[ISN] Hackers steal electronic data from top climate research center

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112004093.html

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
November 21, 2009

Hackers broke into the electronic files of one of the world's foremost 
climate research centers this week and posted an array of e-mails in 
which prominent scientists engaged in a blunt discussion of global 
warming research and disparaged climate-change skeptics.

The skeptics have seized upon e-mails stolen from the Climatic Research 
Unit of the University of East Anglia in Britain as evidence that 
scientific data have been rigged to make it appear as if humans are 
causing global warming. The researchers, however, say the e-mails have 
been taken out of context and merely reflect an honest exchange of 
ideas.

University officials confirmed the data breach, which involves more than 
1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents, but said they could not say how many 
of the stolen items were authentic.

"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."

Michael E. Mann, who directs the Earth System Science Center at 
Pennsylvania State University, said in a telephone interview from Paris 
that skeptics are "taking these words totally out of context to make 
something trivial appear nefarious."

[...]


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