Canadian officials are investigating how an innocent man spent 18 months in prison after police missed an underscore in his Skyrim username.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20260807200424/https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/canada-investigating-how-skyrim-username-mixup-sent-innocent-man-to-prison-for-18-months-3396037/
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Another win for mass surveillance.
… What the fuck? Okay i know pigs should be turned into bacon as a general rule, but this is especially stupid. How in the fuck did they even get the messages but then get the wrong user name? It is more work to get the incorrect name!
Some fonts make it hard to distinguish
- fus__ro_dah / fus_ro_dah
fus__ro_dah / fus_ro_dah
That’s somewhat excusable.
However putting someone in prison after finding zero evidence is not excusable. Public prosecutor and judge must be held liable.
I guss they didn’t get the memo that it’s innocent until proven guilty
That’s only true if you’re rich enough to pay for a good lawyer, and investigators, and analysis labs.
If you have no money and a “public defender” you can tell them where evidence proving you’re innocent is. They won’t go look. That isn’t their job. That isn’t anyone’s job to do for you, as the accused. Unless you have the money to pay people to do it.
Incompetence all around.
That account led investigators to Klayme’s email address and IP address in Nova Scotia. Halifax Regional Police later searched his home and seized phones and laptops, but found no evidence connecting him to the girl, the messages, or the images involved in the case.
Klayme was still convicted of three charges in April 2023. He received an 18-month prison sentence in January 2024 and served the entire term.
How was he convicted with no actual evidence linking him to the crime? Just a, misspelled, username.
Wtf are you doing up there Canada?
That was batshit crazy. His username was a universal phrase from the game. But they had possession of his device.
They weren’t incompetent, they just didn’t want to continue looking for a perp
Wtf? I think it’s past time to lay, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” It may be malice and incompetence, but it’s been malice for a really long time. Maybe since the thought was formulated.
Eta: https://inorderbookseries.com/authors/robert-hanlon
Clue
Honestly I have come to the opposite conclusion. If someone harms me I assume malice. I’m right more often than not.
The whe premise of being generous and assuming it’s just a whoopsie is naive at best and suicidal at worst.
I want to caution, here. I was speaking of governments, not individual people, where that can hold true, but not necessarily is true. Certainly in societies that set the system to a zero sum game, it’s more likely to be true, but there are still really good people in the world. And we just can’t know without some risk, and people still err. It’s the human condition. Discernment is cultivated.
Brazil movie explained it well.
Guilty until proven innocent, according to the article. Wow.
