PJ Media

AStoner:

“I think it was an inside leak of a whistleblower and not a hacker”

No kidding. I was once a very disgruntled employee and dreamed about doing something like this (no relation to climate change, so don’t even speculate). But I (and most other people) have a sense of perspective and respect for the law, so I’d never have actually done it. I saw this as an inside job as soon as I heard about it. It’s exactly what I would have done.

This guy narrowed in on precisely the best (worst?) stuff to embarrass the people he worked for (I think we can assume he/she has left the organization). It’s collected over a long period of time, from a variety of sources (i.e. not just emails – which would have been on completely different file systems to scientific code). He knew exactly what he was after. And then he filtered it for maximum effect and put it “out there” in a way that gave him deniability, but maximum exposure. I reckon it’s personal, and he knew the guys in those emails. Which means they know him.

So if CRU and the police have any sense, they’ll be talking to disgruntled ex-employees – probably from an IT section, or possibly a scientist who was marginalized or unpopular. When they find him (and my bet is “they will”), my bet is on prison time.

Thomas:

“Such data belongs to the national meteorological services in each country and they will all have copies of it.”

Exactly. That’s what the warmers have been trying to tell you – but nobody’s listening. Have a read:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/

The more we learn, the less “gate” there is in this “climategate”. I guess that’s the lesson we’ve learned from previous scandals – get the shouting in early, create a “controversy”, then you can refer to the controversy later after the (rest of the) facts come to light and the story loses any real interest. I give it about another 2 weeks – by the end of the copenhagen conference, this story will just be the bleating about the controversy.