He is drinking from the INQwell when he should be drinking beer - Anonymiser
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RIM offers to help UK police track down rioters
BLACKBERRY MAKER Research In Motion (RIM) has offered to help UK police forces in tracking down rioters and looters after several days of violence and destruction in London and other cities.
"We feel for those impacted by this weekend's riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can," Patrick Spence, managing director of global sales and regional marketing at RIM told The INQUIRER.
Despite our questions, RIM refused to specify in how it will cooperate with the police, but we expect that the focus will be on its Blackberry Messenger service, which is believed to have been used to organise rioting and looting.
"As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we cooperate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials," Spence told us. "Similar to other technology providers in the UK we comply with The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and UK police forces."
The RIP Act could allow the UK police to force RIM to hand over information from its encrypted network, which can only be accessed through RIM's master keys, which it reserves for special legal situations like the one that has arisen over the weekend.
The riots, which began on Saturday night in response to the fatal shooting of a man by police, have caused havoc across London, with several 'copycat' riots erupting in other cities across the UK. Many people have been injured, shops have been looted, and a number of buildings have been set on fire.
The London Metropolitan Police has thousands of officers on duty to tackle the disruption. This number will swell to 16,000 over the next 24 hours. So far there have been around 450 confirmed arrests. This figure will likely grow over the coming days and could reach into the thousands if RIM agrees to hand over incriminating data to the police.
We contacted the Met's Press Bureau for a response to RIM's offer, but there was no one there to answer. We wonder if it put its press team in uniforms and sent them out to take on the rioters. µ
Tags: Hardware
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I know RIM wanted to reduce there headcount, but making large angry mobs show a non-positive view towards them is hardly a ethical way to go about reducing said headcount.
Thats nice of RIM to be doing that though I would say somewhat silly making it public for numerous reasons for example - do you realy want to make yourself a target of pissed of people!, do you realy want to let on to the silly people that you do this so even those silly ones can go, duh i'll get a nokia. This beyond being a stupid PR stunt by RIM has now somehwat increased the chances of there staff being impacted though this action and I only hope RIM get there brains in order before somebody gets hurt. Utterly stupid thing for RIM to being doing - that is the whole aspect of making this public, borders on neglegence with regards towards the safty of your own staff. Utterly shocking how they have shown no care nor consideration for there staff who work in the London/near london area especialy given events. I only hope that nothing happens but if so much as one of your staff gets sworn at over this then RIM should and rightfuly so be dragged thru hot coals via there nutsack for placeing PR over the safty of there staff. Discraceful self-PR action, utterly disgraceful
...then I probably wouldn't have nicked one.
Joking! In fact I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab, which I bought in one of the large Tesco stores. I have not employed it for the purpose of civil disorder, but I suppose if you slapped someone with it it'd sting.
I've never quite seen the point of Blackberry devices, and right now it seems likely there are a lot of naughty people coming around to my way of thinking.
I suppose they got the idea that it's a good choice for mischievous people because of its encryption of messages, although you'd have to be pretty determined about being mischievous when you bought the thing. I suppose some people are. Blackberries apparently are also popular with business users, or they were. Maybe not any more.