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Flash Mobs a Threat to Security?

Posted by michael on from the disruptive-technologies dept.

RawCode writes "News about a recent report released by the RCMP suggests that flash mobs could pose a future threat to security. 'Some are aimed at celebrities. Tech-savvy teenaged girls in Britain can quickly spread the word on the whereabouts of Prince William, surrounding him with hundreds of screaming fans. Some are political, organizing protests. Text-messaging was instrumental to organizing public demonstrations in the Phillippines that forced President Joseph Estrada from office'."

6 of 582 comments (clear)

  1. Flash Mobs? by FortKnox · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow, this isn't NEARLY as interesting as the "Flash" Mobs I was thinking of...

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    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
  2. Mobs of flashing girls? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tech-savvy girls flashing for Prince William -
    now THAT's a power to be reckoned with! :)

  3. Flash mobs? by Sanity · · Score: 5, Funny
    2002 just called, they want their fad for unemployed bloggers back.

    (Yeah yeah, and tell them they can have their joke back too)

  4. Flash Coffee and Ice Cream by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 5, Funny
    Back when I was a UC Santa Cruz student, people used to organize food runs on the message board on the open access student timesharing computer, a PDP-11 called "ucscb", that ran BSD. You know, with adm-3a terminals and all.

    Yes, I'm that old. This was around 1986 or so.

    Anyway, one night there was a food run declared for midnight at the Lyons restaurant in Capitola. One hundred and ten students descended all at once on the otherwise empty restaurant, and all ordered coffee, some ice cream, and at the end asked for separate checks, each of which ranged from maybe one to five dollars.

    There were only a couple employees on staff when we arrived. It took a long time to get served because they had to call off-duty employees on the phone, waking them out of bed to come work for the hour or two we were there.

    As we prepared to depart, the restaurant manager sternly said "Don't ever do that again".

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  5. Re:Sure it is a threat. by SlashdotLemming · · Score: 5, Funny

    Having a LUG meeting could be a security threat with the right type of people :)

    I'm thinking more of a biohazard.

  6. The unfathomable mind of law-enforcement... by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 5, Funny
    (From TFA:)
    More often, flash mobs have no discernible purpose at all. Last August about 40 people gathered at the Place des Arts in Montreal to toss rubber ducks in a fountain and quack.
    Ahh, the mysteries of what goes on in the little brains of law-enforcement officers...