A letting agent was sufficiently disturbed by a tenant's diagrams of a video game, that he called the police.
A British games developer’s letting agency called the police after mistaking diagrams of his new game for a planned thermonuclear attack on Washington.
Henry Smith is a software engineer from Bristol working on a game called “Global Thermonuclear War”, which uses Google Maps to simulate an atomic conflict between nations. Smith was planning out the game using whiteboards in his home when his letting agent made a pre-arranged visit.
A few days later, the agent rang, Smith says, and told him that “the person who did the inspection did have some concerns about one thing. There were some … whiteboards? And some … drawings on them?”
Although Smith believed he assuaged the agents’ fears by explaining that the sketches were plans for a game, he received a follow-up email the next week informing him that the matter had been referred to the local police.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday August 27 2014, @06:36PM
So, lemme get this straight, someone thinks they have a potential nuclear terrorist on their hands.
Step 1: Call the guy up and talk to him about the plans he left on view.
Step 2: Inform him a week later that you decided to call the cops.
So, were they sure he was harmless and CYAing all the way up the chain, or were they THAT bloody stupid?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by present_arms on Wednesday August 27 2014, @06:58PM
This is Britain where everyone from the PM to the local manager is retarded. I am using that word in the very correct sense.
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/