The media doesn't appear to be wondering about the identity of the East Anglia hackers.

Does anyone have any information as to who these hackers are, if they were paid...and if so, by whom?

It now seems they may not have been hacked at all. Robert Blacks of the BBC has admitted he received the whole file some five weeks before they were made public. Since the e-mails and reports were in a zipped file these are more likely to have been assembled for internal legal review as part of the CRU's response to a FOIA request.

When they were made public it seems likely that the CRU then acknowledged "hacking" rather than admit to a "whisltblower"

Hope this clarifies.

Poirot,
It's not that the media is not interested in who released the emails,
it's that the media appears not to want to publicise Climategate.
As of 12.45am 5 December, US networks ABC, CBS and NBC had not yet covered the story,
according to the Media Research Center which sent a bicycle courier with the news to each of them.
The BBC sat on it for five weeks before the hacker/whistlerblower gave up on them and released the information elsewhere, as we've already heard from spindoc.
Some people do want to know but not for the reasons you or I might first think.
The lead Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Barbara Boxer,
"believes the criminal focus should remain on the hackers themselves and not on the material uncovered."
"You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate,'"
Hell, when you're trying to save the planet you can't afford to let the heretics get in your way.

"Climategate" is a pathetic last-ditch attempt by the climate delusionist camp to try and deflect attention from reality prior to Copenhagen. While some of the hacked personal emails certainly aren't pretty, none of them actually refutes any of the climate science on which theories about AGW are based. I've worked in the academy with 'hard' scientists, and they're people like anybody else.

Hell, even a sweetheart like me has been known to write something horrible in an intemperate moment ;)

As far as I can tell on the latest news, it wasn't so much of a hack anyway, as a deliberate leak. While I'm innately sceptical of conspiracy theories, I think that something about "Climategate" stinks bigtime - and I'm not talking about the climate science.

CJ Morgan is spitting chips.It is important how the emails were obtained.If they were hacked,then they won't be admissable in court.If it was a whistle blower they will be.

The Hadley Centre research is the primary basis for all the IPCC policies.It should be investigated.In fact all their records should be seized immediately and a truely independard board examine their data and conclusions.

CJ Morgan,
Its pretty hard to refute adjusted data when the original data has been conveniently dumped.
I think I'll go with the "delusionist camp" of 31,000 scientists who've signed the petition
challenging the validity of the anthropogenic global warming theory.
As you'd know by now CJ, I respect everyone's religion but that doesn't mean I can make the same leap of faith myself.
I'd like to close in prayer with a word from the guru himself:
“(Global warming) is not a political issue, or a scientific issue or a psychological issue – it’s a moral issue.
If anything it’s actually a spiritual issue.”