City Subpoenas Creator of Text Messaging Code

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/nyregion/30text.html?ref=technology&pagewa
nted=print

 

March 30, 2008


City Subpoenas Creator of Text Messaging Code 


By COLIN MOYNIHAN
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/colin_moynihan
/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 

When delegates to the Republican National Convention
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republi
can_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  assembled in New York in August 2004,
the streets and sidewalks near Union Square and Madison Square Garden filled
with demonstrators. Police officers in helmets formed barriers by stretching
orange netting across intersections. Hordes of bicyclists participated in
rolling protests through nighttime streets, and helicopters hovered
overhead.

These tableaus and others were described as they happened in text messages
that spread from mobile phone to mobile phone in New York City and beyond.
The people sending and receiving the messages were using technology,
developed by an anonymous group of artists and activists called the
Institute for Applied Autonomy, that allowed users to form networks and
transmit messages to hundreds or thousands of telephones.

Although the service, called TXTmob, was widely used by demonstrators,
reporters and possibly even police officers, little was known about its
inventors. Last month, however, the New York City Law Department issued a
subpoena to Tad Hirsch, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/massach
usetts_institute_of_technology/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  Institute of
Technology who wrote the code that created TXTmob. 

Lawyers representing the city in lawsuits filed by hundreds of people
arrested during the convention asked Mr. Hirsch to hand over voluminous
records revealing the content of messages exchanged on his service and
identifying people who sent and received messages. Mr. Hirsch says that some
of the subpoenaed material no longer exists and that he believes he has the
right to keep other information secret.

"There's a principle at stake here," he said recently by telephone. "I think
I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect
their privacy."

The subpoena, which was issued Feb. 4, instructed Mr. Hirsch, who is
completing his dissertation at M.I.T., to produce a wide range of material,
including all text messages sent via TXTmob during the convention, the date
and time of the messages, information about people who sent and received
messages, and lists of people who used the service.

.

 

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