(Image Source: MTV) 

BY GEORGE DUMONTIER

You're watching multiource tech news analysis from Newsy.

In the wake of the three-night riots in London -- hacker collective TeaMp0isoN has gotten into the official Blackberry blog, punishing the Canadian company for possibly giving police access to  private Blackberry Messenger conversations.

Gizmodo reports -- they left behind a threatening message saying...

“...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.”

The group then promised to pass on the personal employee information to London rioters. TeaMp0isoN says it is not only trying to protect the privacy of BBMers, but fully supports the riots in London.

Analysts say -- with over a third of the UK’s youth toting Blackberrys, the messenger service has played a key role in organizing the mayhem.
The Gaurdian reports...

“Unlike text messaging or Twitter, BBM is a free, private social network where almost all messages are encrypted when they leave the sender's phone -- meaning that many messages are untraceable by the authorities.”

So will the hack make RIM re-think its police cooperation? The Register thinks not.

“The defacement itself looks like a standard run-of-the-mill hack and there's nothing to suggest, on the face of it at least, that TeaMp0isoN actually obtained access to corporate directory databases. Even if it did, RIM would doubtless stick to its previous promises to help authorities in any way it could.”

But RIM employees aren’t the only techies trying to bring rioters to justice.
A new Google group called “London Riots Facial Recognition” has been created with hopes of using facial recognition software to identify rioters.

TechCrunch says -- it opens up an ethical gray area.

“The group appears to be thoughtfully considering its actions, in threads titled ‘Ethical Issues,’ and ‘Keeping Things Legal,’ for example. They’ve also stated that ‘it’s important we only use legal sources for images.’”

The Blackberry blog is currently down and RIM has declined to comment on the hacking.

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