Tuesday
Feb092010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill +++Lord Stern in email hacking+++
Feb 9, 2010 Climate: other Channel Four news:
Exclusive: Channel 4 News can reveal that renowned climate change economist, Lord Stern, has had his email targeted by a virus.
The British government's climate change guru, Lord Stern, has had his emails sabotaged in a possible "hacking attack" Channel 4 News can reveal.
Full story here.
Reader Comments (25)
'The British government's climate change guru, Lord Stern, has had his emails sabotaged in a possible "hacking attack" Channel 4 News can reveal.'
Picking up an email virus isn't news.
It strikes me that Channel 4 is trying to imply a there's a story when there probably isn't and they've no reason to suggest there is. A non-story.
Oh, are viruses and trojans personal?
Had no idea.
Well, I suppose it's sort of news that someone in his position doesn't run an email scrubber. Puts him in perspective, doesn't it?
Wow. Is that it?
Er...non story C4.
I've got new anti-malware software and it found 59 trojans and whatnot on its first run. It must be those Global Warming hysterics targeting me, mustn't it?
He may have technically "left the government" but he is still on the team:
http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/stern.htm
Stern Symposium - Washington 2009
The Stern Team organised the US Symposium which was held in Washington DC on the 3rd March 2009. Academics, CEOs of large US corporations, cross party Senators, and staffers attended, with a view to gaining a global economic perspective on U.S climate change action.
The event was sponsored by the World Resources Institute, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Centre for Global Development, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment, and with assistance from CISCO and The Climate Group. This was the first time anything of this magnitude had been held on Capitol Hill, and with bi-partisan support.
Co-sponsorship was provided from four US Senators, and Mr Todd Stern (US Special Envoy for Climate Change, US Dept of State) attended as a keynote speaker.
Lord Nicholas Stern chaired several sessions with other notable speakers including Tony Blair, who chaired the closed door session and press conference, Connie Hedegaard; Danish minister for climate and energy and Ed Milliband.
http://www.ideaglobal.com/IDEAcarbon_Press_Release_Final.pdf
Welcoming the launch of the service, Lord Stern, Vice Chairman of IDEAglobal Group, said: “The carbon markets are showing their potential to reduce global emissions and should form a key plank for any future global climate agreement.
If we are to attract the levels of finance necessary to make this a mainstream market and have a strong impact on emissions reduction, risks must be clearly understood, articulated and managed.
A detailed ratings system is a vital tool to bring greater clarity, transparency and certainty to the market.”
http://www.ideacarbon.com/advisors/index.htm
Lord Nicholas Stern: Advisor to IDEAglobal Group, parent company of IDEAcarbon
DId this occur before or after he received an FOI request?
The email containing the virus appeared to come from Lord Stern himself but the Institute will not disclose the subject of the email or who may have been a receipient of the messages.
those dirty deniers caused Stern to pawn himself
Nice one Dennis - a ratings system! Tee hee, a chance for S & P and Moody's to reprise their triumphs rating bank bonds, CMO's etc. Maybe the Global Circulation Model gurus could turn their hands to building the risk assessment system, given that the last one failed.
And of course Lord Stern of the Rainforest is not in any way conflicted - perhaps they might think of renaming the company IDEOlogical instead.
So?? Who cares?
View from the Solent nails this with:
Well, I suppose it's sort of news that someone in his position doesn't run an email scrubber. Puts him in perspective, doesn't it?
Two gold stars for View from the Solent.
The "Make it short, make it snappy, make it up" school of journalism.
The story seems to be that the LSE don't have decent virus checking, but is this big national news?
The "Make it short, make it snappy, make it up" school of journalism.
This is right up there with the "BIG" story that Sarah Palin -- wrote -- choke -- choke "crib" notes on her hand.
What? So she didn't have any 3 by 5 index cards handy to write down some last minute issues she wanted to cover. This, according to the left, proves that she is a "f---king retard'
( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/09/colbert-sarah-palin-is-a_n_454744.html)
I think that the fanbois on the left need to consider that they are only insulting the intelligence of those they seek to win over to their view. This whole thing about Lord Stern not having antivirus software does make me wonder about them.
The only conclusion I can see is that they really don't understand how silly they look and how angry they are making those independent voters who make up about 50% of US voters. They should have figured it out after the Massachusetts by-election last month, but they still go on, and on, and on in a pathetic state of denial.
I meet a lot of malware in my business, but no-one has yet complained that it was put there by denialist hackers. I can only assume that the Channel 4 computers have never picked up a virus...
Has the noble lord been opening attachments promising to hide the decline?
Me and Al, we wrote a paper on this - completely true - "Global Warming and the increase of email viruses and trojans in the 20th and 21st Century - the correlation is amazing, along comes global warming and, bam, email viruses! Huge 20thC uptick. Absolutely no indication of any happening before we had all this warming, none, zip, nada (apart from the Trojan period, but that was like, a really long time ago).
It will be in the next IPCC report - emailing Patchy now.
It does sound like a normal email trojan which could have come from anywhere.
The article does say 'target' but it all sounds a bit dumbed down.
I'm sure this means that some emails from ClimateGate were written by a new kind of virus with some artificial inteligence... Big Oil has really made a nasty move...
Good grief.
How stupid do Channel 4 News think people are?
That's a rhetorical question, otherwise we'll be here all night.....
I'm going to be laughing at this for a while yet.
The difference between a Virus and a Trojan horse is that a virus will attack your computer and try to find a vulnerability, whereas a trojan horse is something you let in to the computer... as in the greek horse of Troy... They let it in.
Too much surfing and not enough working Lord Stern.
Move along... nothing to see here but spin.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/hansen-colleague-rejected-ipcc-ar4-es-as-having-no-scientific-merit-but-what-does-ipcc-do/#more-16256
If there is going to be a carbon market, will there be deriviatives sold in these markets?. Will people be able to make bets on the future price of carbon or hedge their current emissions/savings? If so, why will these markets not be subject to the same degree of manipulation as in current markets. Since the carbon supply will be set by government and is thus a totally artficial commodity, why will not this manipulation be pervasive?
Just to complete my previous post, what would happen in the carbon market every year when the governments set the carbon supply? Can you imagine what would happen to an insitution long in the market if the governments set a generous supply or to one that had shorted the market? There would be few phone calls from New York and London that would be very interesting to listent to. Remember the California electricity market and the manipulation that went on there.
It's obvious where it didn't come from! All sceptics are highly skilled Russian linked "big oil" funded hackers who cannot be found despite the intense efforts of the Norfolk Constabulary.
Unlike the sophisticated program writing super computer modeling infallible peerreviewed published warmists who clearly can't hold an email between thumb and forefinger without it falling into the wrong hands.
My ISP have never ever let one single spam email through to my email account.
None, nil, nada, niente, rien, nothing, zero.
You suck bigtime Stern, you are personally responsible for letting in this trojan.