U.K Climate Research Center Confirms Data Breach

The anonymous hackers that broke into the electronic data of the research center published a collection of emails allegedly written by the scientists of the research center in question.

Reportedly in those emails scientists engaged in blunt conversation on global warming research and ridiculed climatic skeptics.

The Web site of the research unit was moved to an emergency server on Friday, presumably because of the breach.

The hacked files and the data
These hacked files contain data regarding e-mail correspondence belonging to Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.

The stolen data confirmed by the University officials involves more than 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents but refused to admit anything about their authenticity.

"We are aware that information from a server in one area of the university has been made available on public websites," the statement says. "We are extremely concerned that personal information about individuals may have been compromised. Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm what proportion of this material is genuine."

Skeptics' attitude towards the published data
In one of the e-mails published from 1999, the center’s director Phil Jones refers to one of the articles of Michael Mann’s (director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Pennsylvania) in the Nature’s journal and writes, “I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

The “trick” referred to by the Jones, Mann said, was to place a chart of proxy records of temperature ending in 1980, next to a line showing the temperature record from that time onward collected by the instruments.

Mann said that both the charts were clearly differentiated and marked, so “It's hardly anything you would call a trick."

According to the skeptics, these posted e-mails are the clear evidence on the manipulation of data by scientists in order to strengthen their argument that human activities are the main reason behind global warming.

"It is clear that some of the 'world's leading climate scientists,' as they are always described, are more dedicated to promoting the alarmist political agenda than in scientific research," said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "Some of the e-mails that I have read are blatant displays of personal pettiness, unethical conniving, and twisting the science to support their political position."

Phil Jones could not be reached for comment though.

Hacking of data being seen as a possible tool to settle scores
According to Robert Graham, CEO with the consultancy Errata Security, it’s quite possible, judging from the data published that either the hacker is an insider or someone in the climatic community familiar with the debate.

Further adding that, the "80 percent of the time it's an insider”, whenever these kinds of incidents come to light.

One of the statements accompanying the e-mails says, “We feel that climate science is too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.”

These are very common ways to settle grudges in the hacker community, and sometimes they happen in the political world too. Like last year, when former Alaska Governor Sarah Pallin’s Yahoo Mail correspondence was published after a hacker managed to get in by resetting her account password.