hairygrape;306766 wrote:
I’m not so sure. Note how the article says they search for pictures. I imagine that talking about drugs or parties online is a lot less incriminating than taking a picture of yourself taking drugs or at an illegal party.
true – but many people use the same screen / street names on forums, MSN, bebo etc and can be traced that way – and the jackpot is when something matches on facebook where people use their real name!
As early as 1998 some Police forces have actually got warrants to search houses on the strength of text-based chat. Threads on forums have been used as secondary evidence along with pictures to build up cases after the event (particularly for ASBOs where the burden of proof is less than a criminal case).
it is unlikely to cause problems talking about a party/parties where there wasn’t more hassle and where you weren’t directly involved (or I would have got at least a ASBO by now) but if something bad happened like a fight with the cops or environmental damage the authorities increasingly pick up every last scrap of evidence – literally – (they have even been known to investigate the contents of rubbish bags left behind!)
It is harder for them to get private messages as they need a stronger warrant.
The only reason less of this happens now on forums is that there is stronger intelligence info on the social networks – these tend to attract more naive people than on forums, they don’t warn people away from posting incriminating photos and a social network profile much more closely links groups of friends.
