Hackers deface Blackberry blog site over UK riot mess

Hackers defaced Tuesday the blog site of mobile communication firm Blackberry amid reports it will assist British police in cracking down on riots by imposing a curfew on its Blackberry Messenger service. TriCk and TeaMp0isoN also posted a message on Blackberry's site after Research In Motion (RIM) said it will cooperate with local authorities. "Dear Rim ... 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 Police are looking to arrest as many people as possible to save themselves from embarrassment…. 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.," the group said, according to a report on The Hacker News. Also, the hackers threatened to make the information public "and pass it onto rioters." "If you make the wrong choice your database will be made public, save yourself the embarrassment and make the right choice. don’t be a puppet," they said. As of 4 a.m. Wednesday (Manila time), Blackberry's blog site appeared normal. Computer security firm Sophos said it remained unclear if the hackers posted on BlackBerry's blog because of a software vulnerability, or because the hackers cracked the administrators' passwords. Earlier, UK's Channel 4 reported that the BlackBerry messaging may be shut down at the request of the police. Tottenham MP David Lammy was among those calling for the BlackBerry Messenger system (BBM) to be shut down to prevent protesters using it to organize themselves. Channel 4 News also quoted RIM as saying the company is currently assisting the police with requests for BBM information and data. "While social media outlets such as Twitter are, for the most part, searchable and accessible to the police, BBM is a closed system where users have to mutually agree to contact each other," Channel 4 noted. It added BBM is popular with teenagers because BBMs can be sent for free to anyone with a BlackBerry from anywhere in the world. — RSJ, GMA News