Stolen is a strong word. There’s no evidence that whoever made copies of the data “dishonestly appropriated property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it” (Theft Act, 1968). Even if you can argue for the dishonesty element and for an e-mail being property, you can’t sensibly argue for the permanent deprivation element. In fact, it would be rather self-defeating to destroy the original data in these circumstances.

This was just a data protection breach (“hacking” is usually journalese for “I don’t understand IT security”). And seeing as it seems to have been affected by a user’s e-mail account being compromised, the culpable party is probably that user for having set their password to “password” or their spouse’s name or something equally stupid. And it’s probably the guy who’s already resigned, so there’s no point in UEA throwing the book at him for it.

“It’s worth noting that the editorial says emails from University of East Anglia were “obtained”. They were actually stolen.”

Would you rather they weren’t released?

No, any more than I’d like a random array of wingnuts with a grudge against me to be given access to all my work emails.

I have to admit, I don’t see an admission from extract that the Telegraph is now a ‘believer’. I see some fairly objective reporting of the meeting (where governments have accepted the argument) and then a comment at the end suggesting we err on the side of caution (which is also my view – whether humans warm the world or not, there’s no point emitting CO2 if we don’t have to) .

I do agree on the part of the article that says “our children and theirs are entitled to a future that has not been blighted by our mistakes” though. Shame we weren’t so careful with our national debt (my grandchildren are going to be paying for the Brown years, and I don’t even have children yet) or our national sovereignty (my grandchildren are going to be Europeans – not British).

James D @ 1

As far as I can tell from this:

http://tinyurl.com/ykjtut2

It was a hack attack. Which is theft, is it not? Certainly the music industry seems to think so….

They might, but they’re wrong: theft involves intent to permanently deprive; anything which doesn’t involve intent to permanently deprive isn’t theft.

Things that aren’t theft include IP infringement, which this is, and breach of privacy, which this might be.

One editoral doesn’t change the overall content of the newspaper – which has been consistently publishing pieces stating that either global warming isn’t happening, or that it isn’t caused by humans, or that we shouldn’t do anything aboat it. If they were serious about their editorial line, they would start to publish different views, subject the arguments of the deniers to far more scrutiny, and – more constructively – start to examine the things that can be done in more detail.

It has to be said the MSM has completely failed to do even the last part, with voices ranging from “do something” to “don’t do something – its a load of bollocks”, but that “something” being an unspecified policy or calls to recylce more.

Whether it strictly counts as theft the emails were still obtained illegally.

And seeing as it seems to have been affected by a user’s e-mail account being compromised, the culpable party is probably that user for having set their password to “password” or their spouse’s name or something equally stupid.

I’m off sick today so can’t check but I’m pretty certain that when I log into our network at work I get a message saying it is a criminal offence to access it without proper authority. The person whose account was compromised may possibly have committed a disciplinary offence if they didn’t properly protect their details but that doesn’t mean the person who hacked their account wasn’t committing an offence as well.