Thread by @ClimateAudit

new article medium.com/@iggyostanin/e… purports to show that Climategate emails were hacked from Russia, claiming that timestamp nomenclature of emails shows +05:00 timezone. They got it backwards. Nomenclature shows -05:00/-04:00 (East North American).

2/ email names are generated from timestamp of email IGNORING timezone in email header. This results in many email chains being out of order in CG1. An example: timestamp 14:59:03 is read as though Eastern Standard Time (-05:00) - not Pacific then expressed in UTM timestamp.

3/ another example from summer. Timestamp 17:36:26 in Mountain Time -06:00 read as though Eastern Daylight -04:00, expressed in UTM.

4/ because their single example had been written in GMT, they didn't understand what was going on. Its timestamp 14:17:44 was in GMT, but was read as Eastern Standard -05:00, then expressed in UTM (5 hours ahead).

Nothing to do with Ekaterinaburg +05:00.

5/ I don't think that this nomenclature proves that Climategate hack took place from eastern North America.

6/ also keep in mind that metadata analysis by Forensicator and others gives much stronger argument for North American time zone for DNC hack computers. Stronger because evidence very subtle.

7/ Iggy obviously never worked with CG emails. He said that nomenclature "easily allows the sorting of the emails in chronological order making the messages easier to follow." Not quite. Because nomenclature ignored time zone, threads often out of order.

8/ connection of nomenclature to UNIX timestamps has been known since very early days e,g, wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/07/com… Though connection to timezone not mentioned in early comments

9/ let me show how forward calculation works. It's based on date+timestamp displayed, NOT CONSIDERING timezone. Instead assuming Eastern. For example:
as.numeric(as.POSIXct(strptime("2008-05-27 17:36:26", format="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S",tz="EST5EDT")))
# 1211924186

10/ another example of forward calculation in winter time.
as.numeric(as.POSIXct(strptime("2008-01-02 14:59:03", format="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S",tz="EST5EDT")))
# 1199303943

11/ crosspatch at WUWT thread on Dec 7, 2009 wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/07/com… got calculation correct (h/t Paul M): "the computer was on the East coast of the US in GMT -0500 and added 5 hours to get what it thought was GMT.
It wasn’t 5 hours EAST of GMT, it was 5 hours WEST of GMT."

12/ pointed out by Paul M wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/03/are…

13/ instead of conceding his mistake, Iggy @magnitsky

https://twitter.com/magnitsky/status/1146433847074201600

complains that correct arguments are the "worst" and, especially, about unsatisfying web design

14/ Iggy Ostanin's upside down adjustment reminds me of Upside Down Mann and the Junior Birdmen ("up in the air and upside down")

15/ one more pair of examples. Remember the interesting thread of messages in which Folland told Mann and others that he was worried about "diluting the message", Mann replying that he didn't want to give "fodder" to the skeptics, leading to Mann (and Briffa) deleting the decline

16/ in the Briffa reconstruction from the IPCC diagram - an act that would have been fatal misconduct if done by a mutual fund manager. Contrary to Iggy's superficial and erroneous understanding, the texts, within a given day, are out of order.

17. E.g. 0938018124.txt is a REPLY to 0938031546.txt, sent 00:16:18 after. But its timestamp is 3 hours 43 minutes 42 seconds earlier. The reason is that Mann's reply is sent from Eastern (-04:00). CG1 nomenclature did not pay attention to timezone, only data-time string.

18/ in response to my analytic critique of his incorrect theory that Climategate email nomenclature "proved" Russian hack, Bellingcat associate Iggy Ostanin blocked me. Joining other losers: Michael Mann, Eliot Higgins, Michael McFaul, Katherine Hayhoe.

19/ I collated my commentary on Ostanin's nonsense at CA climateaudit.org/2019/07/04/bel…. It is unfortunate that @revkin, @RHarrabin and @theresphysics have disseminated his foolishness and not withdrawn. Summary table shows effect of origin timezone

20/ ironically, the very earliest email in entire CG1 dossier came from Iggy's Ekaterinaburg (+05:00), but instead of nomenclature matching email time, it is 10 hours ahead. Match only occurs in Eastern North America timezone.

21/ reminds me of Michael H Kelly's brilliant commentary michaelkelly.artofeurope.com/cru.htm
"Like an Aristophanes satire, like Hamlet, it opens with two slaves, spear-carriers, little people. Footsoldiers of history, two researchers in a corrupt and impoverished mid-90s Russia schlep

22/ "...through the tundra to take core samples from trees at the behest of the bigger fish in far-off East Anglia."

Kelly's commentary deserves to be re-read and savored. It stands as an eloquent riposte to Bellingcat apologists.

23/ @EliotHiggins has asked me to inform readers that Iggy Ostanin @magnitsky, author of the backwards timestamps, is a former Bellingcat, a no longer Bellingcat, as ex- an ex-Bellingcat as Monty Python's ex-parrot
dailymotion.com/video/x1s7gko