They can't close unmoderated chat rooms chatrooms though. In this country perhaps but thats it. Their just being daft.

Seems strange really when you think that their quite happy for XXX spam e-mails to be sent to kids!

Hmmmmmm, stories about peadophiles makes good copy these days and this country especially enjoys a good moral panic.

Both my girls (aged 12 & 16) use MSN and never visit the chat rooms, however judging by the comments from their mates on msn, yes every name is known to them and a genuine teen, these kids are a pretty sordid and perverted bunch to start with.

Kids arent stupid anyhow, most can tell when the idiots enter the room and can smell a rat. They can always use the ignore button and just could contact with someone.

As for migrating to Yahoo away from Microsoft rooms, i decided to take a look there earlier out of interest.... well trawling through a number of rooms including those with voice where there appeared to be genuine kids chatting revealed some pretty sordid goings on anyhow - from the kids never mind guys pretending to be teens.

I think whilst some younger kids will be happy with moderated chat rooms most 'street wise' kids will run a mile, always prefering a safe risk and an chance to annoy and shock parents in an increasingly sanitised and 'health and safety' driven world.

My own concerns are much more about spam mail with porno pictures attached and these also really annoy my kids. Despite all kinds of filters they keep getting through.... but not a word from Micro$oft and others on this. No moral panics or even much concern, but mention paedophile and we sink back into 16th century witch hunt mentality at the expense of reality and common sense.

I agree with Len. Spam mail is getting ridiculous. I get 80-100 e-mails every day. Less than 5 on average are legit. I setup an e-mail account for my wife at least 8 weeks ago, cos she showed a luke warm interest in 21st century technology by asking how does this e-mail "thingy" work. This interest has failed to materialise, but the e-mail account is still active. Checked it just now and there are no new messages. It makes you wonder!! A friend of mine has bt broadband. He also has a yahoo account. Whenever he has to submit his e-mail address, he chooses the yahoo one. Needless to say, his yahoo account is inundated with crap, while the bt one remains relatively spam free. A lesson to be learnt there I think. As for me, I really like my e-mail address and persevere with the help of mailwasher, which I'd recommend as a really useful tool.

Actually, I usually give a false email address unless there is some specific reason I would need the company to email me. That, combined with the filtering used by the Uni stops most spam (I get maybe 1 or 2 a day)

I think would would be taking a slightly different view if your Month old child had just been diagnosed with a Dose of VD in her/his mouth because it had been abused.

OR you daughter had gone missing because she had met up with some pervert on the net.

Agreed so you prefer forcing kids to use obscure chatrooms hosted god knows were?

No ,

I propose Microsoft take up my Idea called the SafeChat system.

Whereby all chat clients are electronically monitored and the PC system is idependently Authorised via the school the child goes to so therefore knowing the parents will know there are no undesirables in the room that the children visit.

When suspected activity does start up the client is closed and the school and or parents get a letter about the incident.

Yes I propose an Authorisation system run in conjuction with schools but really when all said and done it comes down to good parenting.

Technically it is achieveable.

Although kids like chatting with their existing school frends, many want to chat to meet new people in far places, like americans. It is easy for them to chat to existing friends privately thanks to services like msn messenger. But sometimes their friends aren't online, then they want to mix with others.

2nd That scheme is outrageously complicated and microsoft would never confer with the likes of a British Primary School.

And therefore outrageously expensive, and we all know the real reason for M$ cutting its free chatrooms is to save money and try to divert people to use paid-for services.

Credit Card or similar Authentication would be feasible surely.

Input a card number. That number is intrinsically linked, and through AVS can be positively linked to the address of the account holder. Makes tracking someone down easier.

If the card is then reported as stolen, MSN disable the account until a new card is input.

I know children don't have cards, but their parents cards could be used. The parent could then be forced through a set of parental control pages to ensure that the child is only accessing groups they approve of.

Now how does your month old get on line and then to a chat room and then chat with someone and give the their address.

Bit like most other crimes, the victim knows the perp before the crime occurs.

Exactly,

The point being Im making is that all Chat Clients will have an identifiable Age verification service an dauthorisation process.

For Children it will be their Schools whatever country they are in.

For adults it will be some other means such as credit card or so forth.

Those who use the service have nothing to fear

The idea is fairly straight forward the technology is there and if parents want their kids to be safe then they have an option.

Theirs allot of people out their that don't like giving their credit card detials online though.

Another idea would be for the ISP's to use the detials they already have on you.

Take NTL we all have pin numbers our should have. They could be used for instance on NTL chatrooms. Dont know if they have any like but you get the idea

Well ISPs are going some way towards doing that anyway.

Part of the reason for ISPs using CLIDs is so that the person logging on the net can be traced back to the phone number.


The subtlety of SAFECHAT is that the child has their own ID key which is used in conjuction with software which will allow access. Each person will have their own ID key and therefore will identify each person individually.

The ID key can only be issued by an authoritative party such as the school so therefore the validity of that user is identified with that phone number.

Or simply put the email address of the childs friend into MSN messenger and use exclusive chat:rolleyes:.

2nd of all not ALL chat systems will agree to those rules or implement the system (many porn sites have no age check system). Then when the children ask for a credit number, the parents to tell them NO (because they don't understand the system), then the child will find the 'free' chat rooms.

All you have to do is tell the child not to share personal details, most children old enough to use the internet will understand. Then you occaisonally check them and see who they are talking, or you could also look at chat logs.

I imagine it would be very hard to prevent 'anyone' getting one of these id numbers.

If you put all the children in one centralised place, it will be very easy for people to target them.