick Kelly” to Jones:
Discussion of how to crank up the global warming hype.
————————–
0103.txt from Gerard van der Schrier to Tim Osborn
Discussion of various “tricks” that don’t seem to be much better than random guesses.
—————————
0105.txt
More Wang fraud drama.
————————–
0106.txt
scheming to rule the world!
Discussion of global models, talk of things like “… Foreign Direct Investment, arrangements for technology transfer through the Kyoto protocol …”
—————————-
0107.txt
Harold Ambler to Jones (in the quoted text):
—————————
@George
Can this be the same Harold Ambler with a post at WUWT?
I believe so.
Prof.Piers Corbyn:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8848
Yep, the same
The blogger who called Tallbloke a criminal caves under pressure.
@Adolfo:
I don’t know why, but you had a couple stuck in the spam queue. I fished them out…
@George:
Nice to see, hope it doesn’t reduce the ‘award’ size ;-)