CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

Local teenagers were left in a state of confusion yesterday, after a seemingly ‘cool’ older man asked them if they were active users of the MSN Messenger Service,in a vacant car park.

Ollie Wyndham, 16, says the group became suspicious of the man after he made reference to the discontinued instant messenger service, which was rebranded as Windows Messenger in 2005.

“My mum used to use MSN… I seriously didn’t think that shit was still around?”

The group, which consisted of three-to-four recreational marijuana users, were approached by the 42-year-old while skateboarding. They say the man initially asked them where he could find some ‘good pot’ and if they were ‘on MSN’

That is when they realised he was an undercover cop.

Since the arrival of social media, instant messaging software has died down to a small community of outdated Blackberry users, and apparently 42-year-old undercover police officers who have no idea how to infiltrate the technologically advanced Generation Y.

“I thought he might have been an undercover ‘D’ when I saw what he was wearing,” says the street-savvy Mr Wyndham.

“He was wearing a studded SMP belt with Globe shoes. Not to mention his wallet chain… He had a Sony Discman visibly sitting in the trouser pockets of his cargo pants. A fucking discman!”

Mr Wyndham and his friends said they gave the officer the benefit of the doubt, assuming he may have been ‘a bit slow’ and was legitimately interested in where he could find marijuana for personal use. That was until he went on to ask for contact details.

“If he’d asked for my mobile number, I would have probably tee’d him up with my dealer”

“… But he wanted my Hotmail account. I told him ‘I’m 16 years old, mate… I don’t even use email’ – I could tell he was out of touch”

“My advice for undercover cops would be, if you want to find out the whereabouts of local marijuana dealers. Just go to any of the events hosted by Triple J”

“Mind you, Triple J is about as youth-oriented as this cop was. They probably arrested all those blokes in the 90’s”

“No wonder they are passing all those metadata laws – but we are already one step ahead of that with these crazy things called apps“