8/10/2011

RIM Blackberry apparently used to coordinate rioting in the UK


If the text messages are stored, Blackberries might be used to prove coordinated actions for riots.

An article by Reuters talks about it here:

In Britain, pre-existing social problems were compounded by initial austerity measures -- including shutting down "non-essential" public services such as youth clubs -- and then fury at a perceived attempted cover-up of a police shooting.

A blizzard of social media incitement -- primarily using Blackberry smart phones and their semi-encrypted messaging system -- and wall-to-wall media coverage then look to have sparked copycat rioting as surely as satellite TV and Twitter coverage of Egypt's protests sparked similar events elsewhere.

"It does look as though social media is changing the balance of power between the state and the individual, whether that is manifested as regime change in Cairo or looting in Tottenham," said John Bassett, a former senior official at the British signals intelligence agency GCHQ and now a senior fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute. . . .

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