The recent riots in England have apparently been a case study for how technology can be used for creating mayhem. One of the technologies central to this mayhem is Blackberry Messenger. Apparently the miscreants who are behind the rioting are using it to stay one step ahead of the police and aid in them looting stores. This is such a concern that there’s been one MP who calls for BBM service to be suspended:
David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham, where London’s worst riots for decades began on Saturday, appealed on Twitter and on BBC radio for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion to suspend BlackBerry Messenger.
“This is one of the reasons why unsophisticated criminals are outfoxing an otherwise sophisticated police force,” he tweeted. “BBM is different as it is encrypted and police can’t access it.”
RIM for it’s part, gave a vague promise to assist British police:
Research In Motion said in a statement on Monday: “As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we co-operate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials.”
The company declined to say whether it was handing over chat logs or user details to police.
That earned threats from a notorious hacker group:
Research In Motion’s Inside BlackBerry blog was hacked on Tuesday by a group going by the name of Teampoison. The group posted a warning to the company not to co-operate with police.
“You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all,” the statement said.
“If you do assist the police by giving them chat logs, gps locations, customer information & access to peoples BlackBerryMessengers you will regret it, we have access to your database which includes your employees information; e.g – Addresses, Names, Phone Numbers etc. – now if u assist the police, we _WILL_ make this information public and pass it onto rioters,” it said.
Charming. Here’s my $0.02 worth. First, BBM is not the problem. These rioters or anybody else who wants to do harm will just leverage whatever technology is available to them. iMessage which is part of iOS 5 could be their next choice. Second, I’d love to see if RIM actually helps U.K. law enforcement seeing as they have typically not been helpful on that front. If they do, some countries like India for example could be knocking on their door.Third, we’ll see what Teampoison does or doesn’t do to RIM. It may be interesting to watch.
British Court Says ISPs Must Block The Pirate Bay
Posted in Commentary with tags Lawsuit, The Pirate Bay, U.K on April 30, 2012 by itnerdIf you’re in the U.K. and you love to get your fix of movies illegally from the Pirate Bay? You better get your fix now. A court just ruled that ISPs have to block the infamous torrent site:
The High Court said on Monday that Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media would have to block access to The Pirate Bay (TPB), following an earlier ruling in February over the role of the site in copyright infringement.
The blocks will come into place over the course of “the next few weeks” following the decision by Mr Justice Arnold on Monday. The case was brought about by a number of music labels acting on behalf of the music industry body, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
“The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale. Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them. This is wrong — musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else,” Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, said in a statement.
The question is, will it work? Already there are ways to get around this that are floating around the Internet. So I’m guessing that any sort of ban will have a lifespan of hours. But I guess it makes movie studios and record producers feel better. Perhaps a better way to deal with this is to make purchasing movies and music so attractive that there would be no need to pirate them?
Nah, too easy. They’d never do that.
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