[liberationtech] BB in the news again

Fri Aug 12 03:03:57 PDT 2011

Here was my piece on BB:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15310780,00.html

-C

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Frank Corrigan
<email at franciscorrigan.com> wrote:
> The UK is considering introducing a number of responses to the recent
> disturbances and no doubt the more repressive regimes will adopt such:
>
> Police to have power to shut down social networks, remove hoodies and
> facial coverings
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/camerons-law-pm-planning-crackdown-on-rioters-2336308.html
>
> From detaining rioters in Wembley Stadium to spraying them with dye
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/water-cannon-roundups-and-dye-ndash-mps-grapple-over-response-to-chaos-2336310.html
>
> Just change the work rioter to protester and the distinction will easily
> get lost.
>
>
> Frank
>
>
> ----- Original message -----
> From: "Ale Fernandez" <skoria at gmail.com>
> To: liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu
> Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:02:25 +0200
> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] BB in the news again
>
> Hi,
>
> All this makes me think of community alarm systems: I'm just emailing my
> old hackspace in Bristol to see if they'd be into making one.
>
> But a wider use would be some kind of crowdsourced community alarm
> system, across a whole neighbourhood or town.
>
> I think people don't trust the police, and don't want to tell police
> stuff, especially if it's a family member who is thinking of maybe
> rioting, but they still want to protect their neighbourhood. There are
> even lots of people who do want to riot, or just peacefully protest, but
> for a just cause and concrete demands etc - so they might be anti police
> for good reasons.
>
> So while the police can't monitor BBM, people can protect their streets,
> and even inform police somehow without having to shop their friends or
> family. So politically removing the direct focus with police in this,
> but still allowing people to make calls for help, might be a good step
> forward.
>
> Ale
>
>
>
> On 10/08/11 14:39, Eric King wrote:
>> This is a great post explaining the difference between enterprise vs
>> non-enterprise RIM crypto and lawful access.
>>
>> http://www.christopher-parsons.com/blog/technology/decrypting-blackberry-security-decentralizing-the-future/
>>
>> It is also unclear currently exactly what is being handed over by RIM,
>> but Simon McKay's analysis seems correct to me. However if the riots
>> continue, I wouldn't be surprised if different routes were used.
>>
>> Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), police can
>> apply for details of a customer's phone records, including their
>> location, details of calls made and received, and internet activity.
>>
>> But requests must be made for each suspect on a case-by-case basis.
>>
>> Police would be unable to carry out a broad-based search, identifying,
>> for example, every person who was in Clapham Junction sending the word
>> "riot".
>>
>> Continue reading the main story
>> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14465546#story_continues_2>
>>
>>
>>     “Start Quote
>>
>>     Similar to other technology providers in the UK we comply with the
>>     Regulation.”
>>
>> Patrick SpenceBlackberry
>>
>> "They would have to say we want this individual's comms data and these
>> are the reasons why," said solicitor advocate Simon McKay, who has
>> written a book on the subject.
>>
>> "When it comes to the next person they would have to look at that
>> completely separately and re-apply."
>>
>> Initial identification data would likely need to be taken from video,
>> photographs, CCTV footage and other intelligence.
>>
>> Those limits mean telecoms subscriber data becomes useful additional
>> evidence, rather than a first port of call.
>>
>> Mr McKay explained that, when considering requests, the issue of
>> collateral intrusion also had to be taken into account - specifically,
>> how much of other people's data might inadvertently be disclosed, along
>> with that of the suspect.
>>
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14465546
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>> On 10 Aug 2011, at 01:30 PM, liberationtech at lewman.us wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 09, 2011 at 02:26:14PM -0400, katrin at mobileactive.org
>>> wrote 1.7K bytes in 46 lines about:
>>> : David Lammy, Britain's intellectual property minister, also called
>>> : for a suspension of Blackberry's encrypted instant message service.
>>> : Many rioters, exploiting that service, had been able to organize mobs
>>> : and outrun the police, who were ill-equipped to monitor it. "It is
>>>
>>> Just a thought, the BB messenger service is like any other instant
>>> messaging service where the users all connect and chat through a central
>>> server. In this case, RIM runs the servers. The data is encrypted
>>> between the user and the RIM servers, but not between users. Therefore,
>>> RIM should be able to see all of the text contained in the chats. If RIM
>>> has any sort of logs, they could potentially compile a list of all those
>>> rioting, or hand this data over the UK Police (once requested properly).
>>>
>>> I realize the police are ill-equipped to decrypt these conversations
>>> as they fly through the air from the user's handset to the tower to
>>> RIM's servers.
>>>
>>> Another possibility is that the UK police could do basic traffic
>>> analysis of transmissions and figure out what a BBM chat looks like
>>> over the air/tower compared to phone calls to narrow down the set of
>>> people from which to request data.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Andrew
>>> pgp key: 0x74ED336B
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