[HacktionLab] Fleeing riot police on foot? There's an app for that

[planet-mail at aktivix.org]

hey,

this was an evolution from the kids who did the google live map of the  
previous big london student demo that got pretty rioty.

that gots loads of coverage from the press in terms of kids outwit the  
kettling cops with tech - where as in fact the map was of no use what  
so ever but it did get loadsa media attention.

sukey has 2 parts to it.

a backoffice analysis of tweets and good old direct texts and phone  
calls from their mates and wider circles - think of it as indymedia  
dispatch - which were then tweeted out back down to twitter  
subscribers or those who were following their twitter stream via the  
twitter sms sign up.

you can see their output here - they sent 15 updates in total:  
http://twitter.com/sukeysms

(note: status net could be useful here to provide a more privacy  
orientated way of accessing such info)

the other part was the APP, which _could_ be useful to people on the  
ground, but it didn't really work last saturday because

a) they only released the app on the day and not many people used it,  
even less with gps and google lattitude enabled, nor did many people  
use other channels to submit info about police behaviours.

b) there were very few police blockades and no attempted kettling, so  
the thing was not needed anyway.

ISSUES

some of the kids are pretty apolitical, which in itself isn't a  
problem, but they don't seem to think that security is much of an  
issue (since their project is aimed at PEACEFUL protesters)

they have now finally put up a paragraph cautioning that whilst they  
take their security seriously, the 3rd party providers (mobile telcos,  
twitter, google etc) may hand data over to the authorities.  
Unfortunately they put this info on a page titled "Warning For Idiots"  
   http://www.sukey.org/idiotwarning

other links:

peaceful protest App without any mobile phone network Communications  
Data or Traffic Data anonymity
https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/spyblog/2011/01/29/sukey--protest-app-without-any-mobile-communications-data-anonymity.html

Inside the anti-kettling HQ
A group of young computer geeks is wielding a new weapon in the fight  
against controversial police tactics at demonstrations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/02/inside-anti-kettling-hq

sukey article on london indymedia
https://london.indymedia.org/articles/7065


Quoting sam at bristolwireless.net:

>
> Sukey is our name for a set of applications designed to keep you  
> protected and informed during protests. When you see something  
> interesting, you tell us. When we're confident that something has  
> actually happened, we tell you.
>
> http://sukey.org/what
>
> They claim they, will opensource it.
>
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