Leader: Tech and terror

We all know that technology can be used for good or bad. Stories on these pages every week detail positive applications of information and communication technology. All but Luddites or the most ardent anti-capitalists will see it that way.

But the events of last Thursday morning bring us to focus keenly on the importance of these same technologies in the modern world. At silicon.com's London offices we were acutely aware of the role technology was playing as we all sought to check on friends and loved ones or, in our unusual case, convey some aspects of the news to anyone on the internet.

Within hours, however, we became aware of the speculation and plain ignorance that had started to circulate about the use of these same technologies by those terrorising London.

Some mainstream news programmes started to talk about mobile networks being used to detonate the four bombs. Others speculated that the security forces had called for the big five UK mobile networks to be brought down to stop further explosions, frustrating ordinary people everywhere. (This can indeed be done but wasn't last Thursday, the network operators told us.)

While the first scenario above - bombs set off from afar - is technically possible, it is unlikely in the case of the Tube trains that were targeted. We know cellular network availability is rare, at best, on the underground parts of the London Underground and while there are other short-range wireless technologies in many phones these days, we can't find anyone who has suggested these were used, for example from another carriage in the same train.

Meanwhile eyewitness reports from the number 30 bus blown up above ground suggest someone was present with a device and the fact all three subterranean explosions are now known to have happened at the same time suggests the use of timers - and these could have been on any number of devices that keep the time, not just mobiles.

As we wrote about the role of mobiles in the atrocities in Friday's top story, one reader wrote in to ask: "Could we have a bit less hysteria about the 'mobiles used to set off bombs' issue please?"

We couldn't agree more but part of the danger is that in some quarters technology per se is being demonised. As our columnist Peter Cochrane pointed out, it is technology that more often than not connects us in times of need, above and beyond everyday idle chat and humdrum work.

We have also had it brought home that modern technology isn't just about professionals that can afford it. Sure, vital clues in catching terrorists will emerge from CCTV systems and complex crunching of data on computers but how about what we'll find on people's camera phones - both intentional pictures taken after the bombs went off and unintentional ones beforehand? The authorities are asking for such footage.

Alongside the misinformation about mobile networks we have quickly heard other rumours. Have we all heard about the terror suspects - two suicide bombers in some people's stories - shot dead at Canary Wharf? This is a story that has been rejected by the authorities. High-rise office blocks in Docklands were thought to be at risk but that is as much as we can find confirmed.

Don't believe this version? Then surely there would already be some DIY reportage out there, from phones and digital cameras. We shall wait and see what might yet emerge.

As we said at the beginning of this editorial, technology can indeed be used for good or bad purposes - it has always been that way - but at least relatively simple things such as text messaging, camera phones and blogs mean we don't have to rely on only one version of events.