back to article Has your shifty foreign neighbour got 16 mobes?

The Metropolitan Police have launched an intensive media onslaught aimed at advising Londoners just what to do if their shifty-looking Arab next door neighbour is packing mulitiple mobes, trading SIMs with the men in black turbans, taking delivery of binary liquid explosives, photographing CCTV cameras, or generally acting in a …

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  1. Andy Wager
    Black Helicopters

    holy S@@t

    Just get me outta here - anyone know of a decent sized remote and uninhabited island, preferably in sunny climes, up for sale ????

  2. Cameron Colley
    Flame

    Fucking scum!

    So, the government are spending lots of our money on adverts telling people to waste police time and have innocent people arrested for going about their everyday business.

    I would post more, but I need to report a suspicious looking person who lives on downing Street in London -- I think he's a terrorist...

  3. xyz Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    I'll just nip off and report myself

    I've got a least 8 mobiles bought over the years...should I report my subconsious (who is obviously some sort of devious mastermind who may have gotten away with it, if the Met hadn't put up that poster, but now his plans are in ruins. The swine)?? Or am I just a fashion victim?

    Mind you, I always though people who had more than 1 mobile were having an affair.

  4. Pete Mallam
    Black Helicopters

    I feel safer already...

    No, really!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Is this news?

    The met police have been advertising this for a year, has it really taken the almighty Reg that long to hear about it?

    From a London paper in March 2007:

    "Terrorists need communication. Anonymous, pay-as-you-go and stolen mobiles are typical. Have you seen someone with large quantities of mobile phones? Has it made you suspicious?"

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lol

    These retards couldn't catch a cold. They'll never catch a real terrorist until it's too late.

  7. Echowitch
    Paris Hilton

    If it was America

    Male voice over:

    The answer is, you don’t have to.

    If it was America the answer would be:

    You don't have to as we assume everyone is a terrorist !!

  8. Greg

    Oh for fuck's sake

    BE AFRAID! TEH TERRORISTS ARE GOING TO KILL J00!

    I'm sure I've heard of a system like this before. Where was it, now... Oh yeah, that's right. Germany. You can guess when. If you weren't fond of your neighbour, you could phone up the state, accuse them of anything you liked, and your neighbour wouldn't be a problem any more. I wonder how long it will be before that happens here.

    And given the public's well known abilities when it comes to spotting "terrorists" (ie, men daring to talk in their own language on a plane in Manchester, man with MP3 player, etc), I imagine it'll be sooner rather than later.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Take 2 mobes into the shower?

    Damn I have two mobile phones in my pocket right now - 1 French and 1 English, as I work in both countries and it was the easiest way of sorting things out. Does this mean next time I use the underground I'm likely to be shot??

  10. Chris Pearson
    Coat

    I wonder...

    how long before an average Joe gets shot for taking some videos of his mates in the tube.

    The one with the kevlar lining please.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    IT professionals tend to accumulate mobile phones

    They also tend to be fairly technically minded and convinced they can do a better job of governing the world than the current crop of clowns.

    Ergo all IT professionals are terrorists, which is presumably why all the government IT projects are as useful as a megaphone on the moon, because no terrorists are allowed in government (apparently).

    Which ties in nicely with the cut to the science budget, because tech guys love science, so they'll probably migrate with budget fluctations.

    The only flaw in this plan is that mobile phones might be used to phone the anti-terrorist line. If this happens, it's likely that the person calling is also a terrorist and is feeding them a false line. It's probably best to write to the anti-terrorist squad.

    On parchment.

    With a quill.

    Take home message: Mobile phones might not cause cancer, but they do cause terrorism.

  12. Sam
    Paris Hilton

    I heard this on the radio and thought .....

    There is a guy up the road from me who buys huge quantities of fertiliser, and diesel. You know who he is, the one driving the dirty land rover, wares a flat cap (tweed I think) has a tractor and lots of land.The address is something like cherry hill farm can't remember the rest. but I bet he is making bombs.

    Should I phone them???? No f**king way. This advert and all the ones like it are just a way for the government to scare us into relinquishing our rights....

    Paris because Brown must think we are all blonde.

  13. Richard
    Paris Hilton

    Posters

    I want to see posters like the ones used in an episode of Red Dwarf.

    Vote Fascist for a third glorious decade of total law enforcement.

    Be a government informer. Betray your family & friends. Fabulous prizes to be won.

    Paris icon, because we need to escape there.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let experienced officers decide?

    You mean like those same experienced officers who made David Mery's life hell because he carried a rucksack? Those kind of experienced officers?

    I carry multiple mobiles, but that does not make me a terrorist!

  15. Stuart

    I'm Screwed!

    I've got an old 35mm film cannister in which I keep a number of pay as you go sim cards. One for every country I regularly travel to. Strangely enough I tend to change these on arrival in a new country which means I fish out my box of sim cards in the airport arrivals area while waiting for my checked baggage to appear.

    Should I just go and hand myself in now?

  16. Nick

    Yes, I have noticed suspicious activity...

    ... namely, the use of public funds to terrorise us, to make us feel insecure, and to criminalise innocent people through over-zealous measures. It is far easier to target obliging and co-operative members of the public with "busy work" than to tackle the real issues. Security is not the only area where we are terrorised - I am also supposed to feel fruitlessly guilty about my "carbon" (carbon dioxide?) footprint.

  17. Ash
    Joke

    Oh noes! A Terr'rist lives next door to me!

    He vanished two weeks ago, but came back with dark skin, dresses in odd clothing, carried a camera, and had several large cases with him!

    He was even on his phone talking about "travel arrangements" and "flights"!

    OMG!!!1

  18. Robert Harrison
    Black Helicopters

    I probably need locking up

    Because everytime I hear that stupid radio advert on my way to/from work it makes me shout and want to do terrorist things to this stupid government. The advert is basically trying to say:

    - Don't trust anyone, not even your parents, brother, sister, son, daughter, etc. Destroy all relationships be they friends, family or community. You can only trust your friendly government.

    - Report everything you see/hear that might be suspicious (even if your classification of suspicious includes everything because you're a hysterically daily mail subscribing idiot sociopath) to your friendly government.

    The format of the advert is just so textbook: slightly scared victim-sounding female and strong authorative reassuring voice over. It makes me sick. It makes me more sick to think that anyone might even buy into it.

    Please substitute 'government' for 'big brother' as you see fit.

    Anyway that's my 'Two minutes hate' over. Uhoh...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    The Home Office: Be Safe. Be Suspicious

    Thousands of people phoning in because the guy on the bus next to them has two phones / took a photo containing a CCTV camera (try and find a place in London where there isn't one) / was very interested in an official building / looked a bit shifty / was one or two shades too cappuccino to be an honest citizen / for the hell of it.

    As Clarkson might say, 'What could possibly go wrong?'

    Oooh hold on, I've got to call the police, I don't like the look of my colleague's Sony MP3 player - he's clearly a dangerous subversive and needs to be tortured immediately.

  20. Jamie
    Gates Halo

    Scary

    I currently have 4 mobiles and my wife has 2, I have 7 computers, and I have a beard. Does that mean my neighbour may call to get me busted?

    Com'on this is just another way for the gov't to use scare tactics to get people to stand behind stupid policies like the ID card, which will cost a lot of money but you won't need to use and the police will not be allowed to request you show.

    The picture, becuase compared to the gov't ol'Billy is a saint.

  21. Dave

    What a joke

    Multiple mobile phones makes you a terrorist these days?

    OK - i see their point, but to target it specifically as part of a campaign is a bit silly.

    I for one had two PAYG phones for quite some time - one profressional and one personal. Many many MANY other people have to do this sometimes up to as many as maybe 3 or 4 for different things.

    Now, if operators/handset manufacturers could make a way for one phone to use multiple sims/accounts (without swapping them out/turning them off - yes i remember the nokia 3310/30 dual sim batteries) then that would be pretty sweet....

  22. Duncan Robertson
    Gates Horns

    If there's something strange...

    In your neighbourhood,

    Who ya gonna call?

    I mean, really! Who do these people think we or they are?

    I vote that anyone with any brain in their head leaves the country. Then all that will be left is the dole bludgers, politicians and chavs. The terrorists are welcome to them. Let them do their business and then we can all move back in. Problems solved!

    Bill - because it is an evil megalomanic plan to rid a country of the dross and crap.

  23. Tony Barnes
    Coat

    Many phones...

    I wonder how many love rats are gonna get a head full of lead for trying to keep their mistress hidden...??

    There could well be an accidental reduction in drug dealers if this initiative takes off - unless that is, they are scoped, tagged as not being a terror threat, and ignored..

  24. carey pridgeon

    Very Red Dwarf

    Betray your family and friends

    Fabulous prizes to be won!

    If I recall correctly, the Nazi's succeeded in establishing control over their society by encouraging german civilians to spy on their neighbors and report anything suspicious.

    Ok, it probably isn't the same thing, but how long does it have to go on before it is the same? I imagine the germans who did report people felt they were doing a public service. Alas the quickest way to radicalise people is to make them feel like the society they live in regards them as suspect and 'different from us good people' (for a given value of good...).

  25. martin burns
    Go

    Spoofs already up and running

    Plenty of spoof versions already available: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/05/remixing-the-london.htm

  26. Andrew Garrard
    Pirate

    Well, I'm in trouble...

    I've still got all the mobiles that my partner and I have ever had. I took five of them with me to Cambridge last weekend: one for making calls, four as convenient portable java-capable devices for running a custom timer midlet that I wrote for a tiddlywinks tournament. Thank Allah I'm caucasian, because I wouldn't like to explain that to the police. (I also had three cameras on me, so I *must* be a terrorist. *And* one of the phones had a PAYG SIM in it, for lending to people.)

    My other half's just flown to the US with one of my phones as a back-up to hers, so that she can make technical support calls with her normal SIM if her international SIM plays up while she's trying to register it (you have to be in the US first, apparently). Maybe I should warn her?

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    How can you tell if they’re a normal everyday person, or a terrorist?

    Oh jeeze, how can anyone get hung up on this? We've known the answer for centuries, it's simple:

    If they weigh more than a duck, they're a witch.

  28. Ferry Boat

    @Stuart

    No, don't bother, I've already called you in. They'll be around soon. Multiple SIMMs, airport, you should have been shot by now.

  29. Kenneth Ross

    You'ld never suspect your own daughter!

    It never seemed, well, normal, that a 13 year old would need so many phones. 4 at the last count, and now it all makes sense. That poster really brings it home!

  30. joe K
    IT Angle

    Nerds r u's

    Rationality is something found very sparingly on this forum. There are real people out there who just happen to be living next to real terrorists, and yes, right here in the UK. And even if 10,000 false alerts arise for one real lead, that is a fair price to pay, if you disagree ask the families of the 52 killed and 700 injured during 7/7.

  31. Paul
    Stop

    Further advice to concerned citizenry

    Thousands of people eat food.

    What if someone in a shop seems suspicious?

    Terrorists need food. They often buy a lot of food in one go, more than one person could possibly eat in a day, to stockpile and to share with their “family” in advance of an attack, and they often pay anonymously in cash. If you’re suspicious of the amount of food someone has, we need to know. Let experienced officers decide what action to take.

    Thousands of people have friends.

    What if one of them seems odd?

    Terrorists use friends to help blend in to society and to make it look as if they’re normal and cool and popular. But they’re not. If you see someone with an odd friend, or with more friends than you, we need to know. Let experienced officers decide what action to take.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Let experienced officers decide?

    Surely you mean the same experienced officers who pumped 7 bullets in Jean-Charles De Menezes' head?

    To be perfectly frank, if I want to own 10 mobile phones and keep 100 litres of ammonia and fertilizer in my bathroom, that's my business.

    Until such time as these products are actually used in a terrorist plot then it becomes the Met's business. But not before.

  33. Vagnerr

    Business users

    I guess those of us who are required to carry a business mobile as well as their personal one are pretty screwed then.

  34. Law
    Paris Hilton

    I wonder...

    ... if this is how the Germans felt when the Nazi's started taking over and locking up people for the good of the country.... that thought seriously scares the crap out of me!

    The Paris icon, because as before - she will be part of the resistance!!

  35. neil
    Unhappy

    Can someone explain

    After a couple of decades of IRA bombing campaigns which killed a lot more people do we need all this extra anti terrorism awareness?

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Witchhunts... Stasi... The Met...

    'Nuff said, really.

  37. Christopher Rydings
    Pirate

    I've seen him!!!

    ..oh wait, he does run a mobile shop so maybe he is not a terrorist!

    Primary aim of the act of terrorism is to terrorise, cause alarm and make us change from our normal way of life, explosions and shootings etc are the by product. Soooo that means the UK Gov are terrorists by this very definition!!!

    I think big Clint Eastwood summed it up best for us about the way the country is just now, when asked for an assessment of the situation, ..."No Sir, it's a cluster f*ck!"

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Eeek

    Is there a youth division yet?

    Catch those naughty terrorist mums and dads using their brainwashed off spring.

    Join Browns Youth Party.

    Yes your kids can join the new Jungsturm Gordon Brown.

    Free Met uniform

    Sir Ian Blair as Reichsjugendführer

    Ticket out of Europe please. One way.

  39. Richard
    Stop

    I've seen someone suspicious!

    Don't those Blackberry doodads come with a multiple simcard option?

    I saw this bloke using one in Westminster. The sharp suit isn't going to fool anyone; not when you're calling for things that are antithetical to the "British way of life" (tm). He'd got past Parliamentary security and everything!

    "How can you tell if someone’s buying unusual quantities of stuff for a good reason or if they’re planning to make a bomb?"

    What? Like Northern Rock shares?

  40. gautam
    Coat

    Its called outsourcing

    The police who are supposed to be doing the surveillance have outsourced their work to the Joe public. So why not dissolve this force and we all become self regulated anti-terrorist enforcers (Suspicious or otherwise)?

    By the way when has surveillance worked for a determined Terrorist outfit?

    Like all other goverment departments, we seriously need an Audit of Cost Effectiveness of such stupid and horrendously expensive measures.

    If they can increase the cost of Passports. ID cards and other services to REFLECT the true cost of providing such services, can they now justify the billions spent on surveillance with increased number of terrorist arrests?? Its got be pro-rata and reflective of services provided. Same logic, innit??

    MInes the bulletproof one with extra pockets for 4 mobile phones I carry.

  41. Alf

    Looking in the wrong place!

    Drug dealers use multi-mobes, the terrorists are using teh internets!

  42. Mike Crawshaw
    Black Helicopters

    The possibilities are endless...

    Group of kids hanging around in the vicinity of your house? Well, they probably change their mobile every couple months, and they wear hoods, which are almost a turban, and they're always filming things on their mobiles...... soooooooo..... THAY MUSS BE TERRAHRISTS!!!!

    Voila. End of kids

    Neighbour's hedge getting overgrown? Maybe he's using fertilizer! Which is a bomb ingredient! And I saw him making a home movie in his back garden! Which could be able to be zoomed to the CCTV camera on the motorway in the distance! soooooooo..... HE MUSS BE A TERRAHRIST!!!

    Voila. End of neighbour's uncontrollable hedge.

    (As a foreigner with 3 mobile phones, a penchant for wearing a DPM (camouflage) jacket, a beard, and an Asian gf, I can hear the 'coptors in the distance...)

  43. Jeroen Braamhaar
    Black Helicopters

    BOFH-compatible ?

    Really, this is the megalomaniacal dream of any budding BOFH - just send the boss out to the mobile phone shop with all the company mobiles "to get them antenna-stresstested" or something and then ring the number.

    "Hello officer ? I saw a rather confused feller with an armload of mobiles walking down the street ... yes, I think I heard him mumbling in Arabic too."

    This is nothing short of pure panicmongering. I'm almost inclined to cynically state that "our rights are being suspended to garantuee them" - if it wasn't coming so awfully close to the truth ....

    Black Helicopters, they might be here any moment ....

  44. James Anderson
    Happy

    Free holiday in Guantanimo!

    I have 6 mobiles hanging around the house (4 with working SIMs).

    Looks like I qualify for that free holiday in Guantanimo.

    I am not sure I would suit orange so please dont dob me in.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Friend has up to four

    Personal, business, out of hours contact (when it's his turn to carry it), other one management thought should also be on a rota.

    Remember, if you have nothing to hide you don't know who's watching. I personally am watching your mum.

  46. Paul

    But what else can you do?

    Ok, there's a lot of people here taking the mickey. Why though? What else could you do to actually find the people who are acting suspiciously from those that are doing something innocent other than getting the police to actually do their job.

    It's like trying to spot dodgy credit card transactions amongst the thousands upon thousands of genuine ones. Yes the police will make mistakes, and yes the system isn't perfect but when you're faced with people who are willing to lay down their lives to achieve their ends and aren't afraid of the consequences of their actions, what else can you do but become vigiliant to the point of paranoia.

  47. Craig
    Unhappy

    Uh oh

    I just bought a new HD camcorder... no doubt I'll be shot trying it out pretty soon :(

  48. simon
    Black Helicopters

    @joe K

    are you a simpleton? grassing someone for carrying several mobiles or looking suspicious is akin to living in 1984 (the book, not the year) but to be fair, it was much better back then, i was younger, booze was cheaper, but seriously what the effing is this country becomin or should that be is.

    totalitarian rule by the majority for the masses, the government rule on terror, trying to scare every man in the land with this so they can erode your liberties, rememember you voted em in, you can vote em out, rise up and start a new party that does away with the crap like this,it can happen.

    mines the helicopter to get the feck off this island

    cuba sounds nice

    :)

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ joe K

    Really... and them taking my DNA profile while they're at it is ok too? Just like they did with David Mery?

    NOT A BLOODY CHANCE!!! I am NOT a criminal, and I will NOT be treated as one, even if it's on the basis that "10,000 false alerts arise for one real lead, that is a fair price to pay".

    I'm sorry, but I've come from a country that intimidated its citizenry with 'OMG, they're hiding behind the doors, they have bombs, you must report them!' and the like. I moved to the UK to be free of that crap.

    Except... now the Met is starting up with the same.

  50. Chris

    They win again!!

    Yep by spreading this "propaganda" the terorists win again. Just like gangs and yobs win by people staying in there houses and being scared. Terorists win by hindering on our lives by making us more paranoid!

    Come terrorists come and get me you wusses!!!

    Oh and i have two phones 1 computer and 2 laptops. Done chemistry A-level doing a degree in comunication engineering! I must be on some sort of watch list by now?

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