Police accessed BlackBerry messages to thwart planned riots

[The Straight Story]

Police accessed BlackBerry messages to thwart planned riots

Scotland Yard stopped planned attacks by rioters on iconic sites across London hours before they were to take place after they managed to "break into" encrypted social messaging sites, it has emerged.

Attacks on the Olympics site, upmarket stores in Oxford circus and the two Westfield shopping centres in east and west London were plotted using BlackBerry Messenger.

Detectives made the breakthrough hours before the planned attacks after scouring the mobile phones of people who had been arrested during the riots. It gave them access to the messages planning riots and looting, which were bouncing around the heavily encrypted BlackBerry Messenger service.

In effect by last Monday afternoon they were able to monitor BlackBerry messaging, and send extra officers to disrupt attacks on the high profile sites in the capital – attacks that would have heightened the sense of threat and danger felt by Londoners.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/16/police-accessed-blackberry-messages-thwart-riots

[Renew Deal]

1. This article is misleading.

They didn't break into anything. They read messages on peoples devices.

[Mojorabbit]

2. The snip makes it seem as though shopping sites are iconic sites. nt

[nc4bo]

3. Perhaps people should use that security code after all?

All phones have them and it's a pain but at least your phone could be minimally protected from prying eyes. Might even taken them a while to figure out what your 4 digit pin was.