Wednesday
Mar142012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Forensic analysis of the Heartland memo
Mar 14, 2012 Climate: fakegate Watts Up With That? has just published an expert forensic analysis of the Heartland strategy memorandum and it's not looking good for Dr Gleick.
...the analytic method that correctly and reliably identified twelve of twelve authors in calibration testing also selected Gleick as the author of the disputed document. Having examined these documents and their results, I therefore consider it more likely than not that Gleick is in fact the author/compiler of the document entitled ”Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” and further that the document does not represent a genuine strategy memo from the Heartland Institute.
Reader Comments (49)
It would be best is Gleick confesses because if contested a civil court action would ruin him whereas a criminal court action based on confessing guilt may only admonish him ............... but then again Gleick may think he is above the law.
LMAO - Your extract from the report conveniently omits the preceding sentences from the conclusion.
This includes -
The assumption that the only possible authors of the memo are either Bast or Gleick renders the whole exercise completely redundant.
It wasn't Peter Gleick who authored the fake memo, but a person with that same name.
I don't think that a court would find this analysis decisive.
Here is the key quote from the report:
So, having failed to get a clear answer, they refined their analysis so that in leave-one-out cross-validation tests they got 100% accuracy on all of the held back data from the training set. When this was achieved, the analysis was applied to the memo and identified the author as Gleick.
In fairness, they conclude only that "it is more likely than not" that Gleick is the author.
anivegmin: "The assumption that the only possible authors of the memo are either Bast or Gleick renders the whole exercise completely redundant."
No. If you read the whole thing, you will see the decision to consider Bast or Gleick was taken because these are the two people who have been suggested as authors. Bast was named by Shawn Otto in the Huffington Post and Gleick by Steven Mosher.
This exercise considers these two options and selects one from those two. It's not conclusive, but it's not pointless either.
Game, Set, Match. Regardless of what the naysayers say. If all the Lawyers on both sides of this would be eliminated (if only!), the rest of us could get on with things. As it is, a lot of lawyers will become enriched by this mess, particularly because they'll never quite come to a conclusion on the matter. Time is their ally.
If he didn't write the memo, he just as well should have, for all it achieved. Even an idiot could have realized that. And he didn't...
All this doesn't matter in the end. Gleick has done all the damage he needs to do -- and invented the verb "to gleick".
Image of long haired, sandal wearing hippy-type sitting at desktop computer with all sorts of green posters on the wall and the person muttering:
In some way, this sort of analysis is probably (very loosely) related to PCA. Did they use short-centring?
With such a small sample, and by not using a standard algorithm and not doing it 'blind', I don't think the analysis has huge value. In fact, under those conditions, I'd trust human judgement rather than a computer analysis. Interesting, nevertheless!
Jeremy Harvey
Had this been a CRU-style exercise in climate science, I am sure that the cross-validation exercise would have been repeated until it achieved 100% on the training test sets AND got the "correct" answer on the memo.
I take it this did not happen here.
@Mrpotarto
Just because these two people have been "suggested" as authors does not make the outcome of the exercise any more meaningful. Being "suggested" does not exclude the possibilty that the memo was written by someone else.
Also the full report itself points to a number of reasons why the analysis is meaningless. They are then, bizzarly, "able to identify and calibrate an appropriate analysis method". No description/justification of this mysterious new method is provided.
From this "appropriate analysis method" they then feel confident enough to consider it "more likely than not that Gleick is in fact the author/compiler of the document". More likely than not? a 51% likelyhood?
I would suggest that it is "more likely than not" that the whole exercise is nothing more than fake.
Any news from Heartland as to the provenance of the other documents?
I think the others are probably all genuine.
The problem is the ones on Desmogblog were resaved with slightly different PDF settings at some point (possibly by the desmog webmaster). Comparison of the 990 from HI's website and in the package suggests this. So the only way to confirm they haven't been modified would be pretty laborious manual comparison.
Apart from our entertainment, I can't see HI having too much interest in doing that comparison, and even less publishing the results of it.
This "analysis" is basically forensically worthless. I doubt a judge would permit it to be presented. And if it were, I could just see the cross examination.
Time to move on.
If there is to be legal action, it will be on the use of these documents in a defamatory manner, which continues. The question is will HI spend the money?
@anivegmin
It is obvious that you haven't read the full document. Here is the paragraph that might help you:
The reason the list of the possible authors of the fake memo has been whittled down to two (Gleick and Bast) is because these are the two obvious -logical- suspects. Doomsday cultists claimed it ws written by Bast, climate skeptics claim it was authored by Gleick.
You are incorrectly trying to make it sound as though the forensic analysis identified Gleick and Bast out of a hundred million other suspects. That is not the case. These two were the prime suspects from the very beginning of the analysis.
Remember also that 1/3 of the fake memo consisted of words identical to or paraphrased from authentic Heartland documents, e.g. Bast's own style. But even then Gleick emerges as the person more likely to have forged the memo.
This kind of evidence is not good enough to convict a person of a crime but it is good enough to win a civil lawsuit. At the very least, the evidence is good enough to justify further probing of Gleick's involvement. If I were an FBI man hunting two suspects codenamed Gleick and Bast for some fraud, confronted with this evidence, I would terminate all surveillance on Bast and direct all my resources on Gleick's ass.
@ sHx
I have read the full document. Just because some bloggers claim it was Bast and some bloggers claim it was Gleick does not make them the "logical" suspects. It hasn't been "whittled down" to these two possibilities. Gleick claims he received the memo as an anonymous document in his mail. I am making no judgement one way or the other on the veracity of his claim; but for the blogosphere to claim unequivocally that these are the only two possible "logical" suspects, and for you to then claim that some dodgy analysis of the writing style has some kind of validity, smacks of premeditated bias.
Re: anivegmin
If the document is genuine then Bast is the logical person, from the Heartland Institute, to have authored it.
If the document is forged then Gleick is the logical person to have forged it. He had the means - possession of the stolen documents, the motive - hatred of the Heartland Institute, and the opportunity - the time period between receiving the stolen documents and sending out the email, to forge the memo.
Bast and Gleick are not 2 names randomly pulled from a hat, they are the logical suspects.
Trouble for Gleick is that he made very generic requests for HI documents using the false identity yet apparently received exactly those related to the fake memo. This miraculous occurrence is hardly explainable apart from by identifying Gleick as the author of the fake memo, created after HI sent him those documents.
"Gleick claims he received the memo as an anonymous document in his mail. I am making no judgement one way or the other on the veracity of his claim ..."
Why not? Is it because any judgement you make will be detrimental to your mission objective of muddying the water and spreading doubt and uncertainty on Gleick's involvement in the scandal?
They must be fake or, at least, doctored - as they fail to show any evidence of the "big oil funded climate denial machine". Probably a false flag, double bluff conspiracy by climate deniers to smear "high profile" climate, er....water scientists like the saintly Dr Gleick.
I agree with Anivegmin, there is nothing 'logical' for introducing Joseph Bast as a suspect. Megan McArdle put it nicely: (the memo) reads like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic. By an intern
It was clearly written by someone with no experience writing a memo. Peter Gleick as a suspect, yes there is a clear logic, but Joseph Bast ...no!
I am not "muddying the water". Gleick has admitted his involvement.
I was just pointing out that using a technique that is at best flawed, or at worst useless, to analyse a sample that may, or may not, include other suspects; itself only serves to muddy the waters and give one side or the other a false sense of justification.
Gleick is a self confessed liar. Mosher and Megan McCardle came to the conclusion that it was Gleick who released the Heartland e-mails from the way the fake memo was worded, then Gleick confessed and made up a story about the fake memo. How hard is it to come to the conclusion that Gleick is the forger?Stop defending a self confessed liar and charlatan.
"Trouble for Gleick is that he made very generic requests for HI documents using the false identity yet apparently received exactly those related to the fake memo. This miraculous occurrence is hardly explainable apart from by identifying Gleick as the author of the fake memo, created after HI sent him those documents."
Mar 14, 2012 at 5:26 PM | Unregistered Commenter Maurizio Morabito
This is interesting. In Gleick's confession, he stated he received the Heartland Climate Strategy document and then (after reading it) thought he should verify the contents. So my question is: From the contents of the strategy document, how could Gleick figure out which documents he needed to acquire for evidential support? Have we heard from the Heartland person who fulfilled Gleick's requests for documents? Was he specific or did he just ask for anything pertinent?
@Peter Whale
At no point have I defended Gleick. I am only criticising the false evidence presented in this article.
Re: anivegmin
> I am only criticising the false evidence presented in this article.
No. You are also claiming a large suspect pool for the forger (if it was forged of course).
There are 3 options for the forger.
1. The forger was from the Heartland Institute. If this is the case then the forger would also have to know the following:
a) That upon receipt Gleick would fraudulently attempt to obtain corroborating evidence
b) That Gleick would be sent the right documents. Since the forger was an insider then this is something they might know.
2. The forger was external to the Heartland Institute. If this is the case then the forger would also have to know the following:
a) Confidential information available only to HI insiders.
b) That upon receipt Gleick would fraudulently attempt to obtain corroborating evidence
c) That Gleick would be sent the right documents to corroborate the forged memo.
3. The forger was Gleick. This option does not require any extra knowledge.
Option 2 can be discarded since it requires knowledge that was not available.
If it was option 1 then the forger is a master planner who should be working black ops for the CIA, NSA or some other collection of letters.
If Gleick did not forge the document then there is a large pool to dredge from. Peter Gleick was a fool if he accepted the memo as valid, he is an idiot if he forged it.
@anivegmin: I was just pointing out that using a technique that is at best flawed, or at worst useless ...
Have to agree. The initial "by eye" comparison was enough to flush Gleick out, and prompt a confession to all but fabricating the memo himself, but this "modeling" phase appears to owe more to The Team and its methods than anything else.
"I am not "muddying the water". Gleick has admitted his involvement.
His involvement in extracting Heartland documents by impersonating a board member, yes.
No, he has not admitted his involvement in forging the document, and neither has he clearly stated that the fake memo came to him from the anonymous source.
Is it not odd that you are prepared to pass judgement on whether the computer analysis that points at Gleick is credible, but you have no judgement to make as to whether Gleick himself is telling the truth?
And if you are not here to muddy the water you are doing what? Clearing up the air?
For the record, the JGAAP analysis should certainly not be considered on par with fingerprinting and DNA analysis. These two tools can identify a person out of a million others.
The JGAAP is more like handwriting analysis, as in whether the style and signature on a paper belongs to person A or person B. Handwriting examination has been around and accepted as evidence in courts of law for far longer than DNA evidence and fingerprinting.
Not that any of this matters to you. Your mind is all made up: Gleick is innocent until he admits to being guilty.
@TerryS
I fail to see the logic in your options -
I know this may seem tenuous to you - but you are assuming, after the fact, that the chain of events was both inevitable and pre-planned; in all possible cases. You are also assuming that the Heartland computer system could not have been unknowingly hacked. Either way possession of the memo does not inevitably lead to the next step.
Again, I am not defending Gleick. I don't really care if he is guilty or not.
sHx, you write:
Handwriting examination has been around and accepted as evidence in courts of law for far longer than DNA evidence and fingerprinting.
Graphology is a considered a pseudo-science, like the polygraph test. As far as I can see, Anivegmin's only complaint was that the JGAAP analysis used in comparing the outputs by Joseph and Peter, was flawed.
harold,
you are confusing handwriting examination with Graphology.
The former is used to ascertain the authenticity or the ownership of handwriting or signature. For example, was the alleged Hitler Diary written by Hitler himself, or did someone fake it by imitating Hitler's handwriting. There is some science to this. This is a legitimate area of expertise.
Graphology however is about identifying character traits of a person by their handwriting style or signature. For example, if the signature is large, that's supposed to suggest an assertive person. If the handwriting is tidy, that means conscientiousness. If it is jumbled that's supposed to mean lack of discipline, etc, etc. So yes that is psuedo-science.
Re: anivegmin
Whoever forged the memo had to have access to the documents that were sent to Gleick.
This is small suspect pool that consists only of those in the Heartland Institute that had access and Gleick. It is not a large pool of suspects as you claim.
You say the Heartland Institutes computer system might have been unknowingly hacked. Who is this master hacker? How did he know that Gleick would obtain exactly the right documents necessary to verify the faked memo? Since this master hacker obtained the documents needed to produce the fake memo why didn't he just send them to Gleick? How come the only documents he obtained were the same ones Gleick obtained. If he did obtain other documents then why isn't information from these in the memo? Overall the probability of it being a master hacker is so vanishingly small that it can be discounted.
If it was a HI insider then what was the purpose? If the purpose was to discredit HI then why didn't the insider also send the documents necessary to verify the memo? If the purpose was to discredit Gleick then how could they possibly know that Gleick would take any notice of a single piece of unsigned plain white paper without headers, footers or watermarks? Let alone know that Gleick would commit fraud to obtain verifying documents.
Like I said, the suspect pool consists of Gleick and some people from Heartland. Nobody else is a reasonable suspect. Even then, those in the HI only have a motive if they are master manipulators who could put the CIA and the NSA to shame with their skill and foresight.
OK sHx, I was confusing graphology with 'forensic document examination'...
Anyway, my personal feeling is that Peter Gleick should have apologized to The Heartland Institute, he did not and adding this to his feeble apology...I hope he gets nailed
There is an active debate on the Gleick affair ongoing on Kloor's site, including comments from McIntyre and Mosher.
(NB Our friend BBD is also doing his usual.)
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2012/03/12/a-story-no-climate-reporter-wants-to-pursue/
Unless the FBI mount a criminal investigation there is no point continuing to debate this case. Dr G obviously doesn't expect such a thing as he has broken cover already. So this seems a waste of time and effort TBH.
@TerryS
At no point have I mentioned a "large pool" of possible suspects.
Again you are assuming, with no evidence, that the sequence of events were pre-planned or inevitable.
Unless some new evidence emerges, or Gleick confesses to the forgery, all you are doing is speculating.
@sHx
In this case the handwriting analysis employed is probably no more scientifically veracious than graphology.
lmfao
so this person . anivegmin, keeps asserting: "you are assuming, after the fact, that the chain of events was both inevitable and pre-planned; in all possible cases".
Whereas, of course, the most likely chain was that Gleick decided to go down this route...obtained documents fraudulently and then faked a board memo. All of anivegmin's questions fall apart at that point.
it is like argung with hengist. in fact, anivegmin is probably hengist without the braincells. But it then becomes imnpossible to consider...how could anyone be more stupid than Hengist?
In authenticating Last Wills and Testaments plus other documents, forensic genealogists deal necessarily with ambiguous phrasing, circumstantial evidence, small samples... "Bleak House" and Judge Bridlegoose aside,
courts are fully capable of assessing probabilities in "cui bono" contexts affecting major cases.
Given climate cultists' egregious history of willful forgery and fraud, which continues to this day in virtually all public-sector venues, the burden lies squarely upon such as Gleick not to "prove a negative" but to supply independently verifiable proof-positive of their vociferous self-justifications. In this regard, only facts rather than "mere opinion" will suffice.
> or Gleick confesses to the forgery
He's already confessed to forgery, fraud, and lying.
He's confessed to fraudulently obtaining documents from Heartland by forging the identity (which we know to include the name & signature block) on a series of emails, and a series of lies - both a course of conduct over several days, rather than a single incident.
He's confessed to sending the email to the "15" bloggers - ostensibly his allies, which includes yet more lies:
1. It lies about the sender being a Heartland insider
2. It lies by omission - not mentioning that the strategy memo and form 990 were obtained separately from the other documents.
3. It lies by commission in that it says all the documents, including strategy memo, were from Heartland, but even according to Gleick's "confession" he doesn't know where the strategy memo came from.
In short, Gleick is a self-confessed liar, a self-confessed fraudster, and a provable forger. The only question is whether he lied about and forged the strategy memo AS WELL AS the other lies, frauds, and forgeries that he has committed.
"Our procedure by assumption excluded every possible author but Bast and Gleick."
Given that Heartland
1. Employs a multipilcity of memo writers, and
2. Freely confesses much of the ' fake ' memo's text be their authentic handiwork
that assumption seems at best tendentious, which is about par for an institute as overlawyered and underscienced as Heartland .
The analysis is more interesting than it is useful, I think. But it is not reasonable to base one's belief that Gleick forged the document on this analysis. We would be as guilty of over-reaching as the alarmists are over claims of climate catastrophe.
For entirely different reasons, I believe Gleick is responsible for the forgery. We know that the forged document was not sourced from Heartland and we also know, based on its content, that it was derived from precisely the documents that Gleick pilfered from Heartland. I don't believe that this is in question. So, unless Gleick is at least the second Heartland pilferer of exactly the same Heartland documents, it can only be Gleick who authored the forgery.
To deny being the author of the forged document, Gleick would need to now claim that he did not do the things he has already admitted and claim instead that it was someone else who committed wire fraud to obtain the Heartland documents.
Gleick needs to formally deny forging the document, and offer as much help as he can to the police investigating the incidents, then we can move on from this sorry escapade.
@harold
I should have used the phrase 'forensic document examination' at the first place. Precision in language is not my forte. Not when I'm commenting in pajamas. :D
@anivegmin
"In this case the handwriting analysis employed is probably no more scientifically veracious than graphology."
Except that in this case no handwriting analysis was employed. I am done with feeding you, troll.
@diogenes
Gleick being the forger may be the most likely option. All I am saying is that the other two options that TerryS postulated are narratives based on hindsight, and cannot be completely dispelled in the context of the "forensic document analysis". This is just one of the problems identified by the reports author, which he then goes on to ignore by invoking some unspecified "appropriate analysis method".
I'll ignore the insults.
@sHx
Apologies. I used the wrong phrase. I should also have used the phrase "forensic document examination". Oh you made a similar mistake! But in this case I wont go on to accuse you of being a troll.
Re: Russell
He aims, he shoots he hits the side of the wrong barn.
That assumption was made by Juola & Associates, not Heartland. They have no association with Heartland and they where not approached by or paid for by Heartland. They are expert in the analysis of text and authorship.
Juola & Associates detailed every assumption they made, every problem they had, and everything that impacted the value of their results. Something I would never expect to see from climate scientists
Mar 15, 2012 at 7:03 AM Rick Bradford
Gleick needs to formally
denyconfess to forging the document, and offer as much help as he can to the police investigating the incidents, then we can move on from this sorry escapade.Gleick is operating tactically he has done a legal job in a minimum cough up to the phishing, I fully expect he only did that because he told someone else about it who would not be happy he held back.
We do know the memo is a risible piece of work that any sober independent consideration can see through, and that even if you have no feeling of partisanship with Heartland, their stance is the only stance that offers a chance of disproof, they can be proven to have authorship. So with the idotic jounalist not showing any ability to search further and AGW activists to this day swearing by the memo we have enough to be going on with.
No matter the excuse, even if you accept the moment of madness defence, Gleick has shown a willingness to fool his own side and his own side has shown a willingness to be fooled. The whole episode will sit there on the record as the most damning indictment of AGW derangement and a useful litmus test for those deranged enough to think it helps the AGW cause.
"Apologies. I used the wrong phrase. I should also have used the phrase "forensic document examination". Oh you made a similar mistake! But in this case I wont go on to accuse you of being a troll."
No need to apologise for that. I took you to mean to say the science of "forensic document examination" was flawed anyway.
I am usually skeptical of everything between heaven and earth myself, including graphology, astrology and climate science.
Terry S
Have you read the report, which does not lay out the numbers, as Otto's analysis did?
Have you corresponded with its author as to the meaning of its terms ?
The assumption that the memo had but two authors may be counterfactual, but it nevertheless forms the basis of the question put to JGAAP .
Don't you think that tendentious?
Thank you for a forceful illustration of the meaning of the word 'overlawyered' .
in the age of electronic media, 'fake' is harder to define.