The gleick fakegate emails are posted at fakegate.org which appears to be a Heartland Institute domain name. I’m hotlinking because I don’t know if this is a permalink for the email images. Click images to see larger:
January 28, 2012, 12:09 a.m.
January 30, 2012, 8:47 a.m.
February 2, 2012, 4:50 p.m.
February 3, 2012, 10:38 a.m.
February 6, 2012, 8:57 a.m.
February 6, 2012, 8:59 a.m.
February 10, 2012, 9:56 a.m.
Means, opportunity, and motive. A pretty open and shut, text book case!
http://fakegate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-6-2012-8-57-am.jpg shows the 2012 Fund raising plan is 95kb; the one I dowlonded is 92kb. Do these change when dowloaded or saved on different machines. (I have a mac.)
My “2012 Heartland budget is 128Kb) the one in the image says 130kb.
On my mack Board Directory 16kB: in image 16 kB. These match.
Agenda sizes match, but Board meeting package on my mac 8KB on image 11kb. Anyway, some sizes match; some don’t. I have no idea what this means. For all I know it could mean my saving to the mac changes them. Anyone who knows, chime in.
It depends on if your computer thinks “k” is 1000 or 1024. Also, I suspect that some computers round fractional k values, and others truncate (round down to the next lower integer).
I just downloaded the 2012 Fundraising Plan, and my browser (Opera) reports it as “90 KB (92,031 bytes)”. So that’s basically 92 * 1000, or 89.87 * 1024 (rounded up to 90).
Sometimes I do see a reported “file size” in the file manager different from “size on disk” when you look at the file properties; but I think that’s just the 1000 versus 1024 difference.
Very interesting observations Lucia… 95 kb is pretty different from 92 kb, but maybe it’s an attachment effect in outlook?
It is mind-boggling that an organization with such a trivial budget can engender so much fear and loathing by their vastly better-funded adversaries.
You would think a puppet of Exxon, Big Tobacco and Dr. Evil would be rolling in money and not having to plan for raising chump change like a mere $95K.
Sierra Club can shake down a utility company for $26 million on top on many millions more in income. And yet a (completely fictional) $200,000 from Koch is supposed to be an eye-opener about the vast power of the planet-hating Right.
Either HI is very good at what they do or Big Green, Inc. is so now so fascistic than any dissenting voice must be crushed or maybe both.
Ged, “size on disk” may also refer to how much space has been allocated for the file, which may be larger than the actual length of the file. For example, your disk may allocate space in blocks of 4096 bytes, in which case a 10-byte file would have a “size on disk” of 4096.
Ged–
I don’t know. But it’s intersting that my 92 matches Brads 92,031 bytes. Also, the outlook isn’t always rounding to the nearest multiple of 5 because at least one was 11. But… still… don’t know. I don’t use outlook explorer. I can’t really do an experiment to see what it would display.
Maybe someone who has outlook explorer and take the one from DeSmogBlog and see what outlook explorer would display? (Ok… we won’t really know fully unless we can see the attachments. But still, I’m wondering.)
Email file attachments are base64 encoded and as such will be different in size to the data that will be written to disk on your computer.
For example, the paragraph above when saved as a text file is 138 bytes. If this file was sent by email it would be base64 encoded into the following 190 bytes:
RW1haWwgZmlsZSBhdHRhY2htZW50cyBhcmUgYmFzZTY0IGVuY29kZWQgYW5kIGFzIHN1Y2ggd2ls
bCBiZSBkaWZmZXJlbnQgaW4gc2l6ZSB0byB0aGUgZGF0YSB0aGF0IHdpbGwgYmUgd3JpdHRlbiB0
byBkaXNrIG9uIHlvdXIgY29tcHV0ZXIu
However, the size on the hard-drive for this small file will be whatever the minimum block size is. For me, that is 4,096 bytes.
Oh– more detail, on my desktop, it says “92 kB on disk (92,031 bytes) for the Fundraising Plan. The 92,031 is exactly the same as Brad’s.
Lucia, where are you downloading these? I have a file size of 7,009 bytes for the Board Meeting Package, and 127,606 bytes for the 2012 Heartland Budget. (From DeSmogBlog.)
Brad– I think I got them from DeSmog. But now they are on my disk. I have
* 8 K (7650 bytes) for Board Meeting Package January 17_0.pdf
* 16kB on disk (12,812 bytes) for Board Directory 01-18-12_0.pdf
Hmmm… Something other than just rounding going on here.
Indeed. I have a slightly different file name for the Board package:
(7009 bytes) Board Meeting Package January 17.pdf
And the DeSmog page I’m viewing, http://desmogblog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy , doesn’t have the Board Directory.
Amused–
I get that you are amused. But that doesn’t entirely answer the question. Because when I use “Mail” in the mac, the size displayed for the pdf matches the size saved on my mac. So that fact that things get encoded doesn’t entirely explain this.
But I did ask because I want to know the answer. My question is not rhetorical.
Brad R– Ahh! That might be from visiting Heartland itself. Someone asked about that. My mac doesn’t store where I downloaded from. I wish it did.
On an Apple computer use File->Get Info or right click and Get Info and you will see 2 sizes that are close but not the same, one is physical the other is logical.
Lucia, I’m going to take a wild guess that your Mac is reporting allocated size on disk, in multiples of “4k” (4,096). Which is how it can round up from 12,812 to “16k”. The number to go by is the actual number of bytes (12,812).
To answer your original question, a PDF file should have the same size (in bytes) on Mac, Windows, or Linux. It shouldn’t change when you save it.
Note the warning at the bottom of http://fakegate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-3-2012-10-38-am.jpg
Also surprised they left the lawyer’s name in http://fakegate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-6-2012-8-57-am.jpg – have to assume someone watching that line closely for creepy callers I guess.
Brad… weird….
Joe Bast: “But the emails Heartland released today reveal Gleick never asked for either of the two documents that are specifically cited and summarized in the memo, suggesting the memo was written after, not before, he received the phished documents.”
Isn’t this the most important point?
Also if my quick count is right (somebody please check), he didn’t forward 2 documents that he got by phishing in the set that he sent on Feb 14th (but he did add two others – the 990 and the strategy memo)
lucia, try sending the files to yourself.
I did so using Hotmail and here is what happened:
http://i39.tinypic.com/24npwf7.jpg
The size of the file will always be larger; by how much depends on what the email client does; some add more metadata than others.
EDIT:
LOL, actually all Hotmail is doing here is reporting the actual data size before you send, but on receiving shows the size as-written to disk, which will be larger due to block inefficiency. Hmmmmm
Lucia, here’s what pdfinfo is reporting for my Board Meeting Package file:
Title: P:\JBast\Board Meetings\2012\1-17-2012 Meeting\Notice of January 17 Meeting.wpd
Author: jbast
Creator: PScript5.dll Version 5.2
Producer: Acrobat Distiller 8.0.0 (Windows)
CreationDate: Mon Jan 16 10:48:58 2012
ModDate: Tue Feb 14 12:55:23 2012
Tagged: no
Pages: 1
Encrypted: no
Page size: 612 x 792 pts (letter)
File size: 7009 bytes
Optimized: yes
PDF version: 1.4
You should be able to open your copy in Acrobat Reader, and view the document properties. The most interesting one is probably the Modification Date.
Version downloaded 2/15 on left. Version downloaded today.
I assumed initially he receive the bundle, and just didn’t think about blacking out the names/numbers. In fact he requested those last, and specifically asked for emails/phone numbers. Why would he even want those after having everything else, other than knowing these people would get harassed if this was published? I can’t imagine he wanted to call and chat. Open to other plausible explanations.
http://fakegate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-10-2012-9-56-am.jpg
BradR–I took a screenshot of what I downloaded on Feb 15 and the one today…. I’m fidding to see if there is anything I do that changes things.
@Amused,
Looks like hotmail displays the “size on disk” for the attachment, or at least very, very close to it. That does not explain the differences we are seeing, unfortunately. For instance, it was still 92 kb for you, not 95 kb as in the Heartland screen shots.
I’m not sure what outlook itself does though… And it’s amusing they are using windows xp. We’d need someone with that and outlook to fully verify if we can reproduce the 95 kb size, and other size differences.
Lucia,
Maybe the slight difference in size is the _0 in the name of the one on the left adding extra bytes? I don’t think that would add 641 extra ones though, but never know?
Amused
I did. On a mac. The size of the document displayed in mail matched the size saved on my disk. (Within rounding…)
Feel free to email me a copy of the 2/15 version. I’m intrigued. It’s likely something simple, such as DeSmog editing the document to redact someone’s personal info, or something like that. But my copy is showing a ModDate of 2/14…were they slow uploading the redacted copy to their web page?
Brad R– Emailed.
Ged– I tried fiddling with changing names. Changing names seems to have no effect. I opened both and don’t see any differences– but one looked brighter. Maybe that’s some sort of “placebo” thing where you see a difference because you are trying really hard to see one.
If there are any differences, tons of people downloaded on a variety of days. So… they’ll be found. But I am puzzled.
Amused
Is the Hmmmm because you’ve noticed the one written to disk is smaller, not larger as you’d expect based on your discussion of how things work? Or did you mean something else?
Lucia,
This is a mystery. The 95 kb to 92 kb is even more mysterious, and it’s good to know changing the file name doesn’t do this on its own. Hm…
Also, that side by side comparison picture you posted up shows a difference in the sharpness of the font between the two versions (the bigger version has more anti-aliasing applied and isn’t quite as sharp, and also thus less bright seeming) according to that thumbnail, anyways. So that could be an explanation there.
Gleik’s confession – http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/peter-gleick-admits-to-deception-in-obtaining-heartland-climate-files/
The confession says “In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name. The materials the Heartland Institute sent to me confirmed many of the facts in the original document, including especially their 2012 fundraising strategy and budget. I forwarded, anonymously, the documents I had received to a set of journalists and experts working on climate issues.”
But he didn’t get the form 990 by phishing. He obtained it separately (not hard – it’s a public document and even available on Heartland’s website).
And then he added to package he sent out on Feb 14th, maybe to fill it out?
Here’s an example of what Amused was talking about. My email program reports the file size of the PDF attachment you sent me as 124,323 bytes. When saved to disk, it’s 92,031 bytes. The former is the base64-encoded size (for emailing), and the latter is the actual document size.
P.S. both copies of the file that you sent me are exactly identical.
Brad R–
That’s probably it then. On my mac, the numbers seem to match up when I email and save. But if they don’t on a pc– then that’s the answer. They don’t.
Oh ho. According to that email screenshot, the 2012 Fundraising Plan was sent to Gleick on 2/6. The PDF file you sent me shows a Modification Date of 2/14. This may explain how the size changed from 95k to 92k. The question is, what were the changes?
Lucia,
I’ve got myself in a total muddle so please allow me to start over. It happens more often than I’d like. 🙂
It’s exactly what I’d expect.
After some experimenting with a few email clients (no Mac though so yours could be behaving differently!):
All my received attachments display *larger* file sizes than what they actually are. The larger the file, the larger the discrepancy is. I am sure that is due to to it measuring the encoded file, not the binary file.
The written-to-disk size doesn’t matter at this point; that it seems to be close is just a coincidence; with a much larger file it will not be close at all.
Nonetheless, all files are the same when saved to disk as a binary pdf.
Also, sending the same file with different clients results in a very small difference, due to different headers used for the encoding.
I hope that makes sense!
Ged–
I should also note: several places host files. So it’s possible that I downloaded from DeSmog at one time and another site another time. Maybe saving on different machines results in slight mis-matches. But I saw it, so I wanted to know!
Amused–
Yes. Also: with my mac, it’s not like I tested with thousands. Just when I tested…. they were within rounding. Thanks.
@Amused and BradR
Something important to note was the screenshots Heartland gave us are not of -received- attachments (I don’t think, unless they are being forwarded?), but -outbound- attachments. So you both have noticed the file sizes are reported right when attaching for sending, and only once received are reported larger?
Wendy– But I’m not sure about those creation dates. If I download today, my mac sometimes makes the creation date today. Or at least that what I see when I review properties using command I in the mac. I’m not accustomed to bothering to look at these things though. Am I looking at the right thing?
Lucia, when you look with your File Explorer (or whatever that’s called on the Mac), you’ll see the date when that file was first created on your hard disk, and when it was modified. That information is managed by your Mac. When you download a file, both will show the date you downloaded it.
However, inside the PDF file there is “metadata” which tells when the PDF file itself was created, and when it was last modified. (Microsoft Word files, and I expect most other word processors, do likewise.) This is stored inside the document, and is preserved when the document is copied from one computer to another. It’s only changed when the file itself is edited.
I’ve been comparing the files I downloaded from DeSmog, with the dates the files were sent to Gleick, with interesting results:
created emailed modified
1-16-2012 2-3-2012 2-14-2012 2 Agenda for January 17 Meeting.pdf
1-16-2012 2-6-2012 2-14-2012 (1-15-2012) 2012 Fundraising Plan.pdf
1-16-2012 2-6-2012 2-14-2012 (1-15-2012) 2012 Heartland Budget (2).pdf
1-16-2012 2-6-2012 2-14-2012 Board Meeting Package January 17.pdf
1-16-2012 2-6-2012 2-14-2012 Binder1 (2).pdf
The creation date would be the date the file was printed from WordPerfect to PDF. This strongly suggests that the files were edited after they were received by Gleick. I say “suggests” because I don’t know if Adobe Reader’s “save a copy” function updates the Modification date. (It doesn’t on Linux, but that may not apply to other systems — worth investigating.)
In which case I think we can answer the question Heartland left hanging, namely, “we don’t know if these files were altered.” At first glance, it looks like they were.
Lucia,
Haha, that’s okay. I should have mentioned the rapid growth of the difference but I doubted myself and got confused!
Ged,
The emails are all forwarded from what I can see and as such show as being received and the size difference because of that.
Lucia,
I think the metadata of the PDF file (not the file properties as the OS sees them) reports the true creation data, unless the metadata gets scrubbed. It’s carried along in the file itself, from what I understand. I find it on a PC by opening the PDF, going to File -> Properties, and clicking Additional Metadata in that first Description tab.
Amused,
Gotchya, that all makes sense then!
Lucia, regarding the Board meeting files — the 7650 byte file has a Creation and Modification date of 1/16. The 7009 byte file has the same Creation date and time, but a Modification date of 2/14.
The interesting thing is, when I open the former I get a message “this file is damaged and is being repaired.” As far as I can see, the text is identical in both documents.
I can confirm Brad’s findings. It is not possible to tell if the document has not been tampered with.
For (1-15-2012) 2012 Fundraising Plan.pdf…
xmp:CreatorTool PScript5.dll Version 5.2
xmp:CreateDate>2012-01-16T10:02:55-06:00
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T09:59:58-08:00
xmp:MetadataDate>2012-02-14T09:59:58-08:00
Note the time zone differences for the original creation and modification dates. This metadata does not get altered by just copying the file, it is internal to the document.
Note:
xmp:MetadataDate:
The date and time that any metadata for this resource was last changed. It should be the same as or more recent than xmp:ModifyDate.
xmp:ModifyDate:
The date and time the resource was last modified. NOTE:The value of this property is not necessarily the same as the file’s system modification date because it is set before the file is saved.
I can open both documents. I agree that as far as I could tell, both seemed to have identical content. I looked at properties as advised above, and one has an early creation date. It does not permit “Fast Web View”. The other has a later creation date and says “Fast Web View” yes.
It may be that all were modified but the only modification was to set the property “Fast Web View” to “yes”.
It is certainly possible that Gleick or someone at DeSmog opened this file with Adobe Acrobat (the editing program) instead of Adobe Reader (the viewer), and then clicked “Save”. In which case the Modification Date may have been updated. However, I’d say the presumption now is that the documents may have been altered. (Even more suggestive is the file size changing from 95k to 92k; I don’t know any way to get “95k” from 92,031 bytes.)
Only those in possession of the originals — Heartland — can say for sure.
Lucia, something has been removed from that file!!
Edit: just read the comment about fast web view, never heard of it before. Seems it does compress the file somewhat.
Brad R– Heartland is the only one that can say for sure– but comparison of those two might actually support Gleick’s story. After all: I have 1 version with the modify date matching the create date. The other version has the last modification date that we see on everything. But we can also see an obvious modification– the “Fast Web View” property was changed.
I haven’t gone through with a fine tooth comb to see if these were changed in any other way– but that would be consistent with someone saying– and even thinking– no modifications were made. Lots of people don’t think of changing the “Fast Web View” property as meaning the document was really modified.
Aha. “Fast Web View.” I didn’t notice that before. Yes, it’s plausible that the only modification they made to the file was to save it with that option selected. That would certainly change the modification date, but not the text.
Note that it is quite normal for PDF files to look slightly different on different computers depending on the font used. It is (usually) possible to “embed” the fonts in the PDF file itself in which case it will look the same in all computers (except for differences due to screen quality). However standard fonts are often not embedded, while some other fonts can’t be embedded at all due to copyright issues. In such cases the PDF viewer will substitute the most similar font it can find in the displaying computer.
To make thing even more complicated the embedding function works differently in different versions of Adobe Acrobat.
And yes, “Fast Web View” lowers the image quality slightly and also shrinks the file size a bit.
tty-
To my eye, the “white” of the page looked brighter. It may be that “Fast Web View” has a different brightness level. I don’t know.
Amused–
Well… I may have egg on my face for not already knowing whether it was normal for the file size to change. But I’m thinking I redeemed myself on finding the “Fast Web View” thingie. But… of course…. that me patting myself on the back for being less clueless that I previously was about properties.
Well, this explains why Heartland can’t give a quick answer to the question “have the files been altered.” If Gleick et. al. had posted the files exactly as received from Heartland, a simple file comparison would do the job. As it is, someone’s probably going to have to read the documents page by page and compare them by eye.
I suppose it’s possible that Heartland could take the original PDF, enable “Fast Web View,” save that modified PDF, and then do a file comparison. But I don’t know what optimizations that performs, and I can’t be sure that two different versions of Acrobat will perform the optimization in exactly the same way. They might or might not match.
One thought I had….did Gleick pretend to be someone that he thought was really bad?
I know it is all redacted to protect those that are innocent. But it makes me wonder if who he is pretending to be is a big deal to him and that made him go over the top.
So far this email release is basically all the discovery that Heartland is really required to expose, so Gleicks attorney’s recent diatribe about getting to the bottom of who if funding HI is rediculous. Maybe Gleick used his Jeddi mind trick on his lawyer?
Lucia, lol, a well deserved pat indeed!
Wendy
Yes. It makes quick comparison difficult. Because people want to know if the content was changed, but changing to “Rapid Web View” many change in ways that makes it difficult to rapidly compare the two documents content.
So, vis. rhetoric wars involving all the hypothetical questions, we have:
1) There is an obvious explanation for modified time stamps that involves something people might not consider “modified”. This is in Gleick’s favor in the sense that the time stamp change doesn’t suggest he lied about not changing them.
2) There is sufficient computer modification that Heartland could not easily verify that no changes had been made. This is in Heartland’s favor in the sense that when they say it takes time to figure out if they were unmodified, they are also not lying.
Lucia: agreed. And I’ll second Amused; a well-deserved pat! (I’m still embarrassed that I missed the “fast web view” option.)
A further thought: “Fast Web View” is not something one would normally think to enable when sharing a document by email with a few associates. It is the kind of thing a webmaster would think of. And all the PDFs were updated on 2/14. I’ll hazard a guess that this was done at DeSmog, not by Gleick.
It would help if any of the other “15” recipients had posted their copies.
Brad R–
Agreed. DeSmog blog might have changed that. Greg Laden has files– you can look at his too.
The version of Climate Strategy I have has a
create date 2/13/2012
modify date 2/13/2012
and also has fast web view= yes. I’m headed to Desmog and Greg Laden to see if things match.
OK, according to the timeline at Climate Audit, the emails were sent at 9:13 a.m. Pacific time. The modification time is 12:55 Pacific. So that suggests it was changed at DeSmog.
Going to Greg Laden’s now.
— nope, the files a Greg Laden’s also show a 2/14 modification date.
Curious….
The ones at http://thinkprogress.org/heartland-institute-documents/ have early modify dates but already have ‘fast web property’=yes.
Also, you can still get the strategy document at
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2012-Climate-Strategy.pdf
They took the link down but it was easy to figure out the url. They must not have deleted the document.
Fascinating comment at WUWT:
JJ says:
February 24, 2012 at 1:30 pm
I pulled up a backup of my files from DSB, downloaded from them on Feb 15. The budget and binder docs are version (2), and the fake doc is version (3).
And as I had recalled, the Board Directory was part of the original release. That doc is not out on DSB now.
Now here is an interesting issue: Gleick requested a copy of the Board Directory in an email on Feb 8. In the phishing email on Jan 27, Gleick had requested that HI update the Board directory with the fake email address that he had given them. HI replied immediately, saying they had made that change. That fake email address does not appear in the Board Directory document downloaded from DSB. How to explain that …
1. HI said they made the requested change to the Board Directory, but did not.
2. HI did add Gleick’s phishing email to the Board Directory, as they had stated. That email address was in the Board Directory that HI sent to Gleick, and Gleick cleansed that document of incriminating evidence by removing the phishing address.
3. HI did add Gleick’s phishing email to the Board Directory, as they had stated. That email address was in the Board Directory that HI sent to Gleick. Gleick didn’t want to include the phishing address in his slur package, so he sent a copy of the Board Directory that he already had from an alternate source.
The dates present in the title and metadata of the Board Directory support #1 and #3.
Odd that DSB has taken down this doc, while beligerently refusing to take down the rest…
hmmmm….
Ok, the PDFs at ThinkProgress are all showing Modification Dates of 1/16, except the Board Directory is 1/25 and the Minutes PDF is 2/15 (which you would expect, since they received a Word file and made the PDF themselves). This lends further support to the theory that Gleick sent them unmodified, and DeSmog modified them for web viewing. (I’ll speculate that Greg Laden got them from DeSmog.)
Oops…just to be clear, I’m only checking the PDFs sent from Heartland. The “2012 Climate Strategy” shows a creation date of 2/13, from Epson Scan.
If you look at the January 28, 2012, 12:09 a.m. email, the Heartland admin says
“Both emails have been added to the Board directory.” – at 12:10 on January 27th
Then Gleick asks on Feb 8th to be sent the Board directory on Feb 8th – see http://fakegate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-10-2012-9-56-am.jpg
The email Heartland send back on Feb 10th, is an old board directory dated 1-18-12
So this doesn’t presumably predates the addition of his fake address.
Brad R–
Yes and no. Because now, perplexingly, on Romm’s files, we have “Fast Web View”=”yes” on the early versions. Were as above, “Fast Web View” = “no” on the early versions.
So… why the heck does one version with the early last mod date have “Fast Web View” =”no” and the other “yes”. How come Romm got “Fast Web View”=”yes” ones with an early mode date? (Why would Heartland save them that way? Not that they can’t– maybe it’s a default. But still… the mismatch.)
Wait a minute…if they already have “Fast Web View” = yes, then what was the change made by DeSmog? “Another beautiful theory slain by an ugly fact.”
So why is the TP copy of the Fundraising Plan 93,516 bytes, when Heartland emailed 95k?
Could someone upload all existent variations of these documents to one place so I may analyse the documents at a much, much lower level?
Amused,
Hmmm….. I could…. but I don’t want Heartland to sue me! 🙂
Since none are the climate strategy document, maybe I can get permission. I’d email them to you… but… uhhm…. it has not escaped me that I have been waiving my usual rule about moderating the bejezuus ‘no real email’ people….. (I’ve been waiving it during the entire Gleick incident. I’m normally severe to keep the trolls out. Some are really obnoxious and change emails constantly.)
I should add: The real puzzle to me is where the heck I got the one with the “no” fast web setting and early mod date. I’m perplexed at how all three exist!
Lucia, don’t worry, I can scour around for them. I don’t want to burden you with having to get permission and all that. After all, I could be just anyone (even him)! Hahaha.
Amused: the ones at DesSmog blog, Laden and Romm are easy to find. What’s bothering me is— where the HECK did I get the one with the old modification date, that also is not “fast web display”? Was there another person who posted? And if not, could someone have changed the file currently available?
Lucia, check your browsing history and match it to the date and time the file was created on your computer. I don’t use a Mac, but if it’s anything like usual, you’ll find it.
Can we speculate on who Gleick Impersonated?
/Tin foil hat on
Anyone in the Chicago area would be a risk. They could very well be in the office…or just had a breakfast meeting with Joe Bast for all an impersonator would know.
The Feb 6, 8:59 AM line ‘Good Morning Mr. ______, gives us a clue as to the length of the surname.
Heartland directors list
http://heartland.org/about/staff/4945
Lamendola seems too long and Rose seems too short.
That would leave Collins, Judson and Schmitt.
Schmitt was a co-author of a recent Wall Street Journal Op-ed.
He also goes by ‘Jack’ which would make for a short name on the bottom of an email…
As in teh 9:56 email
Many thanks,
_____
but his formal name Harrison Hagan Schmitt would be rather long and make for a long signature line.
I wonder what kind of crime it would be to impersonate a former US Senator?
Could Gleick be that stupid?
Now I need to go find a grounding wire for my tin foil hat.
Schmitt was one of the names who signed the WSJ letter on January 27th. The same day that Gleick began the phishing expedition.
We know that Gleick was very upset about that, because he wrote 4 complaints in twitter within 24 hours, a forbes article also within 24 hours, and an article on the February pacific institute update newsletter. The reason he was most upset is the WSJ had not published a letter by 255 warmists in 2010 – despite him being the lead warmist who organized the effort (possibly wrote the letter) and was the contact address. He specifically draws attention to this 2010 letter in his Jan 27 Forbes article. That could make his dispute with Heartland personal as well as professional.
Steve McIntyre said in a comment that the WSJ letter came out after he began the hack, but I’m not so sure. Gleick began the attack on 8:36 AM (possibly Pacific time as this is a SENT time, but it might not be). So could he have not seen or heard about the WSJ article, been upset enough that he had decided to go for it?
One other thing, in this email http://fakegate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-6-2012-8-59-am.jpg
Gleick writes “I’ll get back to you on the schedule when I’m back in the office”
So he needs to have used an identity who is confident was not in the Heartland office. As he’d get his cover blown if the relevant guy had walked thru the Heartland office door that morning,
Somebody who lives in another state perhaps? Somebody whose location he can follow perhaps? I don’t know, guessing.
Fasincating ideas, Harrywr2 and Copner. Definitely seems to fit, both time line wise and visual evidence from the e-mails. I wonder if whomever he impersonated, he’d had e-mail or other contact with previously to try to match their e-mail conversation style.
That twitter Copner @6:21 mentions is one of the “hits” I got when searching for the strange term “anti-climate” since that was used in the fake memo.
Here it is: http://twitter.com/#!/stephenfry/statuses/163889682940301313
“#WSJ rejects climate essay from 255 National Academy of Science scientists; accepts anti-climate essay from 16 others” –> Gleick Jan 28
Of the suggestions,bet it’s Schmitt. The Heartland staffer was effusive in calling him “sir”, suggesting extra respect for an astronaut and former senator.
Gleik knew all about Schmitt. He wrote an article, attacking him of course, the previous February.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/misrepresenting-climate-s_b_819367.html
In the article, you will notice he refers to Schmitt being in New Mexico several times, so probably knew that he wouldn’t be based in Heartland’s offices, and his scheme would less likely to be uncovered quickly.
And if he did impersonate a former senator, I would think that dramatically increases the chance of a criminal prosecution.
I set my browser to delete its history!
All the evidence lines up perfectly, at this point I’d be surprised if Schmitt wasn’t whom he impersonated.
Apparently impersonating a congressman is a crime
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/former-fnc-booker-facing-charges-for-impersonating-a-congressman_b26714
See my comments at WUWT on this…
Littlemore and DeMelle each uploaded their won set of files at DeSmogs servers … Littlemores were 2nd so they were re-saved and show the “(2)” etc added. They have “Modified” date in metadata while DeMelles mostly do not.
‘Can we speculate on who Gleick Impersonated?”
Yes, we can. I had a good first guess that was wrong.
That’s all I will say.
Schmitt
is a way better guess than my guess.
Wow, if he impersonated a congressman.
Copner,
You wrote:
“We know that Gleick was very upset about that, because he wrote 4 complaints in twitter within 24 hours, a forbes article also within 24 hours, and an article on the February pacific institute update newsletter. The reason he was most upset is the WSJ had not published a letter by 255 warmists in 2010 – despite him being the lead warmist who organized the effort (possibly wrote the letter) and was the contact address. He specifically draws attention to this 2010 letter in his Jan 27 Forbes article. That could make his dispute with Heartland personal as well as professional.”
That’s excellent work! It does make it look like one part of his confession is true, the part about his being temporarily insane!
Related question: Is OCD a positive attribute to qualify for MacArthur grant geniousness ?
Lets see if this works – my research links to orig files:
TIME CREATED – GMT/UTC
I did not review most of Laden’s or TP’s filesyet (note no time/date)
from DeSmog Demelle
1/16/12 4:02 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/(1-15-2012)%202012%20Fundraising%20Plan_0.pdf
1/16/12 5:06 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Binder1.pdf
1/16/12 4:00 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/(1-15-2012)%202012%20Heartland%20Budget.pdf
1/16/12 4:46 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2%20Agenda%20for%20January%2017%20Meeting_0.pdf
2/13/12 8:41 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2012%20Climate%20Strategy.pdf
1/29/12 9:59 AM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Minutes%20of%20January%2017%20meeting.doc
7/13/11 5:13 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2010_IRS_Form_990.pdf
1/16/12 4:48 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Board%20Meeting%20Package%20January%2017_0.pdf
1/25/12 10:36 PM REMOVED?
from DeSmog Littlemore
1/16/12 4:02 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/(1-15-2012)%202012%20Fundraising%20Plan.pdf
1/16/12 5:06 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Binder1%20(2).pdf
1/16/12 4:00 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/(1-15-2012)%202012%20Heartland%20Budget%20(2).pdf
1/16/12 4:46 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2%20Agenda%20for%20January%2017%20Meeting.pdf
2/13/12 8:41 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2012%20Climate%20Strategy%20(3).pdf
MISSING
7/13/11 5:13 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2010_IRS_Form_990%20(2).pdf
1/16/12 4:48 PM http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Board%20Meeting%20Package%20January%2017.pdf
REMOVED
from ThinkProgress
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/1-15-2012-2012-Fundraising-Plan.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Binder1.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/1-15-2012-2012-Heartland-Budget.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-Agenda-for-January-17-Meeting.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM Removed from page but still avail on site: http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2012-Climate-Strategy.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Minutes-of-January-17-meeting.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Board-Meeting-Package-January-17.pdf
1/25/12 10:36 PM http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Board-Directory-01-18-12.pdf
from Greg Laden
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/%281-15-2012%29%202012%20Fundraising%20Plan.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/Binder1%20%282%29.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/%281-15-2012%29%202012%20Heartland%20Budget%20%282%29.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2%20Agenda%20for%20January%2017%20Meeting.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012%20Climate%20Strategy%20%283%29.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010_IRS_Form_990%20%282%29.pdf
1/1/00 12:00 AM http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/Board%20Meeting%20Package%20January%2017.pdf
1/25/12 10:36 PM http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/Board%20Directory%2001-18-12.pdf
Somebody at climateaudit asked how did he know which email address to impersonate – his first email contains the text “Do not delete my ___________ address -just add this one as a duplicate. And send a reply here confirming?”
Answer: If he impersonated Schmitt, he could have got it from here:
http://heartland.org/harrison-schmitt
His email address (containing name of ISP) appears on this page. And yes it is the same address that Heartland would have emailed him at – it matches the email address on the 1-18 board directory.
Amused, sorry for the late reply. Lucia posted the links for the docs at ThinkProgress. I found them at DeSmog here (from above comments, this is Littlemore’s copy) and at Greg Laden’s blog here.
I haven’t checked DeMelle’s copies yet, so right now the best copies I have (seemingly least modified) are those from TP. Given how many versions are out there, I’ve computed md5 hashes for those documents. For those unfamiliar with ‘md5sum’, it computes a unique “fingerprint” for a file. Changing even one byte, anywhere in the file, will change its md5 hash. This only checks the contents of the file — changing the file name, or the modification date on your hard drive, will not change the hash value. (Changing the modification date within the PDF will change the hash value.)
md5sum *.pdf
b65dba59a99844e873c38fc77926ed8f 1-15-2012-2012-Fundraising-Plan.pdf
822c6d698455bbcfa699288d5854bcd0 1-15-2012-2012-Heartland-Budget.pdf
2da8760ecf3b1d8f72b2ee5bcef4db6b 2012-Climate-Strategy.pdf
f84ab3fbf18e538b4fd1688ac5f3c13d 2-Agenda-for-January-17-Meeting.pdf
ed5912a1e66d315646856bd5586e6b6e Binder1.pdf
92d47f7eeceb4902f7ebb5a4816414ae Board-Directory-01-18-12.pdf
751a9983f9a2bb2df16a5198cbd4ca1a Board-Meeting-Package-January-17.pdf
055202a2c677eae030eb66e994a827c5 Minutes-of-January-17-meeting.pdf
I’ll compute the others if anyone is interested, but these seem right now to be the “definitive” copies. One can hope (or not) that someone explains to the characters at DeSmog that if you have what you think is evidence of a heinous crime, the first thing to do is don’t tamper with the evidence!
Brad R (Comment #91760)
What’s your conclusion about the md5 hash values of the various files you checked?
AMac, all an md5 hash can tell you is if two files are exactly identical, or if they are different. It doesn’t say anything about how one was altered, or when. It’s simply a very quick test for comparison. If it is recorded for a file, as I have done here for the ThinkProgress files, it can tell you if one of those files is altered later.
For example, Heartland could compare the md5 hash of the files they sent to Gleick, with those stored on ThinkProgress. If they match, there is extremely high confidence that the files are identical. (Odds are something like 1 in 2**128 that two different files would have the same md5 hash by chance; and it is practically impossible to specifically alter a file in such a way as to keep the same md5 hash.)
However, if Heartland announces that the md5s don’t match, it may not be significant. Even inadvertently re-saving the file, changing its Modified date, would change the hash value. Or adding a single space to the text. (The conspiracy-minded will assume that Heartland is doing this to their copies, even as we converse.) Ultimately only an inspection of the text will tell if the file was significantly altered.
Here’s an interesting result I’ve found. I’ve downloaded the DeMelle copies, and found that four of the PDF files are identical to the TP copies — 2012 Fundraising Plan, 2012 Heartland Budget, 2012 Climate Strategy, and Binder1. Two are different — Agenda for January 17, and Board Meeting Package. (I haven’t bothered downloading the IRS Form 990, since that’s in the public record. And the Board Directory is missing from the DeMelle page.) The odd thing is that the differing files have different lengths, but the same PDF modification date. The DeMelle files are shorter, and these two files are reported as “damaged” when I open then with Acrobat Reader. I speculate that these two files got truncated somehow when saved or posted by DeMelle. Sloppy work.
Right now the “best” (least modified) copies seem to be those on TP.
But they would have trouble doing this without changing the mod dates. Mind you, I image it could be done….
As a pure speculation Schmitt being the one impersonated would also explain the discrepancy that the Washington Examiner reported Heartland had contacted the FBI and MotherJones reporting that the Chicago Field Office of the FBI was unaware of any such contact. An investigation involving a former Senator would go up the food chain in the FBI…not down.
Lucia, I’m fairly certain I could tweak a PDF file to change its md5 hash without changing any of the metadata (like modification date). But md5 is only one of many file comparison tools, and I’m sure the computer forensics guys know these much better than I do. I think the folks at Heartland are smart enough not to do any tampering…especially now that legal efforts are underway.
P.S. Something I’m tinkering with now is the pdftohtml utility. As the name suggests, it converts PDF files to HTML format; in doing so, it extracts the text of the file. I’ve been able to compare the two versions of the Board Meeting Package (7009 bytes and 7650 bytes) and see that the text is identical. I don’t know how reliable this would be with larger PDFs, though. And of course it can’t do much with embedded images. There’s also a pdftotext utility that might be easier for this application.
The paper quality that the forged memo was laser on is low quality. The text shows that the paper underwent quite a lot of shrinkage during the heating process of the print.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/Thememo.jpg
The three red lines and two blue lines are parallel.
The red line is matched to the feet of the n’s and h’s of the first line. When the same line is moved down the text it is clear that the outer edges of the paper have shrunk.
The blue line is matched to the top of the o’s on the third line from the bottom. It does not sit on the o’s of the fourth line of the top.
Paper companies go to a lot of trouble to make sure that the distortion caused by shrinkage is minimized.
Recycled papers tends toward distortion, as does living in a humid location and keeping you paper exposed to the atmosphere.
The culprit is a beech-hut dwelling hippy.
Some analysis:
The original documents are certainly the TP ones. They have all been created using Adobe XMP Core 4.0-c316 44.253921, whereas Desmog’s use Adobe XMP Core 5.2-c001 63.139439 and have a recent modification date.
The internal structure of the files are really quite different because of this and thus file sizes are not the same even if nothing appears to have been changed.
I’ve a lot more I want to do, but there is international rugby to watch first!
I am using Adobe Reader X on Windows XP so your mileage may vary. Open Adobe Reader and go to Edit – Preferences and select the documents category. Under “Save Settings” note “Save As optimizes for Fast Web View”. If you downloaded by opening the file then “Saved As” you’re going to alter the file. I did the following with the “Board Meeting Package” from Think Progress.
Right click and “save target as”:
Size – 7690
Fast Web View – Yes
PDF Version – 1.4
Click on link which opens the document in Adobe then “save As”:
Size – 7009
Fast Web View – Yes
PDF Version – 1.5
Demelle’s version is different. The file name doesn’t match the Outlook attachment file name.
Right click and “save target as”:
Size – 7650
Fast Web View – No
PDF Version – 1.4
Click on link which opens the document in Adobe then “save As”:
Size – 6827
Fast Web View – No
PDF Version – 1.6
I change “Fast Web View” to match the right clicked download copy. Obviously “Save As” modifies the file so if you want the file unmodified you need to download without opening and saving.
1. Who has done more to damage to the CAGW movement than anybody else?
Answer: Peter Gleick, until recently known by the nome de plume, Heartlander Insider
2. Who has done 2nd most damage?
Answer: A person known only as FOIA
3. Who has done 3rd most damage:
Answer: Heartland’s “Anonymous Donor”
And the twist is…. maybe they’re all the same person!
(okay joking, obviously)
On a serious point, while the fake is clumsy, but if you read the phishing emails, what also intrigued me is how smoothly Gleick executed the scam. You would almost think that maybe he had some previous experience at this kind of thing.
Didn’t Clifford Stoll write a book about some small missing amounts of something?
Greg F – thanks! That puts some pieces together. I’m using Adobe Reader 8 for Linux so I have different options. (For one thing, I don’t have “Save As”.)
So all we need to do is assume that the recipient of Gleick’s email (say, Littlemore) is using an email client that launches Adobe Reader to view a PDF attachment, and then he did “Save As” from within Adobe Reader to save a local copy, instead of going back to the email client and saving the attachment as a file. That would explain the changed metadata and the changed file size, and it’s a perfectly innocent mistake for a user to make.
DocMartin @9:03
The discovery of the shrinkage of the paper is useful. There was discussion earlier about stray markings in the upper left hand part of the memo, and possibility that they are from Pacific Institute header of some type. That has not run much further. However, in that discussion, it was pointed out that PI proudly states that they use recycled paper.
Pretty thin addition to evidence, but I know that for sure that I would not be able to be accused of printing this out since I don’t have or use any recycled paper.
The header marks on the memo do look very similar to the PI headers which seem to be on their internal pages too. I’ve heard some say it was printing shadow, so hard to say; but knowing the paper is shrinking unevenly helps with matching up dimensions. And interesting that PI trumpets their use of recycled paper. What a great catch, Doc and AFPhys!
Regarding Greg F’s findings, I can confirm this happens if you load the file with Adobe Reader X and use the save as function. Doing this with the TP files, I find the file structure is totally altered; Adobe XMP Core 4.0 becomes 5.2
To see what I mean, the original file begins as such…
%PDF-1.4
%âãÃÓ
98 0 obj
<>
endobj
xref
98 16
0000000016 00000 n
0000001072 00000 n
0000001153 00000 n
0000001286 00000 n
0000001463 000
But saved with ARX, becomes:
%PDF-1.4
âãÃÓ
131 0 obj
>
ndobj
139 0 obj
</DecodeParms<>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[]/Index[131 18]
The files are, however, unchanged in content. Note that loading the PDF in a web browser with ARX and using the save function does not do this.
Copner (Comment #91788) February 25th, 2012 at 10:31 am
“And the twist is…. maybe they’re all the same person!”
If life was fiction…it would turn out they were all the result of a conspiracy of Climate Bloggers trying to increase web traffic.
And they’d have got away with too if it hadn’t been for you pesky kids 🙂
I don’t recall which thread the that the discussion of which board member was involved in the phishing attack – but I was searching for local connections with Gleick and came up with an interesting article Gleick wrote quite a while ago specifically hammering one of the board members: Schmitt … http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/peter-gleick-misrepresenting-climate-science-cherry-picking-data-for-political-purposes/
Gleick really doesn’t have much respect for Schmitt, it seems.
Interesting that he is the board member who has been fingered as the most likely immediate victim by most of those in that thread.
If the impersonated person were Harrison Schmitt, I think the salutation in the Feb 6 message would would likely be “Good Morning Dr. —” instead of “Good Morning Mr. —.”
@AFPhys:
I think that is the same article was also published in the Huff Post. I posted a link to that version. (Didn’t check whether they are identical).
Couple of things:
1. He mentions Harrison works at Heartland. So he knew that (and of course Harrison signed the 27 Jan WSJ letter than Gleik was so upset about).
2. He mentions Harrison is in New Mexico/New Mexican 5 times in the article. So hew knew that too.
Why is point 2 relevant?
He must have been confident that whoever he phished was not located or visiting Heartland’s offices. Because if they were and talked to the admin person (which is not unlikely, it’s a small office), his chances of getting caught would go up dramatically.
See also:
http://fakegate.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2-6-2012-8-59-am.jpg
Gleik writes; “I will get back to you on the schedule when I’m back in the office”
Last paragraph of that Gleik article is particularly revealing. He writes:
Individuals can make mistakes. Harrison Schmitt made a mistake about Arctic sea ice having recovered in 2009 to 1989 levels (among many other fundamental mistakes) and he refused to correct it when his error was pointed out to him privately. I cannnot speculate on his motivations. But of much greater concern in this episode is the role of the Heartland Institute, which has long tried to piggyback on Schmitt’s reputation and history of public service. Heartland has established itself as a coordinator of climate denial efforts, as a publisher of a discredited pseudo-scientific attack on climate science called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and as organizer of a conference that brings together groups and individuals that work against the science and policy of climate change. Their irresponsible actions in this cherry-picking exercise substantially diminish even further Heartland’s claim to be any kind of honest broker of serious scientific skepticism on the topic of climate change.
AFPhys,
Gleick really doesn’t have much respect for Schmitt, it seems,
Search the web for ‘Harrison Scmitt’ + AGW + communists.
The feelings are apparently ‘mutual’.
Of course when people hear Harrison Scmitt speak the star spangled banner plays in their head and they can taste apple pie see their mothers smiling face.
Attacking him is something only a political fool would do.
@MJW (Comment #91800)
I don’t think that’s conclusive if you google
“Harrison Schmitt” “Mr Schmitt”
and
“Harrison Schmitt” “Dr Schmitt”
You’ll find loads of hits for both, and they’re all about the same man.
The Gleick article I linked above from circleofblue (where he seems to be a very regular writer) was written over a year ago – Feb’11
Back to watching sports … 🙂
@AFPhys (Comment #91799):
It’s this page. Do Find in page for “Schmitt” and you’ll find loads of hits. I don’t think there’s another page where it’s been discussed on this site, but I could be wrote.
> was written over a year ago – Feb’11
Yes. That simply shows Gleik knew who Schmitt was, knew he worked at Heartland, and knew he was not located at Heartland’s HQ.
Oh, it also shows Gleik knew Schmitt’s email address – he says in the article he contacted Schmitt privately.
My earlier point was Schmitt signed the WSJ letter on Jan 27 2012. And Gleik was very upset about that letter being published, when his own letter to the WSJ had not been.
I don’t think that’s conclusive
I didn’t say it was conclusive, just “more likely.” However, I do think it would be quite unusual in a semi-academic organization like a think tank, for a board member with a Ph.D to be addressed as “Mr.”
Let me add, I hope it was Schmitt, since that would almost ensure the case will be investigated thoroughly.
Members of Congress (and former members) are typically addressed as “Mr.” — when I was with the House Science Committee in 1991 a joke went around about a former member with a PhD who asked if he could have Dr. put on his nameplate which appeared in front of him at the hearing room. The committee secretary replied that it could be done, but that everyone would then think he was a member of the staff 😉 He stuck with “Mr.”.
Gleick was obsessed with Schmidt
Gleick’s 2011 BS of the year awards posted January 5th,2012
http://pacinst.org/press_center/press_releases/climate_bs_award_2011.html
First Place: All of the Republican candidates for President
Second Place: Disinformation from Fox News and Murdoch’s News Corporation
Third Place: Spencer, Braswell, and Christy
Fourth Place: The Koch Brothers for funding the promotion of bad climate science
Fifth Place: Anthony Watts for his BEST hypocrisy
Runners-Up in 2011 included:
Harrison Schmitt and the Heartland Institute for “Arcticgate†(documented errors in denying disappearance of Arctic sea ice); Rush Limbaugh for his consistent falsehoods about climate science; and Steve McIntyre for his smear of climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State University.
The person dealing with (say) Schmitt appears to have been a secretary and excessively polite. Most of the heartland board are people in business who would be Mr. to her/him. Even if a businessman has a PhD, it’s hardly uncommon to go by Mr.
This wasn’t a university department. I would place very little weight on the use of Mr rather than Dr.
Members of Congress (and former members) are typically addressed as “Mr.†—
An interesting point, Dr. Pielke.
> First Place: All of the Republican candidates for President
Which he posted on the Pacific Institute site (it was still there yesterday) and in their newsletter.
Isn’t one of the things a 503(c) is specifically not supposed to do is campaign for or against specific candidates (for or against policies is okay, candidates is not)?
Hmmm, Schmitt vs Gleick.
Since some folks are so keen on throwing around the word “hero”, who do you suppose is gonna win that one?
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/portraits/schmitt-hh.jpg
http://www.pacinst.org/images/peter_gleick.jpg
This wasn’t a university department. I would place very little weight on the use of Mr rather than Dr.
This board isn’t a university department, but few here would refer to Gleick as “Mr. Gleick.” I would normally expect an excessively polite secretary to to use the more honorific title of “Dr.” On the other hand, Copner had provided some good reasons for thinking the impersonatee is Schmitt, and I hope he is.
“The 2011 Climate B.S. of the Year Award was prepared by Peter Gleick with an independent group of climate scientists and communicators serving as nominators, reviewer, and voters.†– Source: Peter Gleick, 1/5/12 – http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/05/the-2011-climate-b-s-of-the-year-awards/2/
“Efforts might also include cultivating more neutral voices with big
audiences (such as Revkin at DotEarth/NYTimes, who has a well-known antipathy for some of the more extreme AGW communicators such as Romm, Trenberth, and Hansen) or Curry (who has become popular with our supporters).” – Fake Strategy Memo
Here is basic metadata I compiled from various files. I compared the docs Littlemore uploaded, as they appear to be same as what is at ThinkProgress and Greg Laden.
The original files were uploaded by DeMelle in the first DeSmog Blog story – DeMelle’s files are the original “clean” versions … and appear to be “as received” posted unchanged.
Littlemore re-uploaded his own copy of the files to DeSmog’s servers and because they already existed with same filenames, a duplicate file was created – hence the (2), (3) etc appended to file names.
I don’t think there is any useful inference gained from review of Littlemore’s docs other than that it gives valuable insight into WHEN DeSmog got the documents.
Likewise, as they appear to be grabbed from Littlemore (note the file names match – they have the appended numbers) I don’t believe the Laden or ThinkProgress versions offer any real benefit – except, again, by looking at any modify dates in their files we can see when they received them as well.
The bottom line … ONE of the Littlemore files has a Modified Date of 9:59AM PST. Using all the evidence available (the DeSmog post times, tweets, Facebook posts etc) it appears DeSmog’s server or publishing platform is set to MST and in reality it is pretty certain they posted the stories at 1:13 and 1:14pm PST respectively for DeMelle’s and Littlemore’s versions.
If the “Insider email was sent at 12:13pm as claimed by Kloor via David Appel’s blog, it cannot (as we now know to be true) have come direct from Heartland in the Central time zone – that would be 10:13am PST.
From all this we can confirm that DeSmog’s statements to Politico – that they had the documents for just an hour before posting the story – is completely false. In fact I believe we can see pretty clear evidence of a clumsy attempt to fabricate evidence to support that Politico claim …
Littlemore’s copies of documents posted have all been resaved since creation date:
Littlemore Strategy DOC:
PDF-1.5
x:xmptk=”Adobe XMP Core 5.2-c001 63.139439, 2010/09/27-13:37:26
pdf:Producer>EPSON Scan
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T12:36:20-08:00 (2/14 – 12:36 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-02-13T12:41:52-08:00
xmpMM:DocumentID>uuid:0d826409-6a19-411c-ae09-b5f400186c52
xmpMM:InstanceID>uuid:e5477a6f-aa33-4521-b161-1ae07ed0a258
DeSmog Strategy DOC:
PDF-1.4
x:xmptk=”Adobe XMP Core 5.2-c001 63.139439, 2010/09/27-13:37:26
pdf:Producer>EPSON Scan
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-13T12:41:52-08:00 (2/13 – 12:41 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-02-13T12:41:52-08:00
xmpMM:DocumentID>uuid:0d826409-6a19-411c-ae09-b5f400186c52
xmpMM:InstanceID>uuid:692440ef-d85e-4cec-afef-742d339ece7b
ThinkProgress Startegy DOC:
PDF-1.4
x:xmptk=”Adobe XMP Core 5.2-c001 63.139439, 2010/09/27-13:37:26
pdf:Producer>EPSON Scan
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-13T12:41:52-08:00 (2/13 – 12:41 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-02-13T12:41:52-08:00
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All of the Littlemore DOCS compared:
Fundraising:
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T09:59:58-08:00 (2/14 – 09:59:58 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-01-16T10:02:55-06:00
Agenda:
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T12:36:02-08:00 (2/14 – 12:36:02 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-01-16T10:46:43-06:00
Littlemore Strategy DOC:
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T12:36:20-08:00 (2/14 – 12:36:20 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-02-13T12:41:52-08:00
Board Directory:
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T12:36:51-08:00 (2/14 – 12:36:51 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-01-25T15:04:36-06:00
Budget:
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T12:37:56-08:00 (2/14 – 12:37:56 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-01-16T10:00:38-06:00
BINDER:
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T12:38:39-08:00 (2/14 – 12:38:39 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-01-16T11:06:01-06:00
Board Meeting Package:
xmp:ModifyDate>2012-02-14T12:55:23-08:00 (2/14 – 12:55:23 PST)
xmp:CreateDate>2012-01-16T10:48:58-06:00
http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/categories_of_deceitful_tactics_and_abuse.pdf
Testimony of Dr. Peter Gleick, February 7, 2007 Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Table 1
Categories of Deceitful Tactics and Abuse of the Scientific Process
(source: P.H. Gleick, Pacific Institute, 2007)
There are many tactics used to argue for or against scientific conclusions that are inappropriate, involve deceit, or directly abuse the scientific process.
Personal (“Ad Hominemâ€) Attacks
This approach uses attacks against the character, circumstances, or motives of a person in order to discredit their argument or claim, independent of the scientific evidence.
Demonization
Guilt by Association
Challenge to Motive (such as greed or funding)
A. Scott has done a real good job here.
My Thinkprogress fundraising plan is an untouched file; it was created and last modified on the 16th January 2012. It uses Adobe XMP Core 4.0-c316 44.253921, which is older and uses xap: tags rather than the now standard xmp: label.
My DeSmog fundraising plan has been modified; rendered with Adobe XMP Core 5.2-c001 63.139439, due to the “Save As” function of Adobe Reader X. This occured on the 14th Feburary 2012 at 9:59 am PST.
Since the TP file is unmodified, it stands to reason that the DeSmog file was obtained prior to 9:59am PST, which rules out it being part of an email sent at 12:13pm PST!
Hmmm; I’ve read the original insider email was sent at 12.13 pm — but people are using different time zones for it. Which is it?
If it was actually sent 12:13 pm Eastern that makes it 9:13 a.m PST and the above wouldn’t be a problem.
Is it a mistake that the Feb. 2 8:57 AM message shows Schmitt’s Earthlink e-mail address in the “To:” line of the message?
Perhaps coincidentally, the black-out in the message that says “Do not delete my —– address” is just the right size to cover “earthlink.net”; though why they’d block out the ISP in one message, while showing the entire address in another, is beyond me.
See http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2012/02/header-from-leakers-email.html
12:13 is the sent time IIRC (somebody should check this is how Gmail fills out the timestamp).
How does gmail set the timezone for each email account? Is automatic, or did Gleick choose Pacific timezone when setting up the HeartlandInsider account?
Well, the time of the email will be in the time-zone of the recipient, not the sender. The client will correct the time as nobody wants to see emails listed from a few hours in the future or past!
For example, I have received an email today to my web-based client. The real header shows it was sent Sat, 25 Feb 2012 14:24:29 -0500 but the normal display shows Sat, February 25, 2012 7:24 pm
The fact that Appell quotes From/Date/Subject strongly suggests it’s the friendly display and not the real header!
Without the full header it is inconclusive. However, I can speculate:
Desmogblog appear to use PST for updating articles, and state their phone number is for PST business hours. I would not be surprised if their email is also set to PST which means the email was sent at 12:13 PST. If it was sent at 12:13 Eastern, and DSB’s email displays PST, it would have shown 9:13 instead!
I downloaded some of the DeMelle DeSmog file copies 2/15-17 and all of the Littlemore copies avail on 2/21.
I also downloaded all files available on all the sites – DeSmog (both DeMelle and Littlemore versions), ThinkProgress and Greg Laden’s on 2/24 when it became clear files were disappearing.
I just did quick re-review and its clear hat ThinkProgress used/had the same files DeSmog uploaded first, with DeMelle’s story. The TP file names match the Demelle filenames.
The Littlemore files online were modified – possibly as a part of uploading them.
There are 3 distinct batches of files … one file – Fundraising, was modified 9:59am PST, then a group – Agenda, Strategy, Board Directory, Budget and Binder at 12:36pm PST, and one more file – Board Meeting Package, was at 12:55pm PST.
The DeSmog Littlemore files and the Greg Laden files also appear to be same – Laden’s files have the names with version #’s appended – (2) (3) etc., same as Littlemore.
Amused – you need to be careful to separate the DeSmog files – the DeMelle versions uploaded with the first story at 1:13pm PST and the Littlemore versions he re-uploaded with the 2ns atory.
The Demelle versiosn are the same files as on ThinkProgress and the file modified dates are unchanged from the created dates. The Littlemore files (also again, at Ladem’s) are the ones with the changed modified dates – to 2/14.
W can be thankful the Keystone cop team at DeSmog did do the two uploads – that Littlemore DID blunder and change the files …. if he hadn’t we would not know they had the files on or before 9:59am PST on 2/14.
Which proves conclusively that DeSmog outright lied to Politico when they said they had the files for only an hour before posing them.
I’ve been researching and documenting the timeline since 15 minutes after the story broke, and am working on getting a story together in next day or so as I flesh out a few final details.
I just thought up a good title too; “When at first you spin a web to deceive … you better not have the Keystone cops at the wheel”
😉
BTW – you all are well on track re: the email … another (IMO of course) premeditated bit of collusion – an attempt at sleight of hand – trying to help folks believe what they wanted you to believe … yet just another Keystone caper in the end ….
Lets just say the answer may well come from a little birdie …
Re: Steven Mosher (Feb 25 00:35),
I’ll take “Who is Jeffrey Wallberg” for $100 Alex … 🙂
A simple fill in the blanks whodunit:
“Good Morning Mr. Wallberg,”
“Please do not delete my Ironbridge address”
Where the heck did I get Wallberg? Must have taken a little mind trip for a minute …
Guess I blew it with Alex for the $100, but the correct answer I believe would be “Who is Jeffrey Madden”
“Good Morning Mr. Madden,â€
“Please do not delete my Ironbridge addressâ€
Amused:
Appel had no fIrsthand info – he got the story 2nd hand from Kloor – Kloor said he was forwarded what he said was a ‘copy’ of the email – but has not provided Appel (or anyone else I don’t think) anything with header information.
Appel is no big friend of the “skeptic” side, nor of Heartland, by all indications. One has to ask just why this information ended up with him (through Kloor) and only him?
One explanation could be that (a.) someone thought it would be given more credibility if from someone more towards the “AGW” side (that if a “warmer” posted it it must be valid) and (b.) thru the use of a cutout in Kloor, that they could establish bonafides for the “Insider” email – and a time – without anyone exposing real data.
That effort seemed to work – there was not a lot of speculation – especially seeing as how Appel presented it – a mockup that looked exactly like the email …
You also have to ask the question – who were the 15 people it was allegedly sent to. My guess – since we’ve heard not a peep of any others – is that there was only one recipient … DeSmogBlog. Romm is a close crony and we know its highly likely he got the files that are at ThinkProgress from DeSmog.
And we pretty much know Greg laden got them from DeSmog as well – his story wasn’t posted til many hours later that night – and his files match those from Littlemore at DeSmog.
There is zero other evidence, none I have seen anyway, that the files are anywhere else, that didn’t get them from DeSmog. It is pretty incredible that a blockbuster like this would be run with by all of the 15 who got it … if they really did …
A. Scott,
Where did the “Ironbridge” come from? It does fit the redaction. I was wrong when I said “earthlink.net” fit. It’s too long. I didn’t realize the font size is slightly different.
You may be right about Madden. Both “Schmitt” and “Madden” fit the redaction in “Good Morning Mr. ——.” None of the other names seems to fit, though I couldn’t exactly match the the font in the emails, so I can’t be certain.
In the final email, following “Many thanks,” “Harrison” fits better than “Jeffery,” but “Jeffery M.” fits well, and since we don’t know how it was signed, it’s hard to say.
I found out where “Ironbridge” comes from.
In the first message, following “Thank you,” the reaction fits “Harrison Schmitt” very well, but seems too long for “Jeffery Madden,” and slightly too short for “Jeffery B. Madden.” Of course, being too long doesn’t prove much, since the redaction could extend beyond the text.
All and all, I currently think the board member is probably either Schmitt or Madden, with the edge going to Madden, since “Ironbridge” fits the email redaction, while no form of Earthlink seems to fit.
Oh, I answered my own question of why they redacted the ISP but not Schmitt’s email address: since the board members email addresses are available on the internet, they aren’t secret, and knowing the ISP would reveal the impersonated board member.
Lehane & another (?) Gleick representative speaks:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Another-blow-to-global-warming-community-3359365.php
But Gleick did not admit to faking the memo. Chris Lehane — the former Al Gore flack who is representing Gleick pro bono — notes that the two-pager contains “previously unknown facts†since confirmed. Lehane says Heartland should “get off its Trojan high horse and come clean by explaining the identity of its secret large donor.â€
The folks at the Heartland are particularly indignant about Gleick’s vaunted rationale — that he was “frustrated†at skeptics’ efforts to “prevent this debate†— because Heartland invited Gleick to a debate. Gleick declined the offer.
A representative told me that Gleick would only speak to Heartland if the organization released the names of anonymous donors.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Another-blow-to-global-warming-community-3359365.php#ixzz1nUThCbIe
“off it’s Trojan high horse”? Everyone knows you hide inside a Trojan horse; you don’t ride on top.
More substatively: There is nothing dirty about having an anonymous donor. I don’t see why Gleick committing crime suddenly means Heartland has to divulge who anon is.
Still trying to cut through the timeline; timezones are making this difficult. However, I question Steve’s timeline assuming Eastern for some things. He says “My interpretation is that Johnson’s article was published at 3:10 pm Eastern” and this is around when the story broke yet I have found Brandon Demelle’s DailyKos post here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/14/1064839/-Internal-Documents-Shed-Light-on-Heartland-Institute-Climate-Denial-Machine?via=search
at 2.50pm PST
and a DailyKos staff member posted here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/14/1064831/-Documents-Heartland-Institute-plans-to-instill-climate-change-denialism-in-every-school-child?via=search
at 3.10pm PST.
> There is nothing dirty about having an anonymous donor. I don’t see why Gleick committing crime suddenly means Heartland has to divulge who anon is.
Some people might call it PR.
Others might call it poisoning the jury pool.
Either way, I would think that he’s very unlikely to be able to make that argument in court, so he better make it before hand.
BTW, if you read the right web sites, the greenies think they’ve already figured out who the anonymous donor is. Their theory sounds plausible as they have a lot of detail.
It’s not Koch. It’s not Exxon. It’s not anybody connected with oil or fossil fuels.
It’s a business person motivated by politics.
And, apparently that proves just how bad Heartland is.
Re Amused:
2:50 PST is well after 3:10 eastern. Demelle published at Desmog first, later at Daily Kos. I urge those interested in the timeline to re-read my post just prior to Gleick’s confession as I spent quite a bit of time parsing these issues and some of the present discussion is re-traveling the same ground.
Steve,
Not being in the US I am struggling to keep in mind which is which which is a silly error on my part. You are correct and I should be more cautious.
Maybe the disclosures should start with who is actually picking of the tab for Lehane’s services and at whose behest who took on this client.
The money laundering that is the essence of modern George Soros-led activist left is so vast it is utterly absurd to demand that Heartland be the only policy shop in the US required to bare its finances. I am willing to bet that major activist green groups have received far more climate issue money from oil companies than Heartland, CEI, AEI etc combined.
However, the need to believe in a vast, secret fossil-fuel funded conspiracy must have the same psychological roots as the need to believe that AGW must be catastrophic. The narrative is too satisfying to accept the likelihood that it is wrong.
Gleick destroyed himself because he drank his side’s Kool Aid and went after a denialist el Dorado that never existed. I think that is the most pathetic aspect of this self-immolation tragedy.
Copner,
You said above “It’s a business person motivated by politics.
And, apparently that proves just how bad Heartland is.”
That’s not fair, if you’re not going to tell us who they think it is! (I’m only whining because I would like to know who the bad man is and I don’t want to look at those websites. I understand if you think it is wrong to repeat a slander.)
Copner
OMG…it’s George Soros?
desmogblog seems to be down (off air). Can anyone open their blog page?
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/gleick-fakegate-emails-posted/#comment-91892
Copner: Lehane, like Keker, is dreaming. The guy commits a crime trying to steal private information, he fails, and now they want to reward him by having the victim release the information?
It’s all for warmist consumption. And it’s sickening.
SteveF–
I’m also unable to get desmogblog. Let’s wait an hour….
> OMG…it’s George Soros?e
No that’s not the suggestion
>> It’s a business person motivated by politics.
That’s the hilarious part.
If it was person tied to fossil fuels & oil. They’d argue it was terrible. Now they think it is a person not tied to fossil fuels. They argue that is terrible.
Desmogblog did the same thing with Koch. When they thought that Koch was funding Heartland’s climate work, they pointed as that being terrible. When it turns out Koch isn’t, they have written that is terrible too, and Heartland is “too toxic” even for Koch.
I can load it. I bet it is some technical problem.
…Although no doubt attributable to well-funded climate denialists linked to fossil fuel interests and the FSB.
jim (Comment #91903)
February 26th, 2012 at 10:18 am
That’s not fair, if you’re not going to tell us who they think it is!
The ‘left wing’ sites are speculating that the ‘Aononymous Donor’ is Barre Seid. The Barbara and Barre Seid’s Foundation 2000 990 Form lists Heartland as a recipient.
http://207.153.189.83/EINS/363342443/363342443_2000_00053620.pdf
But there 2010 990 doesn’t list Heartland
http://207.153.189.83/EINS/363342443/363342443_2010_077d83fe.PDF
It’s possible that the Seid’s have multiple ‘gift giving’ channels.
/sarc
That clears the matter up for me…it’s not the evil fossil fuel companies’ that are funding Heartland…it’s an evil computer power strip manufacturer.
DeSmogBlog is up. Most recent post: LIttlemore continues to express horror that Heartland funds people whose views align with Heartland’s to work on projects that advance Heartland’s views.
harrywr2,
Thank you. If he is the ‘bad guy’ in the eyes of the critics of the Heartland Institute, the metaphorical teacup that is being tempest-ed is a very small one indeed.
Big Oil ———————–> Barre Seid is a ‘long, strange trip’, as J. Garcia said.
Some of my recent posts went missing I think.
Yes it is bizarre, that if Heartland is funded by oil money that is bad. And if they’re funded by non-oil money, it’s just as bad.
Desmog said the same thing about Koch: if funding Heartland, then shows Heartland is terrible – if not funding Heartland then shows Heartland is too toxic even for Koch.
It is very sad. Peter Gleick’s tragic lapse in judgement reveals the Seid Foundation (maybe) as the money behind the Heartland Institute.
So much for so little.
Being an obsessive/compulsive clue-sniffer-outer, I appreciate what A. Scott has posted, even though Steve has covered this ground.
This is a bit of a side diversion, but I was running through Gmail client ip domains, and got side tracked by something else:
http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/9162/ipv4add.png
Running ipconfig from a command line (while online, parked here at the Blackboard) shows an IPv4 address associated with nic.mil, The Department of Defense Network Information Center. Whats up with that?? Does anyone here get the same results?
But power strips are made with plastic … lots of plastic … and we all know where plastic comes from
(sinister laugh)
Ipconfig gives the address of your NIC. From you screen shot I can see that you are connected through a cellular network which are by design for outbound originating data connections. (Being “parked†at any web page would have nothing to do with it). To discover what the IP address that the Blackboard would see go to:
http://www.whatismyip.com/
I am willing to bet that address is different than the one showing up in ipconfig. I have seen this with satellite internet connections. It is effectively NAT only both sides have “public” IP addresses.
lol..you guys and your ideas about the radical left.
If I want a Glenn Beck experience, I’ll stab a sharpened stick into my amygdala.
More Dr. House examinations of the levels of n’s and h’s, please.
@Greg F (Comment #91929)
Greg F, thanks. There is scant information about this. This pretty much backs up what you are saying:
http://forum.hidemyass.com/index.php?/topic/3075-dod-network-information-center-for-isp-from-hma/
For a brief time, I thought DHS was on to me…:)
@Duke C
That’s a DoD reserved subnet that doesn’t connect to internet. Some of the carriers have used it and others like it behind a NAT in addition to the rfc 1918 subnets ,10.#.#.# 172.16.#.# or 192.168.#.#. . They’re playing with fire. There will be interesting failure modes if the 28.#.#.# subnet every becomes live on the internet.
DaleH>
It’s not really a big deal – but that kind of thing is why the IPv6 switchover is finally happening. You know, I still know people with an entire .xxx.xxx block of IPs in their name from when they first registered some site way back in the day. It really is a screwed-up system.
Much of what I said yesterday about the impersonated board member was, uh, confused. My biggest mistake was assuming the font was Arial when it’s actually Calibri. I now think “Johnston” fits best, with “Margulis” another possibility. “Schmitt” and “Madden” both seem slighty too short. The font size affects the spacing, and for some reason, I can’t exactly match the screen image. 11 point is very close.
Here is the test data in case anyone wants to experiment:
Good Morning Mr. Bast,
Good Morning Mr. Lang,
Good Morning Mr. Rose,
Good Morning Mr. Hales,
Good Morning Mr. Fisher,
Good Morning Mr. Collins,
Good Morning Mr. Buford,
Good Morning Mr. Judson,
Good Morning Mr. Schmitt,
Good Morning Mr. Madden,
Good Morning Mr. Walberg,
Good Morning Mr. Margulis,
Good Morning Mr. Johnston,
Good Morning Mr. Lamendola,
Thank you for your recent request. Attached please find the upcoming dates for the board meetings as well as the minutes for the previous meeting. Please feel free to contact me
directly for any request concerning the Board. Although …………. is very capable of handing this type of request, it falls under my responsibilities as being …….
Notice in the agenda one of the topic items were confirming the dates for upcoming meetings. As it stands right now here are the dates on the table.
Please let me know if you require any additional information or assistance. Have a wonderful weekend sir.
In case it isn’t obvious, the test is simple. Paste the text into a text editor, change the font to Calibri, and set the font size. Align the left edge of another window with right side the comma at the end of the salutation, and see how it lines up with the other text. Compare that to the actual email, in which the “e” in “request” is almost completely visible; the “c” is “concerning” is slightly cut off; The word “of” is completely visible, and the following “t” is almost visible; the “e” in “require” is completely visible.
It is a shame that desmogblog, allow Harrison Schmitt’s email address to appear in their comments..
The only scientist (according to Hall of Fame) to have walked the moon.
“Apollo 17 astronaut and the only scientist to walk on the moon.”
http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=39
spot the irony – scientist
MJW – the screen shots are not at 100% scale, and are posted at different sizes as well.
You need to set the font to Calibri 11pt which gets it close then manually scale the text so the “Good Morning” part matches the emails … that will give you an approximately correct scale for the text. When you do that Madden fits perfectly.
Then – go to the “Do not delete my xxxxxxx address” – set the font (I used Book Antigua as a close match – 11pt), type in the test name, and then again drag the text so the “Do not delete my” and “address” match the email – again this should give the approximate correct scale.
The only two email that fit straight up are ironbridge and goldenrule.
That said, after another look – if you add quotes, then “earthlink” is a good match there. In that case “Good Morning Mr. Schmitt does fit, but not as well as “Madden”
@Barry Woods. I’m amazed at the mean-spiritedness of desmogblog. Just when I think it couldn’t get any nastier, they never fail to disappoint.
The fact that schmitt’s email address is the only one expanded in the 2/6 email, again suggests to me it is him who was impersonated.
I don’t have the same email software as Heartland, so I’m guessing (somebody with the right software can check), is that the admin assistant added a second schmitt email address to her address book, and then when she forwarded to the second schmitt address, the email client expanded the old schmitt address, to show it was being sent to that one. Is that right? Is that how outlook works?
Try
Good Morning Mr. Senator,
The HI screen shot is of Outlook 2010. I have 2007 so this is not absolute. Calibri 11 point is the default body font. First I took a screen shot of the HI email and pasted it into MS Paint. I then drew a line from the trailing comma (after the blacked out name) to the next sentence below “Thank you for your recent requestâ€. The line intersected the first e, slightly to the right, in the word “requestâ€. I then typed in the same names in an Outlook email with “Thank you for your recent request†below the probable names.
By visual inspection I conclude Johnston is too long and Schmitt is too short. Margulis and Walberg are exactly the same length and Madden is ever so slightly longer. I took a screen shot of my Outlook email with Margulis, Walberg, and Madden and pasted it into Paint. Again drawing a line from the trailing comma for each name to see where it intersected the first e in “requestâ€. The trailing comma on Margulis and Walberg intersect the e dead center while Madden intersects the e slightly to the right as is the case with the HI email. As a sanity check I also drew 2 more lines in both the HI email and my Outlook screen shot. One from the period following Mr. and one the ‘d’ in good. Both those lines intersected the sentence below in the same spots on both screen shots.
I conclude that the redacted name is Madden.
It wasn’t Hales.
Amused:
Determining and verifying the timezones for any post, be it a web page, blog, Facebook, Twitter etc I’ve found is the hard part.
Most of the time you can tell, with a few cross checks from obvious clues, what the timezones are. However, to achieve a high degree of certainty – which is very important here I believe – you need to go a lot further. It takes a lot more work – checking and crosschecking, then verifying again – to prove with a high certainty … as you’re finding out.
I’ve been working on this since shortly after the story broke, yet am still building data to verify, as absolutely as possible, exact times and timezones.
The 2nd hard part, again as you note, is keeping the timezones straight. Making sure you add or subtract correctly. As Steve correctly pointed out re: the Kos postings. Once you have a time (and timezone) you think is correct you then need to convert to the various different zones involved in this story.
I’ve found you have to be very careful – even to the point of doing all the research on one computer – my laptop and desktop can show different times on the same post on certain sites.
Very few sites tell you what timezone a time shown is in.
David Appel’s blog DOES show post time timezone. Hover over the time on his Timeline post and you get a pop-up that shows “2012-02-16T 15:33:00-8:00” – telling us the time is 3:33pm PST.
Few site offer that luxury however – most require a lot more research and effort to verify times.
Steve has an excellent timeline up here.
Steve shows exactly this problem in several cases – for example DeSmog is in the PST zone, yet if you use their “Print” button the resulting page shows a “Created on” time stamp that doesn’t seem to match other evidence – a lot of digging shows it is in MST time – their server or the blog program they use has an incorrect time specified.
When I started the project I thought this should be easy – turns out it’s not – I started collecting data 2/15, finally got so much I created a Excel sheet to track in 2/18, and am still working on it (although to be fair the scope has expanded greatly as well – from simple timeline of the email and initial posts, to include documenting Gleick’s actions and those of others etc).
The feb 3 mail would have been sent by the board’s secretary.
see the sentences…’falls under my responsibilities as being [redacted]”
I would guess redacted is Secretary. Make sense grammatically. I’m a board secretary and it falls under my role. and it looks like the word would fit
I did my test a different way:
Take the screenshot. Paste into Windows Paint.
Drag out a text area covering the right area approximately – bigger than needed but approx at right place. Set font to Calibri 11pt (which is not perfect but very close). Set the text color to Red, and the text background to be transparent. Start typing “Dear Mr. ” now adjust the top/left of the text area so the new red text overlays the underlying black “Dear Mr.” You should be able to do it to within about 1 pixel.
Now try different names after then Mr. and see if the comma after the name can be matched.
I can make three cases match the comma down to about 1 pixel
1. Good Morning Mr. Schmitt, <— but only if add an extra space between Mr. and Schmitt
2. Good Morning Mr. Madden,
3. Good Morning Mr. Walberg,
The names after Walberg are too long.
The names before Schmitt would require more than 2 spaces. 2 spaces is unlikely, 3 is implausible IMHO.
I also tried "Senator" – doesn't fit. and "Harrison" – fits but unlikelyI would assume.
MJW – the screen shots are not at 100% scale, and are posted at different sizes as well.
I should have realized that, but was misled by the fact that 1152 x 864 is a standard screen size (though of somewhat ancient vintage). I tried rescaling to 1280 x 960 and 1600 x 1200, and I’m still not sure what font size was used in the original image. None of the font sizes on my system results in the final “e” in “please” being almost directly above the “o” in “Although” and the “o” in “confirming.” The “e” is always shifted much more to the left. The match to the board directors’ names is very dependent on the font size. Perhaps the test needs to be done in MS Office (which I don’t have).
Correction to my February 26th, 2012 at 5:53 pm post.
Margulis and Madden should be swapped. Margulis name is slightly longer.
Using the same technique as described in 91959, I’ve been trying the first screenshot.
It’s Times New Roman (12pt is too small. 13pt is too big) , but I can’t match the letter spacing across the whole line beginning “communications? Do not delete my…”.
Make a line of text in paint with Times Roman, and type “communications” look carefully at the “nic” in the middle. The spacing is even. Now look at the “nic” in the screenshot – there is visibly more space between the i and the c than between the n and the i.
I wonder if the screenshot has been resized of if this is some bizarre oddity of outlook. Or both.
As an aside, Heartland really ought to have made the screenshots pngs rather than jpegs.
Correction once again. Margulis and Madden’s names are the same length. The pic is HI document on the left with the same text from a Outlook screenshot on the right. The red vertical lines show how the commas line up with the text below. This avoids the problems with scaling.
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/techtipmail/FirstHI.jpg
Considering the resolution and error I would consider all 3 names as viable.
“Barry Woods (Comment #91949)
February 26th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
It is a shame that desmogblog, allow Harrison Schmitt’s email address to appear in their comments..
The only scientist (according to Hall of Fame) to have walked the moon.
“Apollo 17 astronaut and the only scientist to walk on the moon.—
Buzz Aldrin earned a Doctorate of Science in Astronautics at MIT and wrote his thesis on Manned Orbital Rendezvous. The academic research Sc.D. (D.Sc.) is considered by both the United States Department of Education and the National Science Foundation to be equivalent to the more commonly awarded Ph.D.
In the UK you can apply for one after you have a strong publication record after your Ph.D. Typically after 20 years and > 50 publications.
One last oddity for today for me.
If you look at the 6 February e-mail, the spacing between Mr and the dot is surprisingly large.
It may be some wierd kerning thing but I’m starting to wonder if the dot is not a stop at all but a bit of the letter leaking out from the redaction. So instead of Mr. XXXXXX it’s actually something like Mr XXXXXX
Steven Mosher, Copner, etc.: While reading some items over at CA and elsewhere a thought that has been nagging came very prominently to my mind.
Assume Gleick had obtained the fake from somewhere, and had it for quite some time. He had it enough time to dwell on it. Long enough to conceive of a phishing attack on Heartland, and to carry it out. Long enough to stew about it.
It strains credulity that Gleick had not noticed the similarity in style and phrasing that he himself uses if he had possession of the fake for weeks. Yet, he surrendered that fake without any commentary cautioning that he might be being set up. Surely anyone engaged in journalism or any type of writing would recognize different styles of writing, and notice the striking similarity to his own.
I submit that this is yet another weight on the side of the scale representing that Gleick wrote the fake, and that he did so not long before handing it along.
The probability that Gleick had the fake for an extended period of time and did not mention this when he passed it along, or along with his “confession”, is very small.
Copner (91966)
The message contained in the 6 February message is originally the 3 February message. In the original, the space between the period and the following name is clearly visible.
I don’t think it is a letter leaking out. Adding the most likely candidates (J and S) doesn’t appear to be supported.
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/techtipmail/Withoutdot.jpg
Go back to the previous pic I posted (download it and zoom in). You will see the Outlook screen shot from HI and my Outlook screen shot has the period after Mr lining up quite well with the ‘r’ in ‘your’.
Correction once again. Margulis and Madden’s names are the same length.
At least in notepad, “Madden” is always shorter than “Margulis”. The relative sizes are sensitive to the font size, though. At 18 point the names are almost the same length, and “Madden” is longer than “Walberg”. At 10 point “Margulis” is longer than “Johnston”.
AFPhys.
I’m no genius. Neither is Anthony Watts nor Charles the moderator.
When we got the climategate mails. It took about 2 nanoseconds for us to list the possibilities, real, fake, honeypot, hack. So, put yourself in Gleick’s position.
He claims to have gotten the memo. What made him go on a fishing expedition? If it’s reality is unquestionable, why for god’s sake commit a crime to find corroboration for it? Or if the reason for seeking the back up documents was to bolster his faith in the document, then we have to ask why we cannot be as sceptical of it as he was. And why did I, a non genius, spot the math mistakes on first skim? and how could he miss that? How could he miss that the memo got the heartlands position on Revkin wrong? How? But ,most of all, if his actions were honorable why would he try to hide himself from 15 friends who now come to his defense?
Once again, for anyone playing this little game, before jumping to any conclusions, compare your version of the letter spacing to the original email. One example I’ve already mentioned is to compare the position of the final “e” in “please” to the positions of the “o”s in “Although” and “confirming.” In the original they are almost lined up vertically, with the “e” very, very slightly to the left. In every case I’ve tried, the “e” is substantially farther left. The “o”s are also often not aligned. The differences are at least as great as the differences in name lengths.
MJW.
nice work.
reminds me of the time a friend went thru a shredder to reconstruct a document. brutal work
MJW – Here ya go … these are the combinations that are close.
For names – Madden, Margulis and Walberg are the only ones with a close to perfect fit – no space required between last name and comma. For Schmitt and Senator one space is required before comma to be a close fit. None of other names fit well.
For email’s – as you can see Ironbridge, yahoo.com, “earthlink” (incl the quotes) and golden rule are very close fits. Aol.com is not, nor are any other of the emails.
I left a few blanks for people to try their own – for name use Calibri font and for email I used Book Antigua – both appx 11pt. Then you need to manually scale/stretch the word groups to fit the first letter on left and last letter on right, as the email images were not to a standard scale.
We can rule out Collins and Margulis for poor fit.
Schmitt and Senator – with “earthlink” do fit but each needs an extra space before comma – not unheard of.
However both Walberg and Madden are nearly perfect fits for name – and Ironbridge and yahoo.com are nearly perfect fits for email.
That leave “credibility” in a pretext situation as the final decider. Is the staff likely to see one or the others as a flag?
I think the answer is no – for each there is a foreseeable rational explanation … for Ironbridge it wouldn’t seem a giant red flag if someone asked to add a generic email for when traveling.
As we can see many of these directors use free email already – so that wouldn’t be a flag either.
Last, while I don’t think it would necessarily be a flag to add a gmail, when tehre was already a yahoo account – I do think that is MOST likely to raise a question – why would you add a 2nd free email when you have one already – there is no real benefit, especially if you are keeping the yahoo account as well.
By the preponderance of the evidence I call it …. Madden … by a nose … with Walberg a close runner up, and Schhhhmiiiitttt coming in third.
Steve Mosher, thank you very much.
A. Scott, thank you also. I think I need to see the rest of the text to judge how meaningful the results are. As I mentioned earlier, “Madden†is slightly longer than “Walberg†for some font sizes, but a fair bit shorter for others. Unless the spacing in the rest of the message matches the spacing in the original message, I don’t think we can come to any definite conclusions.
This has to be one of the saddest threads ever on this site.
99% sure it is Margulis.
http://i44.tinypic.com/o1bpx.jpg
From far left:
1. list of names in matching font.
2. list of names in a multiply layer over part of the email, hence the apparent bold effect. “Good Morning Mr.” matches perfectly. Blacked out part changed to light grey for readability; original at top to show alignment.
3. Possible candidate matches. I think Margulis is bang on. Walberg doesn’t quite fully match the comma.
A. Scott,
Thanks for your comment. I really do now appreciate the difficulty and will stick to what I’m better at; Steve and yourself have the patience and tenacity of saints to do what you’re doing.
@Mosher:
I think the simplest and most plausible explanation is this:
If Gleick had been able to spot the mistakes when reading through the memo, then he wouldn’t made them when writing it.
(and there are many – also “communicators” and “subset” are other Gleickisms – and “it is useful to” which I think twice in there, is more like an academic paper than a business document. He even slipped up using “AGW” twice, when he should have put “CAGW” – in his talk to the non-so-skeptical skeptic society in November 2011 on Youtube, he describes himself as an “AGW communicator” but describes “CAGW” as being an insult and misleading).
@APhys:
> I submit that this is yet another weight on the side of the scale representing that Gleick wrote the fake, and that he did so not long before handing it along
I agree.
If we were to accept his “confession”, then it means he lied in at least 3 ways in the email to the “15” friends.
The “15” are supposedly his friends and allies. How noble is it to deceive your friends and allies?
Lies in the email to the “15”
1. He identified himself as a Heartland Insider
2. He said the files were from Heartland – when even according to his “confession”, one wasn’t
3. He lied by omission – not mentioning that 2 files had been obtained separately (the 990 and the strategy memo).
I also the 990 is key.
– He didn’t obtain it from Heartland.
– It’s a public document (it’s even on Heartland’s website)
So why include it?
One explanation might be to increase the number of pages in an otherwise thin package, but I can think of a far more devious explanation:
1. Gleick knows the first thing people receiving the package will (may?) do is try to verify the package
(This is what for example Mosher did with climategate, looking for emails that were already disclosed elsewhere)
2. So what he expects that is that his “15” friends are going to see the 990. Quickly get a copy of it. Be able to verify his “leaked” copy is identical to the real one. And then they will assume the rest of his package is real.
@bugs (Comment #91977)
> This has to be one of the saddest threads ever on this site.
I have a feeling that you ain’t seen nothing yet (assuming Lucia graciously allows us to continue with this kind of thing).
Bugs
I think probably most of us here can imagine why you are sad about this thread…
Bugs,
If I were very concerned about the scale and consequences of GHG driven warming (I assume you are) then what would make me most sad was that the thinking of someone like Peter Gleick could be so horribly disconnected from reality. Gleick’s behavior in all this confirms the unhinged cartoon-like characterization that many who oppose public action on GHG emissions routinely point to as reason to not believe the conclusions
… conclusions of climate science.
bugs:
Enjoyed your comment immensely!
I note that you did not find any errors in the forensic work being done by lucia’s Baker Street Irregulars. So presumably “sad” is not a substantive criticism.
Were Gleick’s actions also “sad”, bugs? How about the refusal of some true believer blogs to retract/acknowledge misinformation based on a fake doc?
Do you think Steve McIntyre somehow secretly provoked Gleick into what appears (to everybody but you) to be bad behavior? I am surprised you have not offered that explanation so far.
Do you get it, bugs, that blind loyalty to arrogant, ideologically-driven bad behavior undermines the appeal of CAGW and unmasks it as a purely political rather than scientific enterprise? If one is going to support false claims and dishonorable actions, there ought to be some tactical benefit at least.
The “Bishop Hill” blog quotes climate change ethics expert James Garvey in a column in today’s Guardian. Headline writer’s summary: “Gleick has been criticised for how his Heartland Institute probe [ended], but perhaps more climate scientists should play dirty.”
Bishop Hill includes a heart-felt rebuttal by Richard Betts of the Met Office.
Betts and SMcI had an exchange on Saturday at Climate Audit, prompting a comment on this general subject from McIntyre. I am not sure that he isn’t at least somewhat disingenuous in such remarks, but perhaps they should first be evaluated at face value (even by bugs).
MJW (Comment #91970)
February 26th, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Correction once again. Margulis and Madden’s names are the same length. At least in notepad
Notepad only uses ‘fixed width fonts’. I.E. M’s and I’s take the same amount of space. Outlook uses ‘variable width’ fonts. As does this comment page.
iiiii
mmmmm
A bit off topic — perhaps — there was an Op-Ed in yesterday’s left-wing, blue-state Baltimore Sun by Todd Eberly about domestic politics. There may be parallels between how Eberly, a committed liberal college prof, sees the liberal/moderate divide, and how many in the climate-concerned community view the gap between alarmists like themselves and the AGW-accepting views of the mainstream of the broader society’s mainstream.
Speaking to a committed liberal audience (i.e. most of the Sun’s readers), Eberly discusses “why Democrats are unable to translate the party’s persistent voter identification advantage into sustained congressional and White House dominance.” He explains that
Were I still a moderate Democrat, I would be less than enchanted with the explanation by this hard-left academician of why other hard leftists should handle people like me as useful idiots.
By extension, it makes it easier for me to imagine that hard Greens also have a clearly-articulated vision, and that some of them might be willing to cut corners to achieve their agenda. One that extends well beyond “the science.”
@Bugs,
I don’t know about you, but detective work is fun to me! It’s like a giant puzzle, a mystery novel, all wrapped into one. Maybe mystery isn’t your cup of tea, but don’t knock others who enjoy piecing together evidence and getting at the truth. You know, the sort of thing scientists are SUPPOSED to do?
Notepad only uses ‘fixed width fonts’. I.E. M’s and I’s take the same amount of space.
No it doesn’t. Notepad uses whatever font you choose.
AMAC said
That is a truly bizarre misreading of the writer’s point, which was about finding common ground between progressives and moderates.
Re: AMac (Comment #92002)
“Fellow travelers” was, I believe, the more polite term they used back in the cold war days.
But this partly explains why I, still a moderate Democrat, mostly read conservative columnists these days. People who believe a “progressive revolution” in America would be either possible or desirable must be completely out of touch with reality–about as much as poor Gleick, for instance.
Boris (Comment #92019) —
> the writer’s point [was] about finding common ground between progressives and moderates.
Yes, I understand that.
From the progressive point of view represented by this author, what is the point of finding this common ground?
We can guess at the answer, or we can look at the text. There, the goal is stated as “a progressive revolution in America.”
Do the moderate Democrats who are the subject of this article want to see a progressive revolution — whatever that is — sweep their country? Presumably not (or they would be progressives, not moderates).
According to Eberly, the progressive advocates whom he is addressing are wary of being co-opted into working to enact moderate policies, although they actually want to see radical policies implemented. Is that a bizarre concern? No — seems pretty sensible to me.
The flip side of Eberly’s “don’t worry” message to fellow activists is that perhaps moderates are the ones who should worry about enlisting in a cause that doesn’t represent their values. That seems equally non-bizarre.
It’s not as though this dynamic is something novel. [Edit: See julio’s remark, immediately upthread.]
While my previous comment awaits moderation, here’s an interesting factoid from today’s Washington Post (Robert Samuelson’s column):
This must be one of the reasons I love this country 🙂
Boris:
1) Eberly article was really weak. Warmed-over DLC stuff in the hard-edged Obama era is, well..sad (as bugs would say).
2) AMac correctly points out that the activist left that controls the party can’t really execute the old run right–govern left thing anymore because the illusion of moderation is unsustainable. For example, the in-your face Green partisanship on the Keystone pipeline and the wholly unnecessary sticking it to Catholic bishops on contraception costs were not the actions of deft Clintonesque majority builders, sensitive to the blue collar middle.
3) The article was less about “finding” middle ground than not being so stupid as to precipitously wander off the few remaining areas of broad agreement.
4) AMac infers that it is probably increasingly difficult for a Democrat who does not drink the Kool-Aid on climate change, class warfare and unlimited government to feel entirely comfortable with the direction of the party.
Dunno why you call that “bizarre.”
It was about here that you became unhinged.
“Do you get it, bugs, that blind loyalty to arrogant, ideologically-driven bad behavior undermines the appeal of CAGW and unmasks it as a purely political rather than scientific enterprise? If one is going to support false claims and dishonorable actions, there ought to be some tactical benefit at least.”
The science of AGW is not ideologically driven. You have the CG emails. Where do you see the comrades sending out orders to bring down capitalism and create a new world of perfect wilderness?
Re: George Tobin (Comment #92027)
I agree with most of your post, but naturally not all (otherwise I would not vote the way I do!). From my perspective, most of his term Obama has been squarely in moderate territory, so much so that the radicals on the left spent a solid three years feeling seriously betrayed (not me; I was happy–moderately so, of course ;-)).
The recent, more hard-line developments that you mention appear to be motivated by election-year politics, although I suppose stupidity cannot be entirely ruled out, either.
Bugs,
“The science of AGW is not ideologically driven.”
To the extent that we are talking about the science itself, that may be true. Of course for cold, apolitical science, the UEA email messages do include rather odd uses of words like “the cause” and carrying on about big oil.
.
But the bigger issue is that those who are most vocal about the need for immediate and drastic reductions in CO2 emissions are usually pretty far to the left, and mix demands for GHG reductions with a grab bag leftist political objectives. Gleick is (of course) a perfect example of a rather extreme political flack. You may not think of Gleick as being on the far left of the center of the political spectrum, but I rather think your own political views may be influencing that evaluation.
I’m not sure what your point is. Yes, progressives want to see policies move toward the progressive. This is not some secret. It’s not some nefarious plot. If you go too far left, you lose the moderates and when you lose the moderates, you lose power and any progressive policies you want implemented have zero shot.
Further, Eberly’s point about change not coming from the top down is true. Take gay marriage for example. Now, we progressives know we are on the right side of history wrt to the issue and we know that gay marriage will eventually be law. Activists would love for Obama to aggressively push marriage equality, but there is no way that will succeed. Instead, actions like repealing DADT will slowly move the nation towards marriage equality, as moderates notice that the military didn’t disintegrate when discrimination ended. That’s how these kind of things happen: slowly, one policy, one state at a time.
Same for AGW, of course.
Amused …. Margulis is a good fit for that portion, however, his email “aol.com” is not a fit for the other section, thus IMO ruling him out. Madden is – again IMO – the best fit for both name and email – Walberg fits equally well, however I think its more possible a flag would be raised over having a yahoo and a gmail address than over a “corporate” and an gmail address.
UI think Schmitt IS still in running – using “earthlink” (with quotes) for email is a good fit, but it requires an extra space after name before comma to fit
Boris (Comment #92033)
> [In Comment #92024,] I’m not sure what your point is.
Somebody (I forget who) wrote Comment #92019, critiquing my Comment #92002 by saying,
The text you quote in #92033 was part of my explanation of why Comment #92024 was an ordinary reading of Todd Eberly’s essay. Not a bizarre one.
That was my point.
Boris: ” Now, we progressives know we are on the right side of history”.
Which explains Peter Gleick, progressive hero.
“Take gay marriage for example. Now, we progressives know we are on the right side of history wrt to the issue and we know that gay marriage will eventually be law.”
There is not any such thing as gay marriage. Marriage is one man and one woman joined by God. You can call anything other than that Macaroni, if you like. It won’t be marriage.
Andrew
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/techtipmail/OutlookvsNotepad2b.jpg
Description:
1. Original “Board Mailing list updateâ€
2. Text of “Board mailing list update†composed in Outlook using Times New Roman 11pt. There are 4 suggested email providers inserted where the redacted text was.
3. Text of “Board mailing list update†composed in Notepad using Times New Roman 11pt.
No scaling was used. The first sentence is used as the reference as it spans the entire page. With the proper text inserted in place of the redacted text the first 2 sentences should line up vertically both prior to and after the redacted part. There are 2 red registration marks for the original and each Outlook version, only one for the Notepad version. The first registration mark confirms that the first and second sentences are reasonably close in the Outlook reproductions prior to the redacted section. The Notepad versions were off significantly so are of little use. The second red registration mark shows how close the text (after the inserted text) lines up with the original.
Boris/AndrewKY–
I’m willing to let threads stray OT, but ssm is off bounds. I happen to be with Boris on this one. But if it’s OT, it’s OT, so I’m not going to put any quips on here.
So: No discussing same sex or gay marriage. At. All.
Greg F, could you please try the something similar with the 3 Feb. e-mail (the Good Morning Mr. message)?
Just paste into Outlook the following text:
Thank you for your recent request. Attached please find
directly for any request concerning the Board. Although
Notice in the agenda one of the topic items were confirming
Please let me know if you require any additional information
Paste it in multiple times and change the font size for each one, so you have a sample for each font size from 8 to 18. Then look to see if any have the “e” in “please” directly over the “o” in “Although” and the “o” in “confirming”.
I don’t have Outlook, and as you’ve observed, other programs don’t give the same spacing. If you can find a font size that produces the same spacing as the original message, I think it’s likely we can determine the recipient.
Lucia,
“At. All.”
Same thing I used to say to my kids when they were young. Humm…
MJW,
The default font in Outlook is Calibri 11 point which puts the “e†in “please†directly over the “o†in “Although†and the “o†in “confirmingâ€. I am certain that the text in that email is the default font.
Let me know if you have some suggested text for the redacted text.
Greg F, great! Could you try putting in the salutations:
Good Morning Mr. Schmitt,
Good Morning Mr. Madden,
Good Morning Mr. Walberg,
Good Morning Mr. Margulis,
Good Morning Mr. Johnston,
Then we can see where the comma lines up. In the original, it’s slightly right of the center of the “e” in “request”.
You might also want to try earthlink.net as the ISP in the first e-mail.
Thanks.
Greg F, I see you’ve already done that.
Greg F,
Perhaps you could try:
Do not delete my ASMargulis address.
Do not delete my “hwalberg” address.
Both seem to be about the correct length.
Greg F,
I agree with your earlier comments that Madden, Walberg, and Margulis are the only names that seem to fit. Too bad they’re so close to the same size. Now if we can just figure out the ISP or e-mail address that shouldn’t be deleted.
MJW/Greg F – In my tests you cannot really use a text editor to duplicate a screen shot becasue of the unknown scaling on the screen shot. For example duplicating all the wording, and then overlaying the email – even using same font and size does not provide a perfect match. I even took Greg F.’s text – the email clip, the Outlook clip, and the Notepad clip, removed the white and scaled (proportionally) each so they were same width overall, and they don’t line up.
That said we’ve all been looking for splinters, while missing the big old “log” … the one word that helps tremendously:
“Please add (or have the appropriate staff member add) this personal email address …” [emph. added]
That changes things significantly – helps rule OUT any names that already have a “personal” email address (as opposed to a “business” one). I touched on it with my comments about yahoo.com for Walberg, but didn’t catch the word “personal” in the email.
Of the emails that fit … yahoo.com, “comcast” and “earthlink” (incl the quotes), ironbridge and goldenrule … we can remove yahoo and earthlink for already being “personal” accounts.
We can remove comcast as well – it appears a personal account for Lamendola (whose name is also too long). Although it is a business account for Mr. Rose, his name is too short for the name field.
That leaves goldenrule, and ironbridge. Both are near perfect fits in the space. However, Collins name is too short for the name block.
The only Board member whose name is exactly proper length, and whose email is exactly proper length, and whose email is not already a “personal” email … is Mr. Madden.
See image here ….
There’s a lengthy and intelligent consideration of the possibility that the Fake Strategy Memo was the product of a “False Flag Operation” to which Dr Gleick fell victim. It’s a comment by Ian_007 at John Callender’s blog.
A. Scott,
The screen shot scaling is irrelevant to the relative vertical text alignment. Which is the reason I didn’t scale them. Madden, Walberg, and Margulis are the only names that give reasonably close alignment. See the following image of the suggested text for “Do not delete my xxxxxxâ€.
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/techtipmail/OutlookvsNotepad2b-2test.jpg
Please note that the incomming emails are unknown font and the Outlook text appears to be slightly short accross a whole line.
AMac —
Deep in the comment which you linked is suggested the possibility which I favor at the moment: “the fake memo is Gleick’s work product but that there is an anonymous communication, which led him to conduct the exercise in identity theft. Something we’ve not yet seen. That also is not precluded by what we know, or what his forced confession says.”
I can imagine that Gleick might have received a note along the lines of “Dr. Gleick, I’ve come across information that Heartland is trying to introduce anti-global warming materials into schools. As a director of NCSE, I thought this would be of interest to you.” It is perhaps the only way to reconcile Gleick’s statement — reading very precisely! — and the hypothesis that he wrote the fake memo. But it’s completely speculative.
Guys and gals, is it possible the “Heartland Institute Board Member” text in italics was added and thus the whole area is in fact redacted?
I figured that I’d want the email to look as authentic as possible, and after some sleuthing found a public Ironbridge document containing something that would do just the trick:
http://i40.tinypic.com/35d3otf.jpg
Retrospectively hilarious Tweet sequence:
——————————————————————
Nate Lloyd †@macbuckets
@PeterGleick @stephenfry When you use terms like “anti-climate” you give the game away. #ScienceIsPolitics
3:41 PM – 30 Jan 12 via TweetCaster for Android · Details
——————————————————————
Peter Gleick Peter Gleick †@PeterGleick
@macbuckets @stephenfry Yes, “anti-science” might be better. Or worse. But #WSJ isn’t anti ALL science. Just climate science, apparently.
9:21 PM – 30 Jan 12 via web · Details
Greg F,
Very interesting. Both ASMargulis and “hwalberg” are very close, but I think ASMargulis seems a little too long, and “hwalberg” a little too short. Perhaps asmagulis would work.
I’m virtually certain the incoming e-mail’s font is Times New Roman, just as you’ve used. If there’s any difference, it’s in the font size.
Greg F,
Based on the relative text size in the 2 Feb. e-mail, I believe that if the Calibri font is 11 point, the Times New Roman font is 12 point.
MJW,
I was using Times New Roman 11 pt. Changing it to 12 point appears to be better. The question mark at the end of the 3rd line aligns with the ‘y’ in ‘my’ on the second line better.
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/techtipmail/OutlookvsNotepad2b-3test.jpg
Greg F,
Wow, that changes the spacing a surprising amount. Yahoo.com (Walberg) seems to fit very well.
One thing that makes me wonder about the likelihood that it’s Walberg (besides the fact that he’s got a PhD, which would shoot down my “Mr.” theory) is that he’s the chairman of the board. I’d think the chairman would be in touch more regularly with their headquarters, making it more difficult to carry on the charade. He also might be involved in scheduling the board meetings, so it would be suspicious that he asked about it. Pure speculation, of course.
Having worked at a 501C I am not sure “the chairman would be in touch more regularly with their headquarters†is relevant. In my experience the board almost exclusively interacts with the director (who is also a member of the board) and upper level administrators (like the CFO).
For administrative paperwork most board members know the administrative assistant is the go to person. The administrative assistant has a fair amount of contact with the board members as this is the person that takes care of meeting schedules, agendas, and meeting minutes. I often had to make changes to board members email addresses which always came from the administrative assistant. It doesn’t surprise me that Gleick phishing didn’t raise any red flags.
Greg F,
Thanks for that information. I have no experience with 501C corporations or with boards of directors. I somewhat hope Walberg is in the running, since yahoo.com seems to fit so well.
In the final e-mail there’s:
Thank you.
XXXXXXX
Though it’s possible the redaction extends beyond the text, I think it’s likely, judging from the other redactions, that it pretty accurately reveals the length of the underlying text. Another problem is that it almost certainly isn’t signed with the full name, and we don’t know if it’s signed with the first name, the first initial and last name, or something else entirely.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_26actSzzJJa05CRXlSMEFRZEM1M3NFQW5DUEo5Zw
Take a look at the above link and my post above. From the wording in the email “Insider” said to leave his existing address and add this “personal” address.
It would make no sense to add a “personal” address if the member already HAD a personal address (yahoo, earthlink etc) as their contact.
Eliminate the “names” that are too short like “Rose” etc. Now eliminate the remaining names that have a personal email as their existing address.
That leaves two – Collins and Madden. Collins name is too short. That leaves only one that fits. And it fits almost perfectly all 3 criteria – name and email length, and existing email being a non-personal email.
Last Madden has not, according to most of the info avail, been in a a main leadership role on board. He would not likely have much contact with staff making it potentially easier
I have to disagree. With the proliferation of smart phones it’s not just about email. It’s about contacts, calendars and all the other wiz bang features that come with those free accounts.
A. Scott,
You make a good point; though I don’t think it’s impossible that Gleick would ask to add “this personal email address” when the person already had another personal email address. His goal was to impersonate a board member, not to make absolute logical sense. Though the Heartland staff would be careless not to notice, the whole scam seems to depend on a certain degree of carelessness. The problem with Madden is that Ironbridge is too short, and (I assume) ironbridge.com is too long.
If it matters, I believe I know who replied, “Although …………. is very capable of handing this type of request, it falls under my responsibilities as being …….”
Though it isn’t too hard to come up with the name, unless it’s helpful to know it, just to be on the safe side, I won’t reveal who I think it is.
(Yes, I use as many commas as Gleick.)
(And in my previous comment, it should be ironbridge.net.)
MJW,
I agree, yahoo is the odds on favorite.
Very few of the staff would have the opportunity to notice as few of them would be corresponding with the board. They use a cheap imitation of Microsoft Exchange for their email server which would allow one person to update email contacts and groups for multiple people. IOW, they have shared contact lists. Where I worked I set up a group for the board (as well as other groups). If you wanted to email the board you just sent the email to the group rather than putting in each individual address. Saves time and the embarrassment of forgetting someone.
Greg F,
You probably already knew this, but I just discovered that the list of e-mail addresses for the board members is from the Heartland documents Gleick stole. I was worried that in testing the lengths we were perhaps not using the addresses in Heartland’s contact list. Now I’m pretty confident we are.
Returning briefly to an earlier question…I finally got around to comparing some of the PDF files’ text. Specifically, I compared Demelle’s “2012 Fundraising Plan” and “2012 Heartland Budget” (the “originals” with a 16 Jan mod date) with Littlemore’s (with the 14 Feb mod date). Using pdftotext to extract just the text, I’m finding that the texts are identical. So the 14 Feb “modifications” do indeed seem to result from a careless Save As (with a Fast Web re-optimization), and not an alteration of the text.