chat room police

[cellar_door]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06...ce_chat_rooms/

now i understand the whole kiddy fidler side of it and that if you aint doing anything wrong there isnt anything to worry about but its the whole lack of privicy that i dont like, if they said that the police were going to monitor your phone calls there would be a national outcry

what you guys think

[Splinter]

I think this is an okay idea actually. What irritates me isn't the fact that the police may well start infinging on our privacy like this, but the fact that some idiots have taken advantage of the opportunities they've been given and abused them, which have made them worse for all of us. But if it catches sex offenders and paedophiles, or better still, puts them off, its a good thing.

But of course, theres always the danger that they'll simply force the criminals to use other means, ratehr than stopping them entirely.

[Osterbaum]

First I thought this was someting just in the US, but then saw it sai 'around the world'. I really don't think this is a good idea. It will just force the criminals to use other means, and then it will take the police a longer time to find out and learn about their new way.

[Viper Daimao]

chat room? are we talking about irc here? the question is i think, how is this different than what they can do now? the chats are public places right? how can you keep a person out, be he cop or regular joe, or IRCOP? cant IRCOPS do this already?

[Osterbaum]

Offcourse you can't keep cops put as persons, but if they are on the job it's a different thing. If this helps the catching of pedophiles though and doesent cause much other problems, I'm all for it.

[Viper Daimao]

how would it be different if they were on the job? seriously, if a cop "as a person" sees pedofilia or some other iliegal activity going on, would he not then report it? and then become "on the job"?

[Sithdarth]

The US government, with a few other countries I think, monitors every form of communication via two large banks of computers. All communications able to be intercepted, which is most of them even hard line phone calls, are routed through these and any one found to have a keyword is tagged and recorded. If the government can do this with public knowledge of it than the police should have no trouble monitoring chat rooms. I have no problem with it either. I doubt they will go chasing down people that talk about doing slightly illegal things. Besides most of the attention will be focused on chat rooms where kids go to talk. Most of us here shouldn't really be interested in chatrooms that were designed for and filled with kids in their lower teens and below. I know we have a few young ones here but the majority are hovering around the higher teens. People that don't get targeted by pedaphiles. So any chat room most people here would find interesting would be effected little or not at all.

[cellar_door]

no privicy? a war to keep people in? line looks like orwell was only twenty years out.

yeah i know thats melodramatic but i do keep seeing paralels between that book and whats going on.

its a great book though aint it gotta be the second best written

[Drakolan]

9/11 brought us the Homeland Security Office, which is so much like the Thought Police that Orwell needs to be hailed as a prophet.

[The Devil Himself]

Personally, I can't help but feel a little sorry for the police, since they'll be wading through millions of undecipherable 1337 speak to try to catch a terrorist.