falconer
Registered Member
- Dec 17, 2009
- 92
- 121
So I first got dial-up internet access in 1999. At that time I owned a small retail outlet in the UK. One weekend I had a break in..... The burglars made a hole in the roof and cleared out most of my electronics stock. I reported it to the police and they sent a officer around to take all the details.
This policeman was a local guy and I got to know him quite well.....and he would often call in for a coffee when he was passing....
One day he called in just as I logged in to the Internet. He saw what I was doing and asked what this 'internet thing' was all about ....so I told him to sit beside me and I would show him.
I asked if he had any interests and he said he liked old american cars. So I visited Hotbot (Remember Hotbot?) and searched for "old american cars" We visited a few sites that were found and he was amazed at all the information available. Then I said that as he was a policeman we would just search for 'police' and see what came up.
First on the list was the police training college in the UK....we visited that site because he had trained there years before. Second on the list was a site called 'Carson County's Most Wanted' so we took a look to see what it was all about. It turned out to be a list of mug shots of wanted felons in Carson County in Texas.
There was a list of image links and I clicked on one that said 'Wanted for fraud' and the image began to very, very slowly appear from the top of the picture first.
When the hair and eyes appeared my policeman friend suddenly said to me "That's Dereck Stringer"....
I laughed and then explained that he was mistaken and didn't quite understand what the Internet was all about....... this wasn't a local website, but was from 6,000 miles away on the other side of the Atalantic.
As I was explaining this to him more of the image had loaded and he still insisted it was this "Dereck Stringer" He said not only did he know him but he had arrested him before... and his brother had even gone to school with him.....
By this time the image had loaded fully but was too large for the monitor, so I had to scroll down the page to view the bottom section and the text.
Yea you guessed it.....the text below the image said 'Dereck Stringer, UK national wanted for Fraud'
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up....real spooky !.
What are the odds? A random visit from my policeman friend just as I logged on....a random search finds just the right website......a random click on an image link.....and he knows the guy in the picture!
This policeman was a local guy and I got to know him quite well.....and he would often call in for a coffee when he was passing....
One day he called in just as I logged in to the Internet. He saw what I was doing and asked what this 'internet thing' was all about ....so I told him to sit beside me and I would show him.
I asked if he had any interests and he said he liked old american cars. So I visited Hotbot (Remember Hotbot?) and searched for "old american cars" We visited a few sites that were found and he was amazed at all the information available. Then I said that as he was a policeman we would just search for 'police' and see what came up.
First on the list was the police training college in the UK....we visited that site because he had trained there years before. Second on the list was a site called 'Carson County's Most Wanted' so we took a look to see what it was all about. It turned out to be a list of mug shots of wanted felons in Carson County in Texas.
There was a list of image links and I clicked on one that said 'Wanted for fraud' and the image began to very, very slowly appear from the top of the picture first.
When the hair and eyes appeared my policeman friend suddenly said to me "That's Dereck Stringer"....
I laughed and then explained that he was mistaken and didn't quite understand what the Internet was all about....... this wasn't a local website, but was from 6,000 miles away on the other side of the Atalantic.
As I was explaining this to him more of the image had loaded and he still insisted it was this "Dereck Stringer" He said not only did he know him but he had arrested him before... and his brother had even gone to school with him.....
By this time the image had loaded fully but was too large for the monitor, so I had to scroll down the page to view the bottom section and the text.
Yea you guessed it.....the text below the image said 'Dereck Stringer, UK national wanted for Fraud'
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up....real spooky !.
What are the odds? A random visit from my policeman friend just as I logged on....a random search finds just the right website......a random click on an image link.....and he knows the guy in the picture!
