Were the Russians behind the Climategate hacking?<br />

So, who was responsible for the illegal hacking of those Climategate emails? I’m a bit out of my depth here; in the cyberville school I’m in the special needs class, possessed of no understanding or ability. But it would be good to find out, wouldn’t it? Or do those ultra-sceptics among you not give a toss either way? Certainly the sceptical bloggers and newspaper columnists do not seem to have given the matter much thought; whilst impugning the motives of the climate-change lobby is not merely de-rigeur but central to the entire sceptical argument (perhaps rightly), there seems to be no intellectual curiosity as to the motives of some of those on their own side.

The IPCC seems happy, for the moment, to point the finger of blame at the FSB – not the Federation of Small Businesses, although I suppose they could be involved somewhere along the line, but the Russian secret service. This has an agreeably sinister ring to it. The FSB has used cyber-sabotage before, it is argued, the leaked emails emanated from the distant city of Tomsk and Russia is one of the countries in the world which, in the short term at least, would benefit greatly from a quick blast of global warming. (Can you picture Ivan Denisovich in Bermuda shorts, rubbing on the Ambre Solaire?) That’s the thesis, anyway. The FSB, for its part, has confirmed that the emails emanated from a server in Tomsk but strenuously denies having done the hacking. But then it would, wouldn’t it?

More interestingly, while the FSB has denied direct involvement, it says that it does have some interesting information about the Tomsk business which it is not prepared to release to the press unless people keep blaming Russia for the whole shebang. So the logical thing, I suppose, is to keep blaming Russia. For those of us who want to know, anyway.