UPDATE**** A survey released in March 2001 claims that 1 in 5 teenage girls between the ages of 13 and 17 are subjected to some form of sexual harrasment whilst online. One 13 year old girl had arranged to meet a boy of 15 she had been chatting to in chat rooms for weeks. Fortunately her mum insisted that she accompanied her on her first date. The 15 year old boy turned out to be a 50 year old man.

Stay safe- read the tutorial below and avoid the pitfalls.

Chat rooms are a favourite internet haunt of teenagers and many teenagers will spend hours chatting to like minded people. There are many variations on the chat room theme and you can usually find a chat room that will be full of people with similar interests to you. You can exchange views and ideas about your favourite subjects. Nothing dangerous here then you might think - WRONG!

How do you know that the year 14 year old girl you have struck up a conversation with is actually a 14 year old girl and not a 50 year old pedophile? Unfortunately you do not. They may know all the latest cool chat and know all about your favourite band - this is because these people are skilled in the art of deception. All pedophiles must lead double lives because what they are is unacceptable to society - some are respectable married people. They study chat rooms and learn from the language that teenagers speak so that they can converse with you without giving themselves away. 

Chat rooms are a haven for pedophiles - no longer do they have to risk going outside of their homes to hunt for victims - they can do it from the safety of their own home using aliases and anonymous browsers to protect their real identity. 

This is not theory it is fact - it is happening right now. There have been several cases in the news recently of attacks on children and adult women that have resulted from meetings in chat rooms.

These people are very patient and will chat to you for weeks and build a relationship of trust. All the time they are looking to extract your real identity and location whilst preserving their own true identity.

So - how do you keep yourself safe?

Always use an alias. When you log onto a chat room NEVER use your real name. Use a cartoon character or nonsense name. Don't even use a nickname if it is one that you are commonly known by. 

Never give out your email address - if you have to - set up a web based e mail address such as hotmail and don't use your real name to register this web based address. Armed just with your real ISP e mail address it would be possible to get your real name and address. 

Don't allow yourself to be tricked in to revealing your location in general conversation. You might be asked which school you go to or where you work. Which football team you support, which nightclub you like going to etc. All these questions would pinpoint you to an area. If you reveal your school for example you have just narrowed yourself down to 2000 people - If it is a mixed sex school then you are down to 1000 people - if you have revealed your age then you are down to 200 people - if you have revealed your Christian name then you are down to 4 people - if you have revealed any physical features - blonde hair, blue eyes 5 foot - then you have just pinpointed yourself exactly. A quick check on the school register and you have revealed your surname and home address. You are now a victim.

Another trick used by Cyber Stalkers is to tell you about this really cool web site they have seen and that you should visit. In reality this website is one they have set up and one that is not registered with any search engines. Nobody is visiting this website - apart from you. So when you visit the website they just check the logs and record the IP address of the computer that visited it. A quick look up on that IP address will reveal the Internet Service Provider. This may be all the information they need to track you. If they were more adventurous they may actually put some interesting content on the web site and entice you to register your details to get more information (about your favourite band for example) You have just unwittingly given them all the information they need. 

Parents worried about their children's safety should also read the FBI's guide for parents. I have included a copy on this site and you can access it here. 

There are actually two different kinds of chat rooms - the web based ones that are the most popular and then IRC . IRC requires software to be installed and then you connect to channels and join different chat rooms. A popular IRC client is mIRC. 

IRC (Internet Relay Channel) is the preferred method of chat by the more computer savvy. You are far more likely to find underground activity on IRC chat channels as opposed to web based chat rooms. A lot of the hacking discussion groups operate via IRC. 

From a security point of view - if you don't know what you are doing - DO NOT USE IRC. It is very easy to launch attacks against people whilst they are using IRC. It is very easy to extract your IP address - your username and your email address. It is very easy to impersonate other users and it is very easy to extract information from your machine, crash your machine and even damage your operating system to the point that you will have to do a complete reinstall. A lot of virus's spread via IRC Channels

If you absolutely must use IRC then wait for me to finish my tutorial on IRC or search the Internet for the information. It is definitely not a program for the inexperienced to use.