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RIM Helping UK Police Track Down Rioters
jfruhlinger writes "Protests against a police shooting in the poor London neighborhood of Tottenham escalated into rioting and looting this past weekend. Initial reports have it that the activity was coordinated not by Twitter or Facebook but by the relatively old-tech method of BlackBerry messaging. Now the official Twitter account of RIM's UK division has announced that it is 'engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can,' which presumably means that it's handing over messages sent by rioters. Is BlackBerry being a responsible part of British society, or is it overstepping its bounds?"
There's a difference between protesting and rioting/looting. So cheers for tracking down rioters and looters.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
If you want a messaging infrastruture that people can use and not feel like someone is deciding who else in the world is going to listen in, then yes they are overstepping and changing the contract they have with their users. Good luck RIM UK.
Blackberry most likely feels being proactive is better than waiting to be subpoenaed and looking like they are protecting looters and criminals.
You know, even though I long ago forsook my BB, I understood why business & government wanted them.
Secure reliable communications.
Today....reliability? Sure, if you pull the battery once a day (yes, I know you can reset it without yanking the battery. Still stupid as fuck you have to reboot them constantly) Secure? RTFA.
RIM is toast...and fuck it, let them die already.
And I even get it...they're trying to put "bad people" away. BUT THAT ISN'T THEIR FUCKING PLACE IN THE WORLD. It would be one thing to answer a suponea. It is another entirely to hand over records voluntarily.
Fuck RIM. Fuck them right in the ear.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Yeah, not quite.
This is part of Blackberry's effort to ingratiate themselves to Government. First with their security compliance, now with the 'Hey, we'll do anything we can to help you!' regarding text messages.
My guess is Blackberry is positioning themselves to be the handheld client of government since they don't have any competitiveness in the consumer market.
It only takes a few cases where they prosecute someone based on that kind of "evidence" and it turns out that the defendant was in another country to make the prosecutor a laughing stock. Again.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
If they can do it for the UK, they are probably already doing it for someone else... India, Saudi Arabia, US??
They can - that's not the issue here.
Do they want to do this? Without a warrant it would be commercial suicide, and they can stop pretending to resist Indian and Saudi Arabian governments. UK judges cannot give out warrants I think, because how do they know which numbers are used for these riots? Only if they have caught people, then they can ask for their messages, but nothing more.
This looks like the Mob trying to intimidate the Government and the police because one of its capos got shot. If this is in fact the current line, RIM is obliged to co-operate. It is probably nothing whatsoever to do with poor people opposing Government cuts.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
When you are hurting innocent people, your right to privacy is tossed out with the first firebomb. I know that can be an excuse for governments to try to suppress valid protest; but this is criminal looting, not political protests. People are losing their homes and livelihoods to these thugs. Put them in jail.
they are probably already doing it for someone else... India, Saudi Arabia, US??
They don't need to in the USA, since the ability to go fishing in RIM's data and connections was designed in from the beginning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
a protest is what started in tottenham: peaceful demonstrations in front of the police station
then hooligans, from outside the neighborhood, came in to turn it into a riot
and no, i'm sorry "one mans riot is another's protest" is a stinking pile of steaming bullshit
people marching down the street is in no way the same thing as hooligan assholes throwing rocks through windows and walking off with loot
in fact, protests around the world and throughout history, protests that in a different universe would move society and government to change policy for the better, have been ruined by hooligan assholes hijacking peaceful protests and using them as an excuse to commit simple crimes. this in turn causes society, public opinion and government to turn from the protesters and their just demands in disgust, through no fault of the protesters
so no: to confuse criminal rioting with genuine protesting is disgusting
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I just love this! It was a tweet by RIM.
This is all that it says.
"We feel for those impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can."
This can mean anything from providing extra coverage of the area so any police using blackberries get coverage or buying people free beagles?
Wow what a jump to conclusions this has inspired.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yoda's paranoid twin...
if RIM were asked to track down users engaged in a peaceful protest
It can still happen, the UK has a history of sending FITs (Forward Intelligence Teams) to photograph, film, identify and intimidate anyone who is engaged in peaceful protest. It's a highly effective tactic because people who would otherwise participate in the protest out of personal belief would give up and go home in fear of being harassed by the police later, or end up in some black list and be sentenced to life unemployment. It will happen. The UK is fully committed to the Safe Society For the Upper Class Under the Watchful Eyes.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
I've got two friends who are now homeless and have lost everything apart from the clothes on their backs and their mobile phones after scum broke into a jewellers in Tottenham on Saturday night and then proceeded to torch the place. They lived above the shops and barely got out with their lives. For twenty minutes the Police were nowhere in site. My friends were posting on Facebook as the riots got closer and were frightened that they'd have to arm themselves to protect against a home invasion and then their worse fear happened - fires were started.
These kids aren't making a statement, they aren't fighting the system, they aren't protesting against jack shit. They just want to run riot, smash shit up and set fire to stuff whilst getting away with stealing as much as possible.
I'm quite happy the RIM are helping. Hopefully Skype, MSN, etc. will be on the case too. I'd send in the army with tear gas and rubber bullets (to start with) if I was in charge.
Someone doesn't understand the difference between BIS and BES. You're still secure in Saudi Arabia if you're communications are secured over BES.
I won't bother to list the many other advantages that the BB offers over the "competition" as you only seem interested in spreading misinformation and not actual facts.
(Yes, "competition" is in quotes. No other company offers a phone that is even remotely comparable in terms of utility and security.)
Required reading for internet skeptics
A measured response, sir. However my scepticism arises as you invoke both the Daily Mail Law and the Star Trek Law:
- be suspicious if somebody quotes the Daily Mail as a reliable source of evidence ;-)
- be really worried if somebody argues their position is correct *because something similar happened in Star Trek*
I'd definitely agree we need to work out how much of what is happening is due to underlying discontent that's just bubbling up (rumours persist of some police being less than professional in dealing with youths), and how much is opportunistic crime (smashing stuff and nicking tellies and trainers because you can get free stuff while the rioting is kicking off, also just having a riot because its a chance to chuck a brick at a copper or have a laugh).
My guess is a bit of each and like the 80s we've got to sort out what's going wrong before it goes *really wrong*. There is the potential for things to go really wrong in the next few years (rising unemployment, soft social services like youth clubs being closed down, police budgets tightening, etc). It's undeniable that there are a good number of chancers out there, equally, my own personal experience is that the police can pull you over randomly and be rude and swing their weight around if they feel like it. After my (black, Barbadian) mate got pulled over in his car half a dozen times and let off every time I told him to get his driving licence updated with his proper prefix so at least he might get half an apology when they realised they should call him Dr. ...
Where is the black list that stops people from employing you? This must be one hell of a list
Oh, it is. It even has its own website:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/agencies-public-bodies/crb/
Don't be thinking anything foolish like "only criminals will be on there" either. The police are perfectly willing to tell people what you were once arrested for, no matter how wrong that arrest might have been, or comically what you were once accused of, without even mentioning that the person accusing you has a history of lying about such things and there was insufficient evidence to even inform you of the accusation, let alone make an arrest.
Yeah, it's one hell of a list.
I live in Argentina. I see protests every day. And for much less than this, the police deploys a much larger operation. Several trucks, tens (if not hundreds) of men wearing all sorts of protection, helmets, and large shields. This is common after every football (soccer for americans) match, where usually 1500-2000 men are deployed inside and around a stadium.
If you take a look at HOW a riot is controlled, you will see much more organization that this show put by the UK government. If they wanted to control the riot, I'm sure they could have done it already. When you have a mob throwing stones and chairs, you don't use a small shield. Damn it, this is not a RPG, this is the real life. You use large shields, and a tight formation. Like the romans did centuries ago. Like what you see in Asterix cartoons. Behind this line, guys with tear gas grenade launchers fire at the crowd in different angles (to maximize the area covered by smoke). This disperses the crowd, and leaves the most vicious still standing. Once you have them identified, slowly advance towards them. When they're close enough, order the shielded guys to jump at them and proceed to arrest them. You just can't arrest everyone who participated, so just stick with the high profile ones, who are usually the instigators.
The key here (big cops dressed in black, with helmets, shields, armed,etc) is INTIMIDATION.
This is only 1 example. There are several tactics. And lots of resources: rubber bullets, high pressure water (colored for later identification. They catch the painted guys at subways, trains or buses here). Even the mounted police is useful (remember, intimidation. A horse can run faster than you).
What you should read from these events is that the UK government has something else in mind. This is either distraction for some other political maneuver, or they're using this for leverage in order to tighten "security" laws.
You sound a little deluded or willfully uninformed when you say
First, I believe all this kinds of riots are just group/herd behaviour ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_behaviour ) and any blackberry "coordination" was probably some innocent people inviting others to join the protest.
Here's a message that was sent:
"Everyone from all sides of London meet up at the heart of London (central) OXFORD CIRCUS!!, Bare SHOPS are gonna get smashed up so come get some (free stuff!!!) fuck the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! >:O Dead the ends and colour war for now so if you see a brother... SALUT! if you see a fed... SHOOT!"
That's not an invitation to peaceful protest. That's incitement to rob, loot and kill. There is nothing innocent about that.
Ya know, from several thousand miles away, you might want to be a bit more cautious about your jumps to conclusions. Tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets have *never* been used in mainland Britain, despite a very long history of rioting. The police and gov't will be well aware that those tactical options exist, but will be extremely reluctant to deploy them as it would be a tacit admission that other tactics were no longer working, would represent a major escalation of force and a serious erosion of policing-by-consent, and be very difficult to turn back from.
Bollocks. The police have no qualms about using force against large crowds, as they showed during the student protests. But they are used to dealing with *protest*, not rioting. As a result, they're too brutal for the former, and ineffective against the latter.