Risky Business #135 -- Climategate and hacking scientists
Fri, 12/11/2009 - 16:22
This week's show is brought to you by the fine folks at Sophos.
This week we're looking at what the mainstream media is calling "climategate".
As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to try to hammer out a coordinated response to global warming, the blogosphere and indeed the mainstream press are all in a tizz over thousands of hacked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.
Sat, 12/12/2009 - 18:19
#2
Open Science!
Most of the files released were not email but files.
How in the hell did "hackers" manage to collect thousands of key documents spread across all kinds of systems specifically focused on climate science with so few extraneous files? Read the sysadmin's analysis. Some of the emails were stored on pop servers, others on Exchange servers. The systems changed over the years. This thing seems much more like an insider releasing documents than some external hacker.
And for analysis you rely on a hack whose core argument is to call skeptics names. Bah!
What is so hard about the concept that climate science should be done in the open? ALL THE DATA AND CODE AND METHODS SHOULD BE PUT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. ENOUGH OF CONDESCENDING "EXPERTS" AND ANONYMOUS "PEER REVIEW"
Open Science.
Is there something wrong with this idea????
Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:43
#3
Fair enough
When the story first came to my attention I was in NZ and it was very much being reported by the fringe and the fringe only.
At that time I'd only seen it mentioned by a few sources and they were overwhelmingly of the nutty right-wing variety. The story spread and became more mainstream.
I realised that describing people that way could be pretty offensive, and I should have chosen my words more carefully.
And there are plenty of left wing loonies out there as well, don't get me wrong... I'll have to find a way to offend them in some way to balance out the ledger.
Maybe I could ridicule their current proposals surrounding indigenous land rights for gay whales?
Sun, 12/13/2009 - 19:52
#4
Hey Partick
Being referred to
Hey Partick
Being referred to as a right ring loony, simply because I have doubts about the whole climate change thing didn’t bother me. You have an irreverent style which I enjoy.
However you run a security pod show. One of the best. A hack occurs that makes major mainstream news. You decide to cover it.
Do you cover the way the hack happened?
Do you cover the type of servers involved?
Do you cover any details of the hacked data, email or code?
Do you try and analyze the way the hack could have run?
How so much data could be so carefully filtered to avoid releasing personal non climate related information on the people involved?
How the data was distributed and in what form?
Maybe some information on investigation being performed on the hack by the authorities?
Perhaps an expert opinion on how hacks like this can be traced back to an instigator?
No, you do a puff piece on how bad global warming is by inviting one of it's high priests to give his opinion. And he admits to not even reading the data!
Really, if I want to be preached at, I’ll read the AGE.
Stick to the security information, which you usually do so very well.
Patrick and Adam,
You managed to call me a right wing 'loonie' last episode since I take an interest in climate science and have some concerns about the current evidence for AGW. Since your style often involves derision of people I let it go. For what it's worth I am well educated with a PhD in medicine and have high level statistical and programming knowledge and I am offended by this comment.
The 'climategate' issue is a big one and the code files (which I'm sure you can read) show clear evidence of primary temperature data manipulation and even have programmer comments which show his/her discomfort with the process. Look at the matrix that is used to 'adjust' temps:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/climategate-the-smoking-code/
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; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
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yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
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valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
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if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,'Oooops!'
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yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)
I'm not sure inviting an IPCC scientist to comment on this issue was overly thoughtful if you wanted to get to the bottom of it. Without knowing the individual you questioned they clearly have a conflict of interest for reasons I should not have to point out.
People in the security industry typically do not take things for granted and are suspicious by nature. I suggest you look a the raw data yourself rather than joining the climate 'apple cheer squad'
A tip - please don't directly offend your listeners.