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The idea of pervasive computing presents many interesting opporunities for collaboration on political or social activism issues. In today's society, where people are arrested and jailed for expressing dissenting political views outside of a designated "free speech" area, activists need a safe and reliable way of organizing in order to make their views heard. This often involved rapidly changing strategies to keep authorities guessing, and to provide rapid support to other activists which encounter opposition from authorities. Thus, in recent years we have seen the appearance of flash mobs, which are large groups of people which typically organize through the use of a computing device such as text messaging on a cell phone. At recent WEF protests in Europe, protesting was not allowed. Activists tried to spread throughout the city, but on several occasions authorities would attempt to box groups of them in for arrests. Members of the boxed-in activist group would send distress messages to other activists present at the protest. At this point other activists formed another protest group behind the authorities' box, boxing the authorities in. Once the authorities realized they were surrounded, they broke up, as did the activists. What kind of systems can be built to support this kind of spontaneous collaboration?
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