read it for yourself

short version - someone hacked into the servers for Climate Research Center (which is a huge name in coordinating global warming research) and scarfed up a LOT of their confidential data. From what it's looking like, the folks at the CRC have been cooking the books when it comes to data analysis. suppressing opposing viewpoints, coordinating with various politicians, feeding false data to government agencies and planning committees. you name it.

this is about as 'shadowrun' as you can get.

first i dive face first into Assassins Creed 2 conspiracy stuff and then I read a real life one...lifes strange.

interesting stuff, isn't it?

true tho one must be careful, as mention allot of the ideas of conspiracy could just be the result of manipulation and selective information, even truth seeker manipulate data sometimes.

on a personal note, I look forward to reading that archive once it hits wikileaks or cryptome...but I posted the story here as an example of real world shadowrunner style activities.

For the curious

the name of the file in question is Hadley CRU FOI2009 zip and it's on bittorrent.

Except that it isn't really paydata. The hacker releases a "random" selection of the emails and then the blogosphere goes nuts taking statements out of context. And by "random" I'm sure it really means carefully selected to fit the hacker's political agenda.

I work in climate research and I can tell you without a doubt that climate change is real and that human activity plays a part. That much is certain, but the devil is in the details. There is a lot we don't understand about climate systems and that means we don't know for sure how much of the ongoing climate change is the result of natural cycles and how much is human-caused. Don't let the fact that we don't know for sure convince you that we don't know anything.

Okay, first off I'm not trying to start a flame war at all. So please don't think that I'm trying to flame anyone or anything here.


Now to the main point, that's the thing. We all seem to know about the climate right now is A) it's getting warmer for some reason, B) We're putting a lot of strange chemicals in the atmosphere.


Yet, the strange thing is we don't know if both things are directly related or not. Some scientists want to say that they are, yet have little proof that effect is causing effect A.

first off - I strongly suggest that if you want to discuss this data dump, you go get a copy for yourself. Secondly - I didn't post this story to discus global warming, I posted it as an example of a 'real life' shadowrun style operation.

Keep in mind my second point. Then stop, walk away from the computer, take a DEEEEEEEP breath, and come back to your computer and remember: I posted this as an example of a 'real life' shadowrun style operation. nothing more, nothing less.

Well, ok so I need to apologize to about that tangent.

Anyways, as to whomever did this hack, kudos to them for bringing a bit of Shadowrun into real life.

As a side note, I witnessed (partially) a DEA raid happening in my neighborhood. For some reason, I was rooting for the criminals.

most likely becuase you hoped to see a orc with a neon green mowhawk run down the street.

With a Mono-chainsaw?

You're damn straight!

So how much's the pay on tracking this guy down? Otherwise, who cares?

You may not have intended to start a conversation about global climate change, but you had to know the risk. Your "short version" was incredibly biased and made it sound like the article was full of astounding revelations, but the article is actually quite neutral and reveals no stunning chicanery on the part of the scientists in question. Science is messy and not all researchers are ethical. This is not news and it's not pay-data. Now if the hacker was hired by an energy company with an interest in discrediting climate science, then you've got something like a shadowrun. If that's the case, I hope they didn't pay the hacker too much.

@sqir666: I am offended by your "appeal to motive" tactic in using the *snipped party line* comment and take it as a personal attack on myself by characterizing me as a shill for some organization. The "strange chemicals" comment shows me that you don't know what you're talking about, so you don't have a shred of credibility when you complain about scientists having "little proof" to back up their claims.

Climate change has been predicted at varying levels for the last 30 years; now that some predicted effects are starting to happen, the common thread is that Climatologists haven't been overblowing their predictions - they've been too conservative.

Regardless of what is causing it, climate change is very real. (It doesn't help that a lot of the confusion is from people who can't distinguish weather from climate.)

Even then skeptics should support action on climate change because of game theory: if we react and it turns out not to be true here's what we get: Less Pollution, New Infrastructure, a slight downturn in economies (temporarily), Energy Independence, More Responsible use of Resources, etc.

If we don't react and it turns out to be true we have a disaster scenario that kicks off a new dark age.


Given the possible outcomes for guessing wrong it shouldn't really matter to anyone whether or not climate change is caused by humanity or not from a policy standpoint.

[edit]one response I found particularly illuminating: Evidently due to this e-mail conspiracy, Arctic sea ice is at historically low levels, Australia is on fire, the northern United Kingdom is underwater, and the world’s glaciers are disappearing. Oh yeah, and it’s the hottest decade in history.[/edit]

It amazes me how people talk in absolutes about climate change like there are inarguable truths to this "science". Good science encourages skepticism.

Okay, shadowkids, unless this is a discussion on whether or not climate change is real in Shadowrun (hint: me writer, me say yes), then this is not the time or place to argue it.

Well, since SR belongs to AH now, I guess that ends that debate.

I've decided in my game Al Gore was cryogenically frozen so that he could be brought back and made into a cyberzombie sometime around 2068 and now travels the world fighting the evils of corporate environmental greed.

*suppresses a giggle* I'm sorry. You know the #1 greenhouse gas is oxygen right? So start breathing more of this greenhouse gas immediately to convert it to CO(2) and cut down more trees to halt production.

EDIT: Just read AH's post, so I must add: ...IN SHADOWRUN!

Actually, i've started reading through the email archive in the download. yeah...some of those guys were definitely fudging things when it came to telling the government people what to do on policy decisions. they might not have lied...exactly...but they certainly implied results they had not yet proven.

Of course these being hacked emails they could all be forgeries.

I thought about that, so I checked the email headings. from what I could tell, the routing data looks legit. there's also a LOT of info in the emails as well, things like cell phone numbers, public contact information, private office line numbers, stuff like that.

If it's a hoax, it's the most well designed hoax i've ever seen.

This is exactly why, for the most part, any data dumps from Technomancers don't change reality. So, an anonymous "hacker" dumps a load of data into the public domain from a classified host? How do we know he isn't lying about where they got it? If they have enough knowledge of the subject to explain where the paydata gets corroborated from side-agnostic sources, then they know enough to produce reasonable-looking fake data that gets corroborated with those sources.

Furthermore, the consensus approach (where someone confirms that your working is correct) cannot work because identity is mutable on computer networks. Especially for Shadowrunners, who often have multiple "real" IDs. So how do you confirm the validity of a data dump? You can't without having resources that can confirm the data, sources that you can trust. When this relates to information stolen from the opposing side that doesn't concern to any kind of independantly verifiable phenomena (like, for example, communication dumps, or payrolls), this amounts to having people in place that could have stolen the information anyway. Basically, anything coming out of a Technomancer's head from a trip to the Resonance Realms is highly suspect.

It all falls down to HumInt, which is asset intensive. I suspect that the only way you're going to see Johnsons (who do this for a living) trusting data about internal activities that is to be stolen from a corp is if the Johnson controls the system and/or programs that steal it. In short, the datasteal missions are pretty difficult to reasonably run in a way which is not "put this Gubbin in that machine, then get the hell out of dodge".


Now, this is different to recovering data that has been lost by recourse to Matrix Juju. That's totally doable, as the people that created the data in the first place can check that for validity in less than half the time it takes for them to remake the information.

Also trying to tie into SR, just because the headers and other ancillary information look authentic doesn't mean that the content of the messages haven't been subtly altered here and there. A few edits in the right places and voila! instant scandal. This is especially true given the assumed (as explained in Unwired) sophistication of hackers and hacking software in 2072 vis-à-vis encryption.

I am astonished that, given the numerous examples of corps falsifying evidence, suppressing studies, paying lobbyists etc. in the tobacco industry, and the examples of movie studios writing false reviews for their products, that people really trust a "hacker" here.

Wikileaks has much to answer for, but the question (as relevant in SR as in the real world) of how much you trust any source of information, up to and including your own eyeballs, is an ancient and ongoing one - from Plato's cave to photoshopped pictures on MSNBC.

And only somebody with lots of money and lots of money to lose if the climate change issue is accepted by the general public would ever bother with spending the effort on something this complex. Oh... wait ....



One wonders why there isn't complete cynicism and distrust of the news media throughout the Shadowrun general public. Or maybe apathy is still alive and well 60 years from now.

Given the SR fluff about the high levels of poverty and lack of education, even in the most "advanced" nations, it makes sense to me that a significant proportion of the populace does not pay any attention to news media. Another large chunk of the population are news media consumers but badly want someone to trust, making them vulnerable to all sorts of fraud and conspiracy theory. They are bombarded by news of how terrible and chaotic things are in places all over the planet, what with pirates, shadowrunners, insect spirits (and other magical threats), gangs, syndicates, matrix crashes, and on and on. Even if a person lives in a relatively safe middle class corp enclave, it is easy to acquire anxiety about nasty events taking place elsewhere. Witness the public hysteria about kidnapping of children (to name just one example) to see this phenomenon in action. Frankly, this effect is one of the reasons I find the SR dystopia so frighteningly plausible. The last eight years have been a reminder that when a population feels threatened they will flock to the banner of whatever leader makes the most convincing case that he/she/it can keep them safe. In 2072, that leader often takes the form of a megacorporation, but it can still be a military officer turned politician like General Colloton, or the friendly counselor at your local Universal Brotherhood shelter. Ben Franklin had it right back in 1775.

corp is mother, corp is father, just like today, the independent media (if such a thing exists) is marginalized and so shouted down, that one will have a specific interest to go and dig them up.

its basically like the joke in men in black, where there magazine covering all kinds of off the wall "news" is seen as the major street source, while the rest of the world see it as a waste of ink.

i think there is a term out there, tyranny of the group, in that if your the only one in a group that confesses belief in a subject, source or similar, your going to be laughed out of the group, as people evaluate themselves based on those around them...

btw, this may well suggest that shadowrunners are very strong willed people, willing to hold a opinion, no matter what others around them agree on.

Because it's easier to believe and follow along than to disbelieve and be forced to fight.

Further off the original topic, but very relevant to Shadowrun. I think you listed a few very good reasons why some people become shadowrunners, even if they aren't coming out off the streets with a criminal background. To put it another way, some people would become shadowrunners in part because they are desperate to see behind the Wizard's Curtain, so to speak, and get a glimpse of how the world really works.

Edit: or to put it more concisely:

sadly, that glimpse may well leave one shellshocked and unable to operate within normal society ever again...

that happens in the real world too you know.

Apathy is probably the only thing (other than the mega's bottom lines) that is thriving.

if i gave the impression of something else, i am sorry...

hell, i suspect i am such shellshocked myself...

Great VIDEO for those who are interested.

Off topic but I am beginning to wonder if someone from Madison who researches climate is going to show up at every forum I lurk at, it is getting downright strange.

Now back to your regularly scheduled topic

Regarding climate change, it's pretty simple really as far as I'm concerned.

On one hand we do something. In exchange for an economic downfall in the short term we gain a better infrastructure with more efficient and cheaper energy sources, and a better local environment in which to live. If the climate change ends up being natural rather than predominantly man-made, nothing about that changes.

If on the other hand we don't do something, we gain absolutely nothing in the best case scenario. In the worst case scenario, we end up killing our planet and ourselves in the process.

I really don't see why there's even an issue there. Whether or not the threat is real or imagined, we still benefit by improving things and only risk self-destruction if we don't.

The question isn't do something or not, it's do something now, when the technology is extremely expensive and fast transition is wasteful, or do it over the longer term for better savings in the end, given unclear data on global costs.

In SR, they have moved away from petrochem in a large part by 2050. Unfortunately, there are PLENTY of examples of environmental disasters like The Great Ghost Dance, SOX, the Barrens, etc. I wonder what kind of global impact these events have had on the Sixth World? We already know acid rain is an ever-present problem, especially in Seattle.
Also, the only check to the megacorps' is themselves, ie. the Corporate Court, and to a limited degree, public opinion (boycotts?). Due to that and extraterritoriality, it becomes even more likely that increases in pollution are likely, up to a grey limit of "public awareness".
A big part of SR1 at least was the "environmental warrior" who fights against the "evil corps" from the shadows. There are still hints of that in SR4, and it is easy to see why. In this dystopian future, even if the entire WORLD may not be at risk due to a corp's pollution, at the very least the surrounding area would be in jeopardy. Reason enough for a person to get "actively involved". On the other hand, humans have a tendency to carry anything too far... There are plenty of examples in SR history of Enviro factions that commit mass murder and mayhem.
I find SR's treatment on the subject plausible, interesting, and very complex. That is why I still think SR is the richest background of any RPG!

heh, do not forget of the toxic "traditions", where one is very nihilistic, while the other is environmentalism taken to the logical extreme...

Yeah, that many volcanoes erupting that strongly in such a short space of time would likely have blackened the skies for a while and turned rain to acid worldwide. Definitely a shell shock effect on the world and a constant reminder of what the NAN had done and could do.

Don't go to Pirate Bay to get that Bit Torrent file unless you have superior computer security... The whole page has been laced with spyware/malware... I'm guessing someone doesn't want others to see it, or, at least would like to know who does.

the copy I got from torrent reactor was clean. I avoid pirate bay these days anyway. it's too high profile.

Yeah, and it seems to come under attack just about every other day. I didn't even get to the Bit Torrent file on the Bay... As soon as I started getting alarms I bailed.

There's a LOT of people who don't want that data archive to stay online. that alone was enough to motivate me to get a copy for myself.

Link to the Bit file on Reactor? Yeah... I am lazy...

i'm a work right now. they take a dim view of bittorrent links from this location. Oddly enough, they're ok with me hitting up dumpshock. so go figure.

It's cool, I'm digging through the Reactor now... File name? I had it a minute ago and just lost it in the mountain of paper around me... My desk looks like it's owned by a cliche 'overworked wage slave'. If I could find the name I'd just search it.

Edit: Damn, there's like 5 of them... Which one is the right/real/clean one?

Hadley CRU FOI2009 zip