It’s hacker Vs hacker as MP’s, police and technology specialists call on Research In Motion to close down their UK BlackBerry Messenger service which is thought to have played a key role in helping mobilise looters involved in the riots across London.Smarthouse has been told that hackers who are angry over the riots are now trying to bring the BlackBerry Messenger network down in an effort to do what Research In Motion have so far refused to do.
Meanwhile another group of hackers have threatened the Company claiming that if they do close the network down they will create problems for the Canadian Company.
Research In Motion’s Inside BlackBerry blog was hacked overnight by a group going by the name of 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.
Mike Butcher, a technology journalist and digital adviser to London Mayor Boris Johnson, said it was ‘unbelievable’ that the BBM service had not been disabled.
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 (BBM).
“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.”
Many of the rioters favor BlackBerry Messenger over Twitter and other social media because its messages are encrypted and private, but the service is widely used and messages can easily be sent to groups.
Research In Motion said in a statement last night: “As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we cooperate 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.
Reuters reported that Sameet Kanade, an analyst at Northern Securities in Toronto, said: “RIM will need the directive of the UK authorities and the cooperation of the carriers. Lawful intercept is the only valid legal reason that a carrier and handset vendor can intervene.
“In terms of actual mechanism, RIM has always claimed that it is unable to de-encrypt/decipher messages routed through the BES or BIS servers. It may be able to disable the routing of messages at best, from what I understand.”
Geoff Blaber, analyst with UK telecoms research firm CCS Insight, said: “One option would be to switch it off. But BBM is highly popular and has got a big installed base in the UK.”
