The Hack That Changed the World: Ep 1 - The Cold Case
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2021
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2009, someone broke into the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and stole emails. The material was distributed online - mainly on blogs linked to climate change sceptics. It was used to make the case that scientists were surreptitiously twisting the facts to exaggerate climate change. That was not the case. But before that became clear, events would take on a life of their own, sparking a global media storm.
This is a story that matters - firstly because it may have set back by years efforts to combat climate change. But also because it foretold a future in which emails would be stolen and weaponised and where information and social media would be used to cast doubt on science and expertise.
More than a decade on, as the UK hosts a new global climate summit - COP26 in Glasgow - the mystery of who was behind ‘Climategate’ remains.
BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera goes on the trail of this ‘cyber cold case’, talking to the key players as well as police and spies, taking the listener on a journey to a place where climate change and information warfare met - with world-changing consequences.
Producer: Sally Abrahams Editor: Richard Vadon
Credit: MSNBC News Live 25 November 2009 and NBC Nightly News, 4 December 2009
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Hello, I'm Gordon Carrera and this is seriously from BBC Radio 4. This week the hack that changed the world. |
| 0:47.0 | In 2009 emails were stolen from climate change researchers at the University of East Anglia and leaked online. What became |
| 0:55.1 | known as Climategate became a global media story its impact still felt today. |
| 1:00.0 | But who was behind it? In episode one we start at the scene of the crime. |
| 1:06.0 | Okay, nice and quiet please, drone going up. |
| 1:10.0 | It's summer and the students are away, but the campus of the University of East Anglia |
| 1:17.2 | just outside of Norwich is busy with a film crew. |
| 1:19.7 | Okay, stand by then and action Jason. |
| 1:24.0 | They're working on a drama called The Trick, which looks at what became known as Climate Gate. |
| 1:30.0 | Happy. |
| 1:31.0 | Very happy. Back in 2009, |
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