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In case you haven't heard already, it appears that CRU was hacked and a large amount of data was taken, which has been posted to a number of uploading sites.

Here is one link:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75J4XO4T

News was released on the Air Vent and it went to to CA, WUWT and the Blackboard.

If this is legimate, the implications are staggering.

Take a look at your earliest convenience.

Regards,
Daryl

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WUWT: Breaking News Story: Hadley CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released

if genuine, some of the emails are truly damning...

The details on this are still sketchy, we’ll probably never know what went on. But it appears that Hadley Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown.

Examiner: Global warming's hidden files

I have come into possession of electronic files that appear to include email correspondence between climate scientists, attachments to those emails and apparently some software code. I am not the only one who has or has seen the files. See for example, here and here.

From what I've read so far, if the emails are all factual representations of correspondence, it will not change anybody's opinion about global warming, although it may sully the reputations of a number of working scientists.

I'm not going to publish the files. I hesitate to even write about what's in them, other than in the most general terms. Let me tell you why.

The Citizen Journalist's Dilemma

Because I have been a journalist in other incarnations, and have even broken stories using material from whistleblowers, I sort of know what I should do in this case. But as a citizen journalist I do not have the time or resources to do what I need to do--interview the people involved, verify as much as possible the information provided, create a data description of the information included and a timeline that walks through the period in question. It's pretty important that this happen, because the livelihoods and career paths of people may prove to be at risk. Sadly, I have a day job and have been working night and day on that day job for about six weeks. And I'm not done--but this story won't wait. There are 1,003 emails and several file folders full of documents.

I was involved in a blog spat a couple of weeks ago, and I was truly offended when my counterpart in the disagreement published my email to him without my permission and removed context important to understanding the point I was making in the email.

The few emails I've read are pretty much like any series of emails you would expect to read between professionals working on a project together--meeting schedules project proposals, etc. They do get snarky about people they consider on the other side--but as yet, I haven't seen language that I probably wouldn't have used myself in similar circumstances. When it gets published (and I have no doubt it will be published), it will prove embarrassing to those concerned, especially if it's published in snippets and without context. I don't really want to play that game.

However, there is also information in the emails that is of public interest. So what's a glorified blogger to do?

What actually interests me is what's in the attachments to the emails--but I'm not even opening them until I get legal guidance. That stuff is somebody's work product, and they do have rights.

Now, it would be easy for me to get on a white horse and refuse to engage with this issue at all. I know other people have this information and will publish it, after all. I could let them do what I feel squeamish about and then jump into the discussion with a clear conscience, all indignation and fire. Seems a bit too easy.

So I am going to try and do what a journalist will do, without the resources of a news department. Here's my cunning plan. I am going to crosspost this on sites frequented by some of the people involved in this correspondence and ask them to contact me. I will try at the very least to get a response from them about anything I do choose to publish. I will also give them every opportunity to provide context for statements in the emails that might otherwise be hurtful. With their permission, I will publish their reactions and comments alongside anything I discuss here. If they consent to act with me on this, I will give them a publishing schedule and a chance to prepare for material that I do decide to discuss.

I'm open also to suggestions. If you can help me act ethically and responsibly in breaking a story on a shoestring budget, I will welcome your assistance. This story will probably go on for months--there's a lot in there. But it's important that we start well on this journey.

Examiner: Hadley CRU hacked with release of hundreds of docs and emails

The University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre appears to have suffered a security breach earlier today, when an unknown hacker apparently downloaded 1079 e-mails and 72 documents of various types and published them to an anonymous FTP server. These files appear to contain highly sensitive information that, if genuine, could prove extremely embarrassing to the authors of the e-mails involved. Those authors include some of the most celebrated names among proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

The FTP link first appeared on a blog called The Air Vent. The blog's owner, identified as "Jeff Id", downloaded the file, examined it, and posted a brief summary on his blog. Another commenter, identified as "Steven Mosher," passed the information on to Steven McIntyre's Climate Audit blog and to another blog, The Blackboard, run by a blogger identified as "Lucia." Most recently, blogger Anthony Watts, who runs a blog titled "Watts Up With That?" mentioned the FTP archive in his own blog.

Commentary on all the blogs involved has been brisk, except, oddly enough, at The Air Vent, where only seven comments have been received.

The FTP server is in a Russian domain and uses the anonymous FTP protocol, which does not require a pre-registered user account or password for downloading. The file is named FOI2009.zip, an apparent reference to US Public Law 89-554, 80 Stat. 383, the Freedom of Information Act.

Several commentators have expressed skepticism as to the authenticity of the archive, pointing to its lack of clear provenance and suggesting that someone was attempting to embarrass, either directly or indirectly, the dignitaries attending the upcoming climate-change conference in Copenhagen. Other commentators who have examined the e-mails in the archive conclude that the header and other information that they contain is too detailed to be a hoax. Thus far, no commentator has found anything in the e-mail headers that appears to be mistaken.

Some of the most embarrassing e-mails are attributed to Philip Jones, the Director of the CRU; Keith Briffa, his assistant; Michael E. Mann of the University of Virginia; Malcolm Hughes at the University of Arizona; and others. One such e-mail makes references to the famous "hockey-stick" graph published by Mann in the journal Nature:

I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

The emphasis in the above quote was added.

Mr. Mosher offered this summary of the rest of the e-mails that he had found:

And, you get to see somebody with the name of phil jones say that he would rather destroy the CRU data than release it to McIntyre. And lots lots more. including how to obstruct or evade FOIA requests. and guess who funded the collection of cores at Yamal.. and transferred money into a personal account in Russia[.] And you get to see what they really say behind the curtain.. you get to see how they “shape” the news, how they struggled between telling the truth and making policy makers happy. [Y]ou get to see what they say about Idso and pat micheals, you get to read how they want to take us out into a dark alley, it’s stunning all very stunning. You get to watch somebody named phil jones say that John daly’s death is good news.. or words to that effect. I don’t know that its real.. But the CRU code looks real

John Daly (not to be confused with the professional golfer of the same name) is identified in one of the e-mails as a global-warming skeptic who died in January of 2004.

As embarrassing as the e-mails are, some of the documents are more embarrassing. They include a five-page PDF document titled The Rules of the Game, that appears to be a primer for propagating the AGW message to the average subject/resident of the United Kingdom. The document suggests that it is a precis of a longer document housed at the Web site of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Developing...

Update: The Russian FTP server administrator appears to have deleted the archive. The text of the link was: <http://ftp.tomcity.ru/incoming/free/FOI2009.zip>

Activity on The Air Vent has picked up considerably since this story broke.

Further Update: Two other possessors of the file have uploaded it to two other file-sharing services: MegaUpload and FileDropper.

Further Update: A Pirate Bay torrent link is now available.

Also: The "72 documents" refers to 72 files and folders at the top level of a directory called "documents." In fact, reliable counts indicate at least 3485 documents present, not counting the e-mails.

Also:

Hadley hacked | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Marc Morano has sent in the following links, please download the PDF file.