Free Republic

In part I of this series, Internet Forums and Social Dynamics: Part I: Everybody is someone elseÂ’s weirdo, I observed that like-minded people cluster into groups on the internet. Using Free Republic as an example (as it is the only site I feel I have any right to talk about), I showed how peopleÂ’s reactions to other posters are based on observation of the other posterÂ’s opinion, and that the process used to evaluate other posters bears an analogy to statistical techniques used in industry. In this part, I consider some of the social tensions which occur during conversations /...

Children and teens love chat rooms. The problem is, sexual predators do, too. Parents need to wake up to how dangerous and just plain raunchy chat rooms can be. The anonymity of participants, unfiltered and unlimited access by virtually anyone, and the lack of parental supervision, make for a dangerous combination. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, two out of every five children ages 15 to 17 who are abducted fall victim in connection with internet activity. The way in which children use chat rooms makes them incredibly vulnerable to weirdos who wish to do them...

Warning sounded over 'flirting robots' by Ina Fried Those entering online dating forums risk having more than their hearts stolen. A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in Russian chat forums, according to security software firm PC Tools. The artificial intelligence of CyberLover's automated chats is good enough that victims have a tough time distinguishing the "bot" from a real potential suitor, PC Tools said. The software can work quickly too, establishing up to 10 relationships in 30 minutes, PC Tools said. It compiles a report...

When "Dateline NBC" aired its first "To Catch a Predator" segment in 2004, it made for sensational television. Program host Chris Hansen on camera confronted grown men who had been lured to a house by the prospect of sex with children. The first two segments in New York and the northern Virginia/Washington, D.C., area nabbed a firefighter, a rabbi and a teacher. For the third installment, Perverted-Justice.com, the Internet watchdog group that collaborated with "Dateline" on the "Predator" stings, asked that law enforcement be added to the mix and suggested the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, which had worked with the...

The son of Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton has been sentenced to two years probation under a plea agreement in a statutory rape case. A C Wharton III, 35, was accused of raping a 13-year-old Knox County girl he met on the Internet. He has been released from a Knox County jail where he spent four months, Knox County Special Prosecutor John Gill told WMC-TV of Memphis. “This is not to a level of defense at all, but he had some mental issues related to prescription drugs that caused him, well, contributed to his behavior,” Gill said. A C...

Man sues over Web site comments Fri Jun 30, 11:51 AM ET PITTSBURGH - A city attorney is suing the creator of a Web site that lets women dish dirt on men they claim have wronged them, saying they made defamatory statements about him. Attorney Todd J. Hollis sued because he contends two Pittsburgh-area women and other anonymous users posted items about him on http://www.dontdatehimgirl.com in which they claim he is unfaithful, among other things, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Thursday. Hollis filed the suit Thursday in Allegheny County against Tasha C. Joseph of Miami, who created the site, which bills...

My daughter wants a screen name. She says she needs to instant message her friends.   First of all, she’s only eleven. She doesn’t need to instant anything to anyone.   Secondly, she doesn’t have a computer. I’m the one who has a computer and I need it for work and the kids already think it’s ridiculous that I have 334 messages in my inbox and we don’t really have time for others tying up the computer.   And the one time I let the kids download a game from some kid friendly cartoon online site, my hard drive...

"Kiss me", "Touch me", "Feel me", "Rape me" – the invitations flashed across the photo of a scantily clad young woman on one of the most popular teen Web hangouts in the world – MySpace.com. Techno-hussies and innocent children just enjoying the latest method to socialize with their friends are falling victim because they are sharing very personal, often provocative and trashy information on MySpace.com, which is quickly becoming a sexual predator's playground. So rampant are the reports and allegations linking sex-crimes and even murder to activity on MySpace that producers at "America's Most Wanted" are looking into the...

During the course of an investigation (I am a private investigator that specializes in high-tech, also a retired cop) I inadvertanly stumbled onto this website. While my Arabic is a bit rusty, The basic points came across loud and clear. I am peeling back the wrapper on this website. I passed it off to the FBI and they didn't express a great deal of interest. Soooo... I am turning over to the Pyjahamahideen of Free Republic. Enjoy!

ARMIN MEIWES, the so-called Cannibal of Rothenburg, described to a horrified courtroom yesterday how he lit candles and laid out a white tablecloth and his best cutlery to dine on the dismembered corpse of a German software specialist. “I wanted to eat him but not to kill him,” said Meiwes, 44. The computer technician was the first to speak in the retrial in Frankfurt of one of the most grisly criminal cases in modern Germany. The victim, Bernd-Jürgen Brandes, and his future killer met over the internet, which has triggered legal confusion. Until the creation of chat rooms, it was...

The practice has become widespread undercover agents pose as children on Internet chat rooms. When adults strike up online relationships and arrange for sexual liaisons, police are waiting at the rendezvous point with handcuffs and arrest warrants. But a ruling of a federal court judge in Kansas City is calling the legality of the tactic into question. U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple acquitted Jan Helder yesterday of using the Internet to try to entice a child into sex. Helder’s attorney, J.R. Hobbs, had argued that his client didn’t break federal law because the person his client was accused of enticing...

HOUSTON -- A crackdown on chat rooms aimed at children is being felt around the world, affecting those that have nothing to do with sex, the Local 2 Troubleshooters reported Thursday. Hundreds of innocent chat rooms were taken offline by Yahoo in addition to those targeted for sex with children. Now, those innocent computer users are wondering how they will fill the massive void on the Internet. National newspapers, radio talk shows and television networks have picked up the story the Troubleshooters broke on Monday. For people in other cities, it finally shed light on why chat room screens are...

Yahoo Closes Chat Rooms After Some Used to Promote Sex With MinorsBy Greg Sandoval The Associated Press Published: Jun 22, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Reacting to angry protests from several of its top sponsors, Yahoo Inc. has pulled the plug on perhaps hundreds of chat rooms operating on its site after a media report revealed that some of the rooms were used to promote sex with minors. Companies such as PepsiCo Inc., State Farm Insurance and Georgia-Pacific Corp. stopped advertising on Yahoo after they were informed that adults were attempting to lure children into sexual encounters within some of...

Argument over faiths probed in killing of 4 Jersey City man received chat-room death threat Sunday, January 16, 2005 BY MIKE FRASSINELLI AND MARK MUELLER Star-Ledger Staff Authorities are exploring whether a religious argument in an Internet chat room led to the slaughter of a Coptic Christian couple and their two daughters in their Jersey City home, relatives of the slain family said yesterday. One of the victims, 47-year-old Hossam Armanious, spent some of his spare time in chat rooms devoted to the Egyptian religious sect, at times proselytizing and at times writing about persecution of Coptic Christians by Muslims,...

Christian family butchered in NJ -- big thread at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1321798/posts?q=1&&page=1#1  'I don't want you to join me, I want you to join bin Laden'(Paltalk connection to NJ murders?)  See thread: here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1313753/posts for information.  Four family members slain in their Jersey City, NJ home   FAMILY OF 4 SLAUGHTERED   'ISLAMIC HATE' EYED IN SLAYS(threatened for making anti-Muslim remarks online)   Slaying of 4 may be tied to (Islamic) religious extremism (NJ Christian family had throats slit)   ISLAMIC HATE' EYED IN SLAYS   Islamics suspected in multiple slaying in NJ   Tension between Copts, Muslims also immigrated    I...

A university in New York has been funded to keep tabs on IRC conversations with money channelled through the National Science Foundation by the CIA, documents have revealed. The CIA is quietly funding federal research into surveillance of Internet chatrooms as part of an effort to identify possible terrorists, newly released documents reveal. In April 2003, the CIA agreed to fund a series of research projects that the documents indicate were intended to create "new capabilities to combat terrorism through advanced technology". One of those projects is research at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., devoted to automated monitoring...

CONRAD, Mont. — Shannen Rossmiller finds early mornings are best for hunting terrorists. When it's 4 a.m. in this one-stoplight prairie town, it's 3 p.m. in, say, Karachi, Pakistan, the sweltering hours just before the evening call to prayer. That's when Rossmiller, while her husband and three children sleep, finds the Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards frequented by radical Muslims and jihad warriors are busiest. It is when Rossmiller pursues her deadly serious hobby: Citizen cyber-spy. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Internet has become sprinkled with self-proclaimed intelligence agents and freelance threat analysts like Rossmiller — ordinary...

The government certainly isn't discounting the possibility. It's taking the idea seriously enough to fund a yearlong study on chat room surveillance under an anti-terrorism program. A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute computer science professor hopes to develop mathematical models that can uncover structure within the scattershot traffic of online public forums. Chat rooms are the highly popular and freewheeling areas on the Internet where people with self-created nicknames discuss just about anything: teachers, Kafka, cute boys, politics, love, root canal. They are also places where malicious hackers have been known to trade software tools, stolen passwords and credit card numbers. The...

Paedophiles attempting to "groom" children in internet chatrooms can now be detected by a computer program. The program works by putting on a convincing impression of a young person taking part in a chatroom conversation. At the same time it analyses the behaviour of the person it is chatting with, looking for classic signs of grooming: paedophiles pose as children as they attempt to arrange meetings with the children they befriend.Called ChatNannies, the software was developed in the UK by Jim Wightman, an IT consultant from Wolverhampton in the West Midlands. It creates thousands of sub-programs, called nanniebots, which log...

So how do you get soldiers and commanders speaking different languages in a theater of war to communicate effectively and not, for example, blow each other up mistakenly? Take off the shelf instant messaging software and throw in a dose of machine translation. So says the Office of Naval Research.From the Office of Naval Research: 'Chatting' in Iraq The coalition chat line helps troops communicate United States and allied forces in Iraq face a complex environment of brutal enemies, new political entities, and vastly different cultures. The challenges are multiplied by language barriers: the Arabic of the Iraqis and the...