Did you chat with DSL by WhatsApp or some sort of App on your phone? Meta stores everything forever and WhatsApp is linked to identifiers in the phone that may be linked with other things like banking.
didn't use my real name but they asked for me by name so weird…
It would help to know if you used WhatsApp or if you used an email linked to you. Police may have requested copies of any WhatsApp messages and WhatsApp would have to comply. WhatsApp likely knows your real name. If you used a different non-Meta App or email for communication, they may have figured out who you are based on browser fingerprints if you didn't use Tor Browser, since data brokers collect browser fingerprints and police sometimes buy them as part of investigations.
Police may have also tracked payment method (ie, if DSL accepted a certain type of payment, and it could be linked to certain people's real identities).
yes i'm watching on my ring camera. i'm away from the uk but i can see them poking about. my poor housemate is speaking to them and helping them look. i left my room in a state
You said you're away.
I was considering attempting once and someone requested a welfare check on me. I saw the police and figured they were looking for me and took off and was gone for quite a while. When I came back, they immediately involuntarily hospitalized me.
Just be careful with going back. Do not assume that they won't hospitalize you immediately, even if it's been a week or a month.
If you didn't use your real name, and they asked for you by name, and if they didn't have the SN, they may be basing this off your phone if you used WhatsApp or something like that, which can be harder to prove since they may not be able to prove whether it was you or a friend that was using the phone. But they can probably commit you anyway, even without that.
Is this only happening in one country or are other countries impacted? I'm about ready to grab my go back and get the fuck out of where I live if this is happening worldwide and just go travel under a fake name for a while.
VPNs will not protect you from a government that wants to find you. Trust me.
I've had this experience too. VPNs protect you from data brokers collecting data on your IP. It doesn't protect you from data brokers fingerprinting your web browser and it doesn't protect from targeted government attacks. Tor Browser can help with some of these things, but with the Tor network, anyone can set up a server and it's likely many, but not all servers, are controlled by some governments, so there are risks in using Tor Browser too.
Most ISPs sell packet data to governments also and so they can correlate information based on packets. So if your home IP address has an encrypted packet pattern of PACKET (nothing) (nothing) PACKET PACKET PACKET PACKET (nothing) PACKET PACKET (nothing) and then incoming packets to DSL's website has a pattern of has a pattern of PACKET (nothing) (nothing) PACKET PACKET PACKET PACKET (nothing) PACKET PACKET (nothing), then they will guess correctly it's you. This is a simplification of how packet analysis works, but most ISPs sell their packet data because it brings in revenue, and the biggest buyers are often large companies that have contracts with the government and likely are processing it and selling to the government.
There's not much information on whether having other stuff going on (like watching TikTok in another window while using Tor Browser) confuses traffic analysis or whether multiple streams can be easily linked.