That AOL IM cell phone thing is interesting, but the kid admits recording them and turning them into some government authority to report the pervert.
AOL DOES allow something called "recording" of IM's.
I thought that Blog post said something about IM's going to cell phones.
Point is, some way, somehow, those IM's were saved. The cell phone thing is one way. A copy and paste well hey, I can sit and type all kinds of things in Word and it's just that....me typing fiction. I can call them IM's but that doesn't mean it's so.
Someone went out of their way to save a verifiable record of those IM's.