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In The UK, Inciting Riots On Facebook Will Land You Three Years In Jail

Josh Wolford — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:23:10 +0000

If you remember those riots that consumed many parts of England back in August, you probably remember all of the discussion regarding social media’s influence on their spread.

At the height of the outbursts, triggered by social unrest, Prime Minister David Cameron discussed the possibility of censoring some elements of social media. Speaking on the subject, Cameron said that free flow of information can be good and bad and submitted that the answer might be in stopping communication via social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

That idea received opposition from the social sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as RIM, whose BlackBerry Messenger was vital to the rioter’s communications. In the end, social media communications were not restricted.

Which brings us to Phillip Scott Burgess.

Today, The Telegraph reports that the 22-year-old Manchester resident has been sentenced to three years in jail for his use of Facebook during the riots.

On August 9th, Burgess posted this as his status:

“Message to all – we need to start riot’n we need to put Manchester on the map, first lets riot king street Manchester, haha.”

Later that day, he posted derogatory remarks regarding the race and ethnicity of some of the protestors. Over the course of the next few days, he posted more racially charged statuses and ended by saying “Bring bk the riots.” He was arrested on August 16th.

He plead guilty to three counts of “publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and encouraging or assisting the commission of a riot.” He will now reside in a cell for a maximum of 3 years.

The sentence, according to the judge, was based on the belief that people who had a hand in organizing the riots are just as responsible as those who participated in the looting and vandalism.

John Hepke, part of the police team that sought Burgess after he made the Facebook posts had this to say about the ruling:

“Everyone witnessed the disgraceful scenes of violence, looting and arson and it is clear that social networking sites were used to incite certain elements of this disorder…I hope today’s sentence sends a powerful message to those who choose to follow Burgess’ example and use social networking sites irresponsibly and criminally that they will be dealt with harshly by the courts.”

During the riots, it was clear to those watching online that some of the youth failed to keep their thinking caps on at all times. Not all social-media fails involved inciting the riots – others used Facebook and Twitter to talk about the car they had just smashed or the item they had just stolen.

And this kind of use of social media isn’t limited to those in the UK. Folks were pretty senseless when it came to social media use during the Vancouver hockey riots as well.

How do you feel about this case? Do Burgess’ posts make him just as guilty as those who actively participated in the violence? Let us know what you think.

Top Tech Blogs in The UK During August

Neville Hobson — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:23:38 +0000

Next week, European search engine and news portal Wikio will be publishing the rankings for August 2010 of their lists of the top blogs in the many categories under which they’re classified.

For the past 18 months, I’ve been posting an advance look each month at the top 20 or 30 technology blogs in the UK from the data my friends at Wikio have let me see. Last month, that advance look also included the top 30 online marketing blogs in the UK.

I’ve just received the latest details for both categories:

Top 30 Tech Blogs in the UK: August 2010

Full list at Wikio: Top 100 Technology Blogs in the UK

Top 30 Online Marketing Blogs in the UK: August 2010

Full list at Wikio: Top 100 Online Marketing Blogs in the UK

If you want to suggest others blogs for inclusion in Wikio’s tech or online marketing lists that aren’t there already, either let me know or apply on the Wikio website.

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Brits To Googlebomb Islamic Extremists

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:26:45 +0000

Well, if you can’t bomb terrorists directly, Google-bomb them I guess. Reportedly, the British government will be training sympathetic Islamic groups to use SEO in order to drown out extremist voices popping up in the search results.

In a different, saner world, we used to call that “government propaganda,” even if it seems used for a good end in this case. But imagine government officials in the future returning googlebomb volley to citizen googlebombers. You think the SERPs a are warzone now, just wait!

Matt McGee at Search Engine land is happy to note how Fox News’ describes SEO as “arcane strategy.” Yeah, Fox thinks it’s some kind of computer geek voodoo. No wonder Rupert Murdoch is gunning for Google lately. He thinks search is one of the dark arts!

Google Car Harassed By British Villagers/Cops

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:08:52 +0000

Google Street View cars are hitting roadblocks in England, quite literally. If it’s not the cops in one town, it’s human shields in another.

I’ve never been England, and all I know about British roads is from movies, and from what I gather they are often clogged with sheep. In one village, called Broughton, people shooed off the sheep to block the road personally. They heard they Google car was coming.

Villagers were concerned Google was taking “tremendous liberty” in how the company was taking imagery of public places. "I don’t have a problem with Google wanting to promote villages,” said one. “What I have a problem with is the invasion of privacy, taking pictures directly into the home."

Once I feared the Google car had caught me, sagging eyes, no ball cap and morning hair mess rubbernecking out the car window to be sure I just saw the Google car right about here. I somehow managed to escape documentation, which is a bit disappointing.

The Google car is easy to spot. Though different models appear in various places, it’s the little fuel efficient, plain-looking number with a weird-looking metal stick-gizmo on top and California plates, unlike Microsoft’s 4×4 gas-guzzling tribute to the Ubiquitous Branding, the American Way and Being Rich Enough To Not Give a Crap.

In England, Google’s got something similar going, as illustrated in these pictures where the Google car gets pulled over by British police. You could try to see that on Street View, but it appears to have been blocked out by now. Good thing the real-time Internet’s slightly faster than Google—bloggers posted the evidence before it could be taken down.

UK Aims to Stop Hackers by Banning Tools

Dan Morrill — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:13:44 +0000

In what could be a bad day for United Kingdom pen testers, stress testers, and other systems security folks, the UK is getting ready to ban the creation and distribution of tools that could be used by hackers. This generally unpleasant concept could make it not only impossible to create the next nessus or nmap by anyone in the UK, it could also send them to jail for distributing the tools they make as well.

This ought to set back UK computer security by decades.

The distinctions between, for example, a password cracker and a password recovery tool, or a utility designed to run denial of service attacks and one designed to stress-test a network, are subtle. The problem is that anything from nmap through wireshark to perl can be used for both legitimate and illicit purposes, in much the same way that a hammer can be used for putting up shelving or breaking into a car. Source: Register

This should be quickly tested in the UK courts, the minute the ink is wet on the paper kind of legal testing. There are multiple programs, perl, c++, shell scripts in C, and other programs and tools that are made by people to do things. Dual use tools are tools that can be used for both good and evil. It will be difficult to determine the intent of the tool developer unless they leave behind incriminating e-mails saying the tool was created to rip off millions of people.

Any form of distribution would also be included in the statutes, meaning the mere act of sharing a tool with your security friends could be bad for you continued security career.

This is generally bad, and will hamper legitimate security workers and researchers. The state of the security industry in the UK is now dead. The hackers will win this one unfortunately, and there seems to be no way to stop this kind of legislation short of a court testing of its legitimacy.

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