Introduction: When Law Enforcement Becomes the Problem
Cybersecurity is an essential pillar of modern society, yet the very people protecting it are often treated as criminals. Instead of embracing digital expertise, law enforcement agencies frequently misunderstand, mislabel, and mistreat cybersecurity professionals.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of Taz Ryder—a skilled cybersecurity expert who became the target of an elaborate smear campaign, fueled not by evidence, but by the reckless actions of Sussex Police and a single bad actor manipulating online narratives.
Rather than upholding justice, police officials enabled a digital lynching, turning an innocent cybersecurity professional into a fugitive. This isn’t just a failure of policing—this is a cautionary tale of how unchecked authority, lazy investigations, and media misinformation can destroy lives.
A Manufactured Cybercriminal: The Lies That Built a Case
One Man, Two Websites, Endless Lies
The most damning revelation in the case against Ryder is that the entire narrative was based on lies—fabricated by a single individual running multiple online platforms to create the illusion of credibility.
A deep-dive analysis into the UK Corrupt Police (UKCP) website and PubChat platform—the two primary sources accusing Ryder of cybercrimes—revealed shocking evidence:
🔎 Both websites were operated by the same individual.
🔎 Identical writing styles, themes, and accusations appeared across both platforms.
🔎 The same person had a history of making false allegations against others in the cybersecurity space.
Instead of conducting a proper background check, Sussex Police ran with these allegations, treating an unverified personal vendetta as if it were legitimate intelligence.
Ryder wasn’t a cybercriminal—he was the victim of a coordinated disinformation campaign. But rather than protecting him, police joined the attack.
Sussex Police’s Role in a Digital Lynching
Failure to Investigate, Failure to Think
Rather than conducting even the most basic digital forensics, Sussex Police:
❌ Never verified the credibility of the claims.
❌ Didn’t investigate the real identity behind UKCP or PubChat.
❌ Blindly accepted false reports as fact.
A competent investigation would have immediately debunked the claims. Instead, Sussex Police acted on fiction, putting Ryder under constant surveillance, raiding his home, and publicly smearing his name.
This wasn’t law enforcement. This was state-sanctioned harassment.
The 2014 Email “Cyberattack” That Wasn’t
If Sussex Police’s handling of Ryder’s case wasn’t already incompetent, it reached cartoonish levels of absurdity in 2014 when they mistook a technical email mishap for a cyberattack.
Here’s what actually happened:
✔ Ryder used REDACTED, a cybersecurity tool, to schedule automated emails requesting assistance from authorities.
✔ Due to a minor scheduling error (cron job misconfiguration), the system sent 3,000 emails instead of one every few days.
How a Real Cybersecurity Team Would Handle It
🟢 Filter and delete the emails.
🟢 Block the sender’s IP if necessary.
🟢 Clear the mail queue and restart services.
A routine fix. A five-minute job for any competent IT department.
How Sussex Police Handled It
🔴 Declared it a cyberattack.
🔴 Used it to escalate their case against Ryder.
🔴 Treated it as an intentional act of disruption.
🚨 “If I had actually wanted to attack them, I wouldn’t have put my own contact details in the email.” — Taz Ryder
Instead of admitting their incompetence, police turned an IT failure into an excuse for persecution.
This wasn’t about justice. This was about finding any excuse to justify their harassment.
Doxxing, Defamation, and Police-Fueled Misinformation
With Sussex Police now officially involved, the UKCP/PubChat disinformation campaign exploded into full-scale digital harassment.
🔴 Personal details, including Ryder’s aliases and former addresses, were leaked.
🔴 False reports were made to social services, targeting his family.
🔴 Misinformation spread across social media, portraying him as a cyber threat.
Rather than defending an innocent man, Sussex Police enabled his doxxing.
They turned a legitimate cybersecurity expert into a pariah, destroying his ability to work freely and live safely.
The Repercussions of Sussex Police’s Incompetence
A Smear Campaign That Could Have Ended a Career—But Didn’t
While public perception can turn someone into a villain overnight, the cybersecurity industry runs on facts, not hearsay.
Unlike law enforcement, actual cybersecurity professionals conducted proper research into the UKCP and PubChat disinformation campaign.
✔ Industry experts verified that the allegations were false.
✔ Investigations confirmed that UKCP and PubChat were run by a single unreliable source.
✔ Cybersecurity firms continued to offer Ryder employment, recognizing the smear campaign for what it was.
However, outside the cybersecurity world, the damage was done:
🔴 Certain organizations blacklisted him based on unverified claims.
🔴 Police reports, filled with misinformation, continued to haunt him.
🔴 Sussex Police refused to acknowledge their mistakes.
Even with the truth on his side, Ryder was forced to flee the UK—not because of guilt, but because of constant, state-sanctioned harassment.
Leaving the UK: The Only Way to Escape Police Persecution
By 2024, Ryder made the only logical decision left—he left the UK for good.
🚀 He abandoned his online alias.
🚀 He distanced himself from public cybersecurity discussions.
🚀 He built a new life where he could work without harassment.
This wasn’t justice. This was an innocent man being forced into exile by incompetent policing and a personal vendetta spread through disinformation.
Sussex Police’s Greatest Cybersecurity Failure
🔴 They didn’t investigate properly.
🔴 They acted on false information from an unverified source.
🔴 They turned a cybersecurity expert into a criminal for no reason.
Instead of upholding the law, Sussex Police became enforcers of misinformation, destroying an innocent man’s life based on nothing but rumors, bad reporting, and their own incompetence.
🔍 What happens when the next cybersecurity expert is targeted?
🔍 Will law enforcement repeat the same mistakes?
🔍 Will another innocent person be driven from their home because of lazy policing?
We cannot allow law enforcement to misuse their power like this.
Police are supposed to protect the innocent, not facilitate digital harassment. Until law enforcement is held accountable, this will happen again, and next time, the victim may not escape.
