Reaction to the disclosure of University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit internal email is predictably bimodal. “Deniers” see it as conclusive proof global warming is a fraud. True believers are righteously ignoring the contents altogether because of how the information was acquired (it took me a while to get a Pentagon Papers reference this morning).
The interesting question is who did the hacking and subsequent disclosure? This isn’t the act of your stereotypical pasty-faced teenaged hacker looking for some weekend entertainment. This was an overtly political hack and shows savvy timing right before the big Copenhagen climate shindig. Who had means, motive and opportunity? When you ask the question this way, one suspect looms large: a very populous Asian nation who happens to be a large carbon emitter, isn’t so keen on being embarrassed in Copenhagen and reputedly has some hacking skills at state disposal. Forget about Twitter – perhaps black hats are the new cutting edge PR tool.
One response
Someone did forensic work based on the e-mails themselves and other facts known about the organization a while ago: http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/…/No indication as to whether the people involved were Chinese.