The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Out of interest - did you use your full name either in posts, in your username or did anyone on the forum know you personally?

saddler wrote:It was a comment I'd posted on a WW2 forum

HALODIN wrote:Out of interest - did you use your full name either in posts, in your username or did anyone on the forum know you personally?

saddler wrote:It was a comment I'd posted on a WW2 forum

Same user name as I have on most forums - nothing else!

Thanks. Well if your username doesn't identify you personally, then did you register on the forum using the same e-mail address that you used on your FAC renewal? Sorry to keep probing, but it's interesting to know how they associated your anonymous forum login with you as an FAC holder.

saddler wrote:Same user name as I have on most forums - nothing else!

The Echelon spy network articles are a bit like the recent ones about the BBC using packet sniffing to determine if you are watching their content on a non-TV device.

Theoretically, it might be achievable but in practice it's all BS and even if it was possible, they just don't have the resources to implement it on any sort of scale, regardless of how automated they can make the process.

HALODIN wrote:So if you don't believe this is true, perhaps you could explain where they get their "good intelligence" from about "your" conduct?

Seriously..... Kent has got over 25000 certificate holders. Over the last six years we have lost 500 constables and 1000 support staff. Some days there are not enough people to answer 999 calls quickly enough, but there's the time to trawl through the Internet for each and every certificate holder?

Think about that for more than five seconds....

That's a logical fallacy. The TV detector vans were a myth. It was just scare mongering and the same can be said for the Wi-Fi detector vans, but just because one BBC myth exists, doesn't mean everything that relates to surveillance is a myth. Echelon exists, if you read the articles I linked to, you'd notice the EU believe it exists as well and if a supranational government believes it, you should too.

We have a forum member who was shown a print out of their internet activity by their "Inspector & Sgt from the Firearms Dept," how did they get it? This isn't the first time I've heard the police monitor the internet airwaves, which is why the words on the NRA site stood out to me.

So I'll ask for the last time, if they're not monitoring your internet activity by monitoring your internet connection, how are they doing it? Seems pretty obvious to me.

JSC wrote:The Echelon spy network articles are a bit like the recent ones about the BBC using packet sniffing to determine if you are watching their content on a non-TV device.

Theoretically, it might be achievable but in practice it's all BS and even if it was possible, they just don't have the resources to implement it on any sort of scale, regardless of how automated they can make the process.

Then suggest an alternate answer... How did they find saddler's post on a WWII forum when the user account is anonymous?

How long does it take you to search google for something? 3-5 seconds of typing? That's all it takes and if the criteria doesn't change, just the data - then there's no human intervention required, automate it. I'm not suggesting someone sits on google trawling through forums looking for unsuitable FAC applicants, as you say who would have the time.

Sim G wrote:Seriously..... Kent has got over 25000 certificate holders. Over the last six years we have lost 500 constables and 1000 support staff. Some days there are not enough people to answer 999 calls quickly enough, but there's the time to trawl through the Internet for each and every certificate holder?

Think about that for more than five seconds....

Sim G wrote:

HALODIN wrote:So if you don't believe this is true, perhaps you could explain where they get their "good intelligence" from about "your" conduct?

Seriously..... Kent has got over 25000 certificate holders. Over the last six years we have lost 500 constables and 1000 support staff. Some days there are not enough people to answer 999 calls quickly enough, but there's the time to trawl through the Internet for each and every certificate holder?

Think about that for more than five seconds....

Maybe the Kent Police admin. staff & serving officers should have a few days in Edinburgh shadowing the staff there, as they seem to have the time for all sorts of extra curricular projects.
Their turnaround times can be atrocious compared to other areas of Police Scotland though.
Wonder why...?

On the one hand, I too cannot believe that they have the resources (having worked in the emergency services and with them also , over 20 yrs) BUT, on the other hand, I can believe some continuity ACPO g#ts, getting together and wasting OUR precious resources to bolster their own fantasy 1984 police state dreams.....
what to believe, what to believe??? .....no I really dont think CACPO have the smarts to do it properly, they might have wasted loads of money in many half arsed (it's the British way ) attempts only to fall into a hot sweaty cluster f#ck of failure at the end!!!
But the TV detector van thing does work and it's free , so there is that.
To be totally honest boys and girls, I have never posted anything on this or any other forum that I would not say in an open court, a public engagement or to the assistant/chief constable (have done many a time as well).
It is a rule of mine, and any police force who wants my name need only drop me a PM and I will supply it. It is a bad show when we are afraid to voice our opinions to PUBLIC SERVANTS!
THEY ARE NOT OUR MASTERS , it is they who should be watching what they say not us.
After that rant, let me just say to Sim G, yes I understand how nonsensical it seems but in the past, the police (among others) have devoted a disproportionate amount of energy, resources and propaganda , against what is essentially the most proven people in our society, so you can understand where others are coming from.
And remember, just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean they are not after you !!!!
That's all I have to say bout thad.

Obviously I have no specific knowledge that this is what they're doing, but all the pieces of the jigsaw are there. Yes I'm guessing... but - I did some Sarbanes-Oxley data modeling for one of the big banks and their database server is a grid based database cluster. If they run out of processing power, they just plug another node in and voila, off it goes. The biggest "table" at that time was over 1 terabyte and to return the results of a query over 3 disparate systems with over 70 joins, trawling possibly .25-.5 petabyte of data and to produce the data-set in about 20-30 seconds is staggering. Big data has been with us for a long time, this was 12 years ago and processing power has grown exponentially ever since. So the processing power is there, we know they're collecting everyone's data and we know they're looking at our web habits.

If it looks like a dog and it barks like a dog...