Hackers have responded to Research in Motion's (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry phones, announcement on Monday night of its intention to aid police investigations of the London riots, which have been raging over the past week. Meanwhile, the government is meeting with corporate social networking providers, such as Facebook and Twitter, to discuss online censorship measures.
RIM contacted the police after it was claimed that the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service had been an 'important site of organising' for the riots. However, the company has refused to disclose what the nature of such co-operation will be. Many fear the handing over of private messages, chat logs, and GPS locations at a time when the police are keen to find individuals to blame for the rioting. In retaliation, hackers brought down BlackBerry's official blog, Inside BlackBerry, on Tuesday afternoon. In a statement, the anonymous hackers said:
“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 Police are looking to arrest as many people as possible to save themselves from embarrassment ... if you do assist the police by giving them chat logs, gps locations, customer information & access to peoples BlackBerry Messengers you will regret it.”
Hackers claimed to hold the company's employee databases, including names, addresses and phone numbers, threatening to make such information public if RIM granted police access to BBM and other personal information. The blog has now been taken offline, with browser requests failing to retrieve any content from the site.
BBM is a private social network, where messages are encrypted, making them particularly difficult for the police to trace. In the past, RIM has claimed to be unable to unscramble encrypted BBM messages.
Democracy?
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) allows police to demand communications information from companies when investigating crime or disorder, when such data is deemed to be 'in the interests of national security' or 'the economic well-being of the United Kingdom'. Companies have to hand over information about a communication – i.e. phone numbers or subscriber information – but not the content of the communication. The content of communications, such as text messages, can only be disclosed when it forms part of an ongoing criminal investigation of an individual facing charges. It is unclear at present whether the police are attempting to use RIPA to gain access to the content of BBM messages sent by individuals not already charged with a criminal offence. RIM has refused to disclose whether or not police have made a RIPA request but has stated that “We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can.”
Police have also been monitoring social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, and have already made arrests for comments posted on these sites. Following a call by prime minister David Cameron and other politicians for a clampdown on social networking sites, Facebook responded saying it has already removed “several credible threats of violence” related to the riots.
Home secretary Theresa May is expected to hold meetings with Facebook, Twitter and Rim shortly to discuss online censorship measures in the name of “public safety and security.” When Middle Eastern regimes were clamping down on Internet users during the recent uprisings (see here, for example), Western governments were 'furious' about such anti-democratic practices.