Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3133192.stm

:spin:

It's about time, although I still have some concerns over MSN Messenger too.

Again, with the scare mongering.

They are obviously doing this to avoid being sued, it won't help children, they will just to a less regulated chat room.

Is it just a PR exersise? Surely the paedophiles will just move on somewhere else?

Had heard rumours of this, in a way a good thing.
BUT, is it micro$oft washing it's hands of the problem and covering it's own arse?

whats to stop these pervs using yahoo or irc to mention 2?

Smacks of this, but at least someone is trying to do something, maybe it'll get other people thinking ..

I notice they're not closing down their paid for services ...:rolleyes:

But how many kids would be on that ??

Will it really be a deterant? Paedophiles don't seem too bothered to pay for 'certain' sites which cater for their tastes.

I've no doubt there would be a lot fewer, and therefore the MSN system could in future be seen to be harder for paedophiles to use. However I do think we are looking at a very well-spun piece of PR here, and the primary motivator is to try to get people who liked free MSN chatrooms to pay for them. Talking about eliminating paedophiles is a welcome side effect for MSN, but it is also a smokescreen for what they are really doing.

Oh come on get real I bet you'd try and close the whole internet if you could. If you dont like it don't use it

The internet is designed for communication, if you ownly want kids to have resources for homework, perhaps you could just buy an encyclopedia cd/book.

MSN messenger is fine - you need someone e-mail address to talk to them, you need to know the person to get their address, paedophiles won't just randomly cycle through email address to find a child, it would take years.

I agree with towny, Microsoft has just said his to get the paranoid british public to like them. I heard from one of the organisations who monitor this type of thing that 'disconecting contact will just cause the children to swap their details before the site goes down' thus making the problem worse.

Nope, I use it a lot, as do my kids ....

My concern is not about me, or my usage, I can regulate that myself. Children are at risk on the Net, but it has and will continue to be part of their lives. I as a parent am concerned as to who they are talking to, and where they visit.

These chat rooms were open to abuse, and have been closed down in recognition of the risk.

Get Real - I thought I already was

:D

While I can see that this might be an underhanded means of charging for a previously free service, surely charging for the use of chatrooms is good in that anyone abusing the service will be traceable via their payee details.

Also, there has been this wierd attitude to the web, that things should be free, why is that anyway?

The Internet/WWW was created to share information to a wide audience quickly and efficiently.
Won't they .... they will pose as children on sites such as Neopets etc, and slowly build up confidence..... over months and years. Email address sharing is not uncommon, but it's a faceless medium. I can trawl the internet now for @hotmail.com addresses and have tons in less than 20 minutes. Childrens email addresses can be very easy to spot.
This is a definate possibility, and would drive the problem further underground for the immediate future.

Anything that has a use is open to abuse.

Microsoft has done this to save money and lawsuits, there are tons of other places (eg. www.habbohotel.com). All microsoft has done is saved it's neck and made a bad situation worse.

No your not. You can try and do whatever in this country because our goverment always has a soft spot for do gooders. But closing chartrooms down and messenger solve's nothing. They can only do things in this country their are others you know.

This makes me sick anyway. Talking about chatrooms and them. Chatrooms used to be fun and then people think oh that sick stuff now when their mentioned

Agreed

Quite possibly, but someones got to start somewhere. Agreed that it will drive the existing chatroom users underground as such, but with no chat rooms available new users won't be attracted.

Places like habbahotel, Neopets, etc etc need to be strictly controlled to provide a safe place for kids. This is no different to sending them to school, or watching them in the garden, you need to know where they are etc.

It has to start somewhere ...

Chatroom are useful, I've used them oftem, but there need to be restrictions on their use. M$ have said they will still exist, but now you pay. Keeps the kids off them.

Anyway what ever happened for chatrooms for adults?

I never use chat rooms, just forums - but this has just occured to me.

Great, more rubbish to waste pocket money on.

NOPE,

Taking control out of this country would makes things worse. At least ISP's and so on can keep an eye on things if their over here.

Also something that really annoys me is that fact that people let this happen anyway. I have put software on my sons computer and tweaked it so I can happily leave him on the net and not worry. If some parents can't do something simple like this then WTF are they letting their kids on their for. Do they know how easy it is to get on a HARDCORE website just through a spelling mistake!!!

TUT TUT

I have often done this it's quite disturbing:eek:

Dam my bad spelling.

But it won't ... kids have mobile phones and their parents pay for them. There are too many parents who find it easier to pay up to keep the kids quiet rather than take an interest in what they're getting up to.

Defiant has a good point here ... we don't seem to agree on much in this forum ( ;) ) but p0rn really is far too easy to stumble across. The other day I was looking for sites where I could get ideas for home movie making (I have a digi-8 camera and iMovie on my Mac) and, naively perhaps, tapped 'home video' into Google. There wasn't a single non-p0rno link on the first page of results.

Hang on do Microsoft think the kids in this day and age are thick or something.

Check this out,

So you can still get on msn chat for free after that date. I'll put money on this is what the kids will do.


http://ca.msn.com/

What the MSN spokesperson said on tv this morning was that the main problem is the non monitored chat rooms that they have access to.

The monitored chat rooms are not such a problem as any problems soon get sorted out.

So it seems obvious to simply just prevent access to any non monitored chat rooms & have just the monitored ones.

Also, is this worldwide or just in the UK?
If not so, what will prevent a UK user from using the US systems?

Chat rooms CAN be very benificial and provide hours of entertainment to both adults and children.

Yes there are some problems with the perverts that prey on them, but to remove them all is a great shame.

Now all the perverts will move to yahoo etc, use overseas accessable clients and do it all unmonitored.

The kids will do the same in order to be able to use chatrooms for free.

The end result will be a short period where they all have to go and change thier nicknames etc and swap servers without a little bit of chatting, but will soon resume normal use.

I'd imagine blocking certian IP range's which I hope dont happen because I believe the internet should be open and free. Their not solving anything their just trying to be clever. Kids will find other place's to chat. many no doubt use the irc channels too. That seems to be getting more and more popular

Do you know how effective these spoftware programs are?
They are not 100% efficient, so your son isnt as protected as you may think.

The only 100% effective way is to either ban or supervise.


The way things are going I can foresee an internet age limit being made law in 3 years, dispite oposition made by prime minister Charles Kenedy.

Having worked in IT and always been into it since I was 13yrs old I tend think I have done a better job than most. Your correct though about the software thats why like I already said I have put tweaks on their too ;)

i don't see that msn closing their chatrooms is going to have any effect whatsoever......they will all just move to other chatrooms and the problem will just be moved..................what's the solution? close all chatroom and then forums??????????

Hence another reason why I think this has very ilttle to do with child protection and more to do with:

1/ making more cash out of paid-for services
2/saving cash currently spent running 'free' services
3/covering themselves so when the inevitable day comes that someone tries to sue a service provider following an appalling paedophile outrage, M$ can hold its corporate hands up and plead, 'not guilty, due dilligence, your honour.'

Sounds like you hit the nail on the head there Towny..

Its most likely just a cover up for the real intent of making it a paid for sevice, like AOL's where you have them nerds what have nothing else to do all day being in charge of the rooms.

To be onest mlud, it matters not to me. My kids will NOT be using them anyway.
Having used them in the past I know how easy it is to fool someone into thinking you are someone else. (and I dont mean I pretended to be a kid!)

Why is this HEADLINE news??

The msblast virus afected alot more number of people than paedophiles ever will, that was never HEADLINE news.

Why is the media promoting microsoft decisions so strongly - if NTL closed down something and mention the word paedophiles would it be headline news?

I agree with towny, MS has done this as a pre-emptive strike against posible lawsuits against them.

What's wrong with that? :shrug:

Will we still be able to use MSN Messenger with the chat rooms closing down?

haha funny you should mention that,

Coming Soon: MSN Messenger 6.1

And here's the bit everyone wants to hear,

I don't see why not; they are from the same company but they are different products.

As for why this is headline news - the word 'paedophile' sells newspapers. Nothing more, nothing less. :rolleyes:

I can see it now:

"in a statement earlier today the chairman of Marks & Spencers said that they will no longer produce or sell raincoats because they could be worn by paedophiles who prey on defenseless children"

Next day business news:

"Sales at marks and spencers has doubled and the sock value has trippled overnight."

If M$ are so concerned that they're doing this to "protect children", why are they closing down *all* the unmoderated groups?

There's thousands of them out there, from gardening to car to poetry discussions etc the majority of which will be of no interest to children (or paedophiles) in the slightest.

The clue comes where M$ mentions that they may re-introduce the service but *only* allowing access to credit card holders, allegedly so they know who is using the service, but what's the betting there might be a small "administrative charge".

In other words, they're losing money on this and they've found a perfect excuse to start charging for it.

1) How? I thought the chat rooms were free?

2) Most corporations do this,

3) I don't know about Microsoft, but where I work, we enforce some rules purely so if there is a problem, we can hold our hands up and say "well, we have procedures in place to prevent this" to the relevant authorities. I think a lot of companies do this.

I have to admit, I don't use the Microsoft Chat rooms, so it doesn't affect me whether they are open or closed. It would be nice for Microsoft to stop dressing up an attempt to save money as a humanitarian gesture though.

Because Microsoft's PR department thought it should be... :D

msblaster wasn't because the PR department thought it shouldn't be.. :D

Was this joke too tasteless or just not funny?

I've decided to get feedback on my wit, in an effort to improve it.

The closing of ALL unmoderated chat rooms will be because if there are any left, then everyone will move into them despite thier original purpose being for gardening or cooking discusisons etc.

See Graham's post above - they will in future run services that are not free.

After realising that it's not as easy as they thought to make money out of the internet. I will never pay for an online service while there's a free alternative, so M$ will not be getting my cash just because they pull the plug on their free service.

I don't think they have been enforcing any rules in many of these chat rooms. Given the massive and expensive job that would be, switching them off is the easier and cheaper option.

hear hear!

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.

You missing the point,


Being that when a child enters a chatrooom using this system everyone KNOWS its a child and when an Adult enters the Chatroom everone KNOWS its an adult.


AD to that there is a positive trace Route back to the individuals then you couldnt ask for it to be safer.

If market forces allow them to go off into other chatrooms then so be it but it will take a few more children lives and abductions before Parents act.

How many people Laughed at Volvos safety reputation prior to it becoming more standard in all cars?

and your idea will really impact
Yahoo chat
AOL chat
IRC
ICQ Chat
etc etc etc

The fact remains that MSN are but one small wheel in the engine of chat systems.

Yes correct,

it has nothing to do with what client is used.

How easy is it for some adult to get a 'child' ID number? 2nd of all whats wrong with adults making friends with children.

The only way you could get the info from the child would Be to take it from then or force them to give it to you.

If that ID is used on any other machine It is automatically stopped until further confirmation is given by the school which the child attends.


There is a three part Authorisation process two of which are unseen.

If someone else uses the computer then they also have to have the child present which means it would Be impractical for a Paedophille.

Besides which the location of the system is known and the telephone number from which is being used for the service.

And there is nothing wrong with Adults talking to children. But there is a difference when ADULTS are pretending to be children and this system prevents that at source.

:confused: How would the system tell??

2nd of all, someone could steal a computer

3rd of all, how does the system verify which computer and were it is?

There are countless ways around such systems and in my view they are quite overkill.

Can someone answer this?? Is the definintion of of a Paedophille 'someone who is sexually attracted to children?' or someone who actually takes such actions?

I ask because there is at least one institution (I heard on the radio) that counsels Paedophilles. Of course I do not defend their actions but I imagine the problem is a genetic factor - a bit like being gay.

My point is just because someone is a Paedophille doesn't mean they actually harm children, despite maybe wanting to.

I know the countless ways around them Ive hacked enough programs in my time to know...


Thats why in answer to your points

1)the child will have a key.

2) The Safechat system will know that the PC is being used from a different telephone number using CLIDS so it wont work if it is stolen there are systems on the market like this that prevent laptops from being used after they are stolen. Addtionally although not necessary the PC will verify the key using encryption if the key doesnt match then the key doesnt work.So the pc doesnt work.


3) The system veifys the computer because it hardware coded into the motherboard and cannot be cracked. In a similar way to the Fritz-Chip but in essence its not the fritz-chip



If the child tries to use the key on another PC it wont work because all three Identifiers have to be in place.Roaming keys will be allowed but only after registration of pin number fo use with the key.

This is true hence why in the eyes of the law of the UK there is no legal definition of the term "paedophile".

The Oxford English Dictionary offers the following definition: "a person with paedophilia, i.e. an abnormal especially sexual love of children".


The main sexual offences against children are listed below:

(i) offences under the following provisions of the Sexual Offences Act 1956:


(a) Section 1 (rape)

(b) Section 5 (intercourse with a girl under 13)

(c) Section 6 (intercourse with a girl between 13 and 16)

(d) Section 10 (incest by a man)

(e) Section 12 (buggery)

(f) Section 13 (indecency between men)

(g) Section 14 (indecent assault on a woman)

(h) Section 15 (indecent assault on a man)

(i) Section 16 (assault with intent to commit buggery)

(j) Section 28 (causing or encouraging prostitution of, intercourse with, or indecent assault on, a girl under 16)

(ii) an offence under Section 1(1) of the Indecency with Children Act 1960 (indecent conduct towards young child)

(iii) an offence under Section 54 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 (inciting a girl under 16 to have incestuous sexual intercourse)

(iv) an offence under Section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978 (indecent photographs of children)

(v) an offence under Section 170 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 (penalty for fraudulent evasion of duty etc) in relation to goods prohibited to be imported under Section 42 of the Customs Consolidation Act 1876 (prohibitions and restrictions); and

(vi) an offence under Section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (possession of indecent photographs of children).

IMO such a system will never catch on, it sounds expensive and time consuming.

a lot of this is scare mongering.....
there are millions of us that use MIRC or similar and have chatted on the net for many years and made very good friends with people...some of us run chat servers on nets and police them very well and have policys banning paedos etc etc (irc.zone.dk)and MSN is making out chat cannot be policed...they are just trying to make a new pay per use service seem safe to adults

I think Bill Gates would rather use this technology to stop piracy.:spin: :spin:

ITs on its way its call the FRitz Chip after some Sentator in America and the name ----TCPA

http://www.againsttcpa.com/what-is-tcpa.html

BTW Simple solutions dont have to be expensive.

An old friend of mine set of a company called. Myzones which offers broadband WiFi throughout Manchester.

He started off in his living room at home with a linux box which he built himself for less then £300.


AS for IRC I agree but you have to think about the type of person using MIRC and IRC channels its not normally what hese numnuts use to groom kids with because there are a larger number of intelligent users on IRC and MIRC

and for people who have computers which never go online? reading between the lines, no connection to the TCPA means no usage of the computer

I estimate that there will be a "limited" version until the TCPA is met which will then activate the rest of the software.

its all to do with saving costs, m$ looked at the current situation and the way the uk public thinks and have the perfect pr stunt, current uk public view is hatred for internet chatrooms, its not even a worlwide shutdown.

So in the future unless ip ranges are blocked the chat rooms will still be available abroad, if they do get banned then kids will either move onto other chat or use their parents credit card.

Don't trust anyone who uses credit cards for age verification purposes, its only to make money, xxx sites all use the excuse its for age verification. There are many other ways to verify age.

Hundreds of thousands of people chat everyday we maybe have 1 abduction every few months, but letting your children out to play at the park etc. is probably the same except it don't make the papers.

I have to agree, in fact a park is far more dangerous more than any chatroom

I agree too, but unfortunately, the papers seem to think any stories about the big bad internet (in any form) sell more copies than a story about a kid being abducted in a park.

you are a very higly misinformed individual.

There are many icidents of sexual abuse with children that go unreported as well.

I thik if we all ran our lives by everything printed in the papers then it would be very sad indeed.

This whole issue has been about the kids.

What about the adults? We adults lose out too. (says me being selfish..lol).

More adults will lose out than children get protected by this move.
The few children that get protected will be counteered with more getting abuse because they used other chat rooms.

The pay for stuff WILL be hacked, serial numbers will appear, accounts WILL be copied, overseas clients & servers WILL be used.
I wonder how many European people will suddenly sign on as being from the Camen Islands..

Its only a matter of time before some do gooder thinks the chat on here should be scrapped too lol

http://www.nthellworld.co.uk/chat/

No danger of that Defiant - it's never used nowadays - we are all on MSN!!! Not the chatrooms tho.

Re: Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

The SAFECHAT system doesnt work on serials. People will try to hack it but wont succeed if they are trying to pretend to be a child and that in part is the whole point.

With serial authorisation the code is in the computer with only a single point authorisation process.

This is a three and four point authorisation which means The key has to be used on that specific PC at that specifc child Address from that specifc child telephone line. (CLID)

If any one of these parameters isnt correct there is no authorisation.

Simple really.

Re: Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

Shouldn't M$ do this straight away rather than on the 15 October 2003?

Re: Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

Nahh, doing it straight away would mean they didn't have enough time to get the PR machine going..

Re: Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

Not really a reply but was suffering insomnia , bored senseless and after perusing the forum I fancied chatting but many online friends are using GCN which i am finding a very flakey bit of software, and can't say i like lycos or yahoo, and whilst perusing MSN Canada found out that UK MSN 8 Subscribers can access there chat still, definitely not the only one to find out this as there was quite a few aussie users in there too.

May have been found out by other posters so sorry if repeating something already posted. Also it seems not many over there are taking the offer of paid subscription to MSN Chat via MSN8 up, lots of unhappy bunnies over there as well as here but thats nothing new where Bill Gates and his lil empire are concerned.

Re: Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

Haven't M$ closed the chatrooms already?

Re: Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

Well I've got MSN 8 and I can't get any MSN chatrooms :(

Re: Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

Don't know if its the route i took but went www.msn.com then chose msn worldwide then canada then chat and it let me straight in full use, tho it seems not many users few busy us and canadian chat rooms.