Met police firearms

[Techie1 + 2,024]

Scientists looked at how social media could be used as a source of information during disruptive events.

Twitter could have been used to detect serious incidents such as cars being set alight and shops being looted up to an hour earlier than they were reported to police during the 2011 riots, researchers have said.

Computer scientists from Cardiff University looked at how social media could be used as a source of information for police during major disruptive events, analysing data from the disturbances six years ago.

They found that in all but two reported incidents, a computer system automatically scanning Twitter feeds could have alerted officers earlier.

Co-author of the study Dr Pete Burnap, from Cardiff University's School of Computer Science and Informatics, said: "In this research we show that online social media are becoming the go-to place to report observations of everyday occurrences - including social disorder and terrestrial criminal activity.

"We will never replace traditional policing resource on the ground but we have demonstrated that this research could augment existing intelligence-gathering and draw on new technologies to support more established policing methods."

The study comes after West Midlands Chief Constable Dave Thompson claimed on Friday that police would face "real challenges" tackling a repeat of the 2011 riots following years of budget cuts.

It showed that on average the computer systems could pick up on disruptive events several minutes before officials and more than an hour in some cases.

The research team, which believes the work could enable police officers to better manage and prepare for both large and small-scale disruptive events, analysed 1.6 million tweets relating to the 2011 riots in England, which were sparked by the police shooting of Mark Duggan in London and started as an isolated incident in Tottenham on August 6 but quickly spread across London and other cities in England.

Vandalism and looting spread to Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester over the following few days, with more than 5,000 crimes committed.

A total of 16,000 officers were deployed in London on one night alone in a bid to quell the violence.

The researchers used machine-learning algorithms to look at each of the tweets, taking into account a number of key features such as the time they were posted, the location where they were posted and the content of the tweet itself.

The results showed the system could have alerted police to reports of disorder in Enfield, Greater London, one hour and 23 minutes earlier, they said.

Dr Nasser Alsaedi, who recently completed his PhD at Cardiff under the supervision of Dr Burnap, said: "Coming from a policing background myself, I see the need for this type of cutting-edge research every day.

"I wanted to develop a thesis that could have a real impact in real-world policing. I would like to see this implemented alongside the established decision-making processes."

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[Sherlock 117]

Interesting, but now they'll just use WhatsApp which of course cannot be scanned. Ergo, terrorists.

[Cathedral Bobby + 1,174]

There needs to be a decision by government that where these tech companies refuse to support security services their licenses are revoked. They'd soon wake up to the idea.

[Ether + 1,401]

1 hour ago, Sherlock said:

Interesting, but now they'll just use WhatsApp which of course cannot be scanned. Ergo, terrorists.

Absolutely right, Internet provided message services already a massive following with criminals and terrorists around the world because they now have end to end encryption and its nigh on impossible to access without the handset. Even then it can be difficult and impossible with encrypted phones. 

Social media is really useful, but not against serious and organised criminal organisers.  You may get some good intelligence on disorder type offences/planning. 

[Ether + 1,401]

1 hour ago, Cathedral Bobby said:

There needs to be a decision by government that where these tech companies refuse to support security services their licenses are revoked. They'd soon wake up to the idea.

They will just mover their servers to Somalia or somewhere equally lawless, same as the peer to peer and TOR networks do. 

[Cathedral Bobby + 1,174]

6 minutes ago, Funkywingnut said:

They will just mover their servers to Somalia or somewhere equally lawless, same as the peer to peer and TOR networks do. 

May be or may be not if they start to lose money. There is no excuse. Alternatively hammer them with financial penalties. The security services aren't interested in everyone's day to day dealings, they don't have the resource. We know they look at key words, volume, destination, patterns to home in. What time I take my cat to the vet and what I pay is of no interest to them. Mind you if GCHQ are monitoring this post - Felix is fine

[Ether + 1,401]

2 minutes ago, Cathedral Bobby said:

May be or may be not if they start to lose money. There is no excuse. Alternatively hammer them with financial penalties. The security services aren't interested in everyone's day to day dealings, they don't have the resource. We know they look at key words, volume, destination, patterns to home in. What time I take my cat to the vet and what I pay is of no interest to them. Mind you if GCHQ are monitoring this post - Felix is fine

I agree, but its highly unlikely, people aren't willing to give up any more rights and privacy.  In truth I agree, although I am all for the greater good, the population should have an element of privacy and being able to intercept comms traffic at will is a step to far.  

HOWEVER

I am all for those with certain criminal convictions and/or court order removing such rights. IE Terrorism suspects with known visits to conflict zones, and any terrorism or extremist convictions, that and Pedophile and online exploitation offenders.  I would even go so far as to support its for persistent offenders of certain offences.  

That and any information you put in the public domain such as social media is free to use. 

GCHQ can monitor away, my life would bore them to death. 

There are issues with social media providers informing suspects we have paid an interest in them, and a sensible and unified code of conduct should be written and agreed, but thats very difficult internationally with businesses.