A 16-year old kid on IM is not a victim. Foley resigned and should have the key thrown away. That said today's 13-year olds are more knowledgeable about IM's then a lot of older folks. They would get a kick out of getting someone like Foley to go back and forth. There is another kicker. If the IM's are not direct from an ISP like AOL, they can be doctored. My guess is that the person copied off the IM and may have taken license with them to make them worse. Would a 16-year old kid do it to show off -- in a heartbeat. If you have a copy of an email someone sent, it too can be altered. A written and signed copy of a letter is good as gold. What is on the net from email to IM is worthless unless it comes fromt he ISP storage.
Foley was an idiot -- never did like him and am glad he is gone but you are so right. People are aghast and my guess is that some of this is now phoney. Why wait for facts, let's just tar and feather all Republicans. (sarcasm)
but unless and until Foley makes some claim that these IM exchanges are not from him - that they are doctored in some way - we can't go down the road saying "validate them". of course, they cannot be authenticated, the IM provider doesn't keep these logs.
Thank you. Please see my post #277.