If you were responsible, rest easy my son, as the UK plod has shelved the investigation in to who hacked the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).
The Climategate attack released over 1000 emails messages and 3800 documents relating to global warming, or the lack of it. At the time of release the 160gb of data provided grim confirmation for critics of climate science.
After a comprehensive analysis of the released data the allegations were three fold, that climate scientists controlled the publishing process to discredit opposing views and further their own theory; they manipulated the data to make recent temperature trends look like they were deviating from norms, and they went as far as to withhold and destroy data that contradicted the story they were trying to tell.
Why was this problem? Well a significant amount of climate global policy was based on the data released by the CRU, including a widely published and at the time, respected, temperature record called the HADCRUT, which along with a number of other CRU surveys were featured prominently in the reports of the UN’s climate change panel.
A subsequent parliamentary study cleared the scientists of dodgy behaviour but did complain that the data was filtered before release.
The statute of limitation on the crime, unauthorised access to computer material, an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, is three years, from the commission of the original offence.
A statement from Norfolk Constabulary, said:
Norfolk Constabulary has made the decision to formally close its investigation into the hacking of online data from the Climate Research Centre (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich.
The decision follows a comprehensive investigation by the force’s Major Investigation Team, supported by a number of national specialist services, and is informed by a statutory deadline on criminal proceedings.
The international dimension of investigating the World Wide Web especially has proved extremely challenging.
However, as a result of our enquiries, we can say that the data breach was the result of a sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack on the CRU’s data files, carried out remotely via the internet. The offenders used methods common in unlawful internet activity to obstruct enquiries.
There is no evidence to suggest that anyone working at or associated with the University of East Anglia was involved in the crime.