BlackBerry maker RIM is helping London police in investigating the use of BlackBerry Messenger by rioters who use it to plan disturbances and undermine police. Concerned citizen are also forwarding messages to police. Here's a case where enterprise security is making Londoners and police feel very insecure.
David Lammy, the U.K.'s intellectual-property minister,
today called for a suspension of BlackBerry service to prevent
its use among rioters to communicate plans, according to a
statement from his office. BBM is encrypted and police can't access it.
Research in Motion posted a
message on its official U.K. Twitter account last night saying,
"We feel for those impacted by the riots in London. We have
engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can."
Research In Motion's Inside BlackBerry blog was
hacked today by a group called Teampoison. The group
posted a warning to the company not to cooperate 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."