John McAuley - John is the Executive Director at Muskoka Woods.  He co-founded net accountablity software found at www.netaccountability.com

Mark Dowds - Mark has been actively involved with the discipleship and development of youth since 1980.  Mark is presently the Director of Strategic Development for Muskoka Woods Sports Resort.

Mary Vallis 
National Post 
Thursday, September 25, 2003

Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie calls Microsoft's decision to close chatrooms "groundbreaking." 

Canadian experts are applauding Microsoft's plan to shut its free chatrooms as a step to protect children from Internet predators.

Microsoft's online subsidiary, MSN, announced this week it is closing its unsupervised Internet chat services in 28 countries as of Oct. 14. The company is still offering several options in North America: In Canada, users can choose from a paid, subscription-based service and four free discussion rooms that will be actively monitored.

Chatrooms provide Internet users with relative anonymity. Messages can be sent using pseudonyms and many chatrooms are unsupervised, unregulated environments. The software giant said its decision was partly prompted by growing fears chatrooms are a place for pedophiles to target children.

"The nature of the Internet lends itself to potential abuse and misuse," said Ruth D'Souza, MSN.ca's marketing director. "But we believe that in taking this step, we are creating a more secure environment, particularly for children."

Subscribers will be more accountable for their actions because they will provide their credit card information and telephone numbers, so the company can track who is using the chat service and take action if they behave inappropriately, she said.

Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie, head of the child exploitation section of the Toronto Police Sex Crimes Unit, said the move is "groundbreaking." Parents still need to closely monitor their children when they use the Internet because they will still have access to free chatrooms offered by other companies, but MSN's decision will help police, he said.

"I think some good is going to come out of this," Det. Sgt. Gillespie said yesterday while attending the International Conference on Child Exploitation in downtown Toronto.

"Let's say we have a really big backyard and we have to search all of it. Now we've closed off a small corner of it."

Det. Sgt. Gillespie hopes other companies will follow suit. There has been no indication whether other chatroom providers will take similar action.

"Microsoft is just a tiny dot on the Internet map," said Rick Broadhead, a Canadian Internet expert. He suggested parents might want to consider a "Microsoft-only" rule for chatting online until other companies make their positions clear.

"Somebody has to take the first step. I welcome what Microsoft is doing, but I do question the impact that it's going to have and secondly, I question whether people are even going to pay for a chatroom."

Consumers can purchase MSN Chat as part of larger suites of services that cost $29.95 a year or $124.95 a year.

Profit may be part of Microsoft's motivation because the company is desperately trying to attract subscribers for its other services, Mr. Broadhead added.

But Steven Bilodeau, the Crown prosecutor who co-ordinates technology and Internet prosecutions in Alberta, stressed Microsoft's announcement is helping parents.

"Chatrooms are probably the most dangerous place for kids on the whole Internet," he said from Edmonton.

Microsoft's announcement draws parents' attention to the risks the Internet poses for their children and provides them with a safer alternative, he said.

The dangers of the Internet hit home in Alberta in March when a 37-year-old man was charged with two counts of using the Internet to lure a child into a sexual relationship. The case, the first of its kind in Alberta, involves a 13-year-old boy who was sent a video over a chat line that showed a man performing sexual acts. Police allege the man was involved in sexually explicit e-mail conversations with the boy for more than two weeks.

A Toronto cop's plea to Bill Gates

By DAVE EBNER
Saturday, September 27, 2003

TORONTO -- The veteran cop was becoming frustrated in his battle against child pornography on the Internet and needed help.

So he fired off a shot-in-the-dark e-mail to the world's richest man.

"Was I expecting Bill Gates to read it and actually respond, if it even made it to him? I would have considered that to be a bit of a miracle," Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police sex-crimes unit said in an interview yesterday. "Three weeks later, I got a call from Microsoft Canada, and they said, 'We'd like to come to talk to you about your e-mail.' It's like, 'You're kidding, right?' "

The simple e-mail, sent last January, asked Mr. Gates for resources and technical expertise. It set in motion a chain of events that has partnered the world's largest software company with the Toronto Police and provided another spark in Microsoft's effort to try to do something about the filth and danger that lurks in much of the Internet.

Redmond, Wash.-based Micrsoft, through its domestic arm Microsoft Canada in Mississauga, Ont., donated new equipment and software to the Toronto Police. The company is also working on new software to help detectives go through thousands of images of suspected child pornography on seized computers.

This week, Microsoft took another step, announcing the closing of its free on-line chat rooms. In his meetings with Microsoft, Det. Sgt. Gillespie identified such chat rooms as a major issue in the struggle to contain pornography and predatory advances against children.

Instead of the wild free-for-all that chat rooms are today, Microsoft is making the popular service part of a software package available only by credit-card purchase. The hope is to make it more difficult for people to operate on-line anonymously.

"The bad guys are winning," Det. Sgt. Gillespie said. "We're losing the race, and it's becoming pretty apparent that we better do something. If you're even just a little bit good [with computers] as a bad guy, it's pretty hard to get detected."

Det. Sgt. Gillespie, who leads a team of 11 Toronto officers, warns people not to underestimate the problem.

Research has suggested that almost all children who use the Internet are exposed to pornography at some point, and four out of five see hard-core porn. Last year, the U.S. Customs Service estimated that 100,000 Web sites peddle child pornography.

Children's trusting natures expose them to danger. More than half use instant messaging to chat with people they've met only on the Internet, according to an extensive survey by Toronto-based Environics Research Group.

Facing such varied challenges, Det. Sgt. Gillespie turned to Microsoft. Paula Knight, Microsoft Canada community affairs director, and a colleague visited police headquarters on a rainy Friday afternoon earlier this year.

"They understood there was a problem," Det. Sgt. Gillespie said. "But, like most people, they certainly had no idea of the depth. Most people have the same image, a 12-year-old on a beach frolicking or perhaps in a bathtub. That's not what we're dealing with. I showed them some images involving babies, brutally terrorized and raped. Babies in diapers. People don't get it. But after my presentation, they got it. They were very emotional and said, 'We'll do whatever we can.' "

The first meeting led to many more. Early this month, Det. Sgt. Gillespie, Chief Julian Fantino and some others joined Frank Clegg, president of Microsoft Canada, in a trip to Microsoft's head office, meeting with the company's top counsel, chief security officer and a strategy director.

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Clegg said Microsoft is realizing it has to do something.

"We tend to get excited about all the positives," he said. "We've accepted there's a role we can and should play to lead and deal with these issues."

He recalled the start of the process as Det. Sgt. Gillespie's e-mail to Mr. Gates, which was passed on to him. Mr. Clegg said Mr. Gates forwards him about one such call for help every month.

"Bill said, 'Frank, I'd like you to look at this and see if there's something we can do to help.' "

To Mr. Clegg, who has worked for the software giant for a dozen years, this project has been one of the most rewarding in which he's been involved. "I've gotten more satisfaction out of this than anything I can remember."

And the visit to Microsoft's head office has put Canadians in charge of a global effort. Mr. Clegg said Microsoft Canada is leading what the whole company is thinking on the issue, which has been made a priority, like its battle against e-mail spam.

It's personal, too, for Mr. Clegg. He has two daughters, aged 12 and 17. Recently, his older daughter was in a one-on-one chat on-line and the topic turned to sex almost immediately.

"Dad didn't want to hear any more about that!" Mr. Clegg said, encouraging parents to speak seriously with their children about the topic.

The efforts with Toronto Police are in an early stage. Mr. Clegg didn't disclose the company's investment. "We've taken a step. We'll fund it as much as we can."

The initial goal is to develop software for the Toronto Police, written using open standards that make it far more flexible than Windows, for example. This would allow the work to be used by other police forces in Canada and possibly around the world.

Det. Sgt. Gillespie is positive.

"It appears it's going to be very significant. Microsoft stepped up to the plate. They didn't have to do this."

The first tool, the new software to scan suspected child porn images, is a key. A couple of years ago, computer hardware generally supported the storage of only several hundred images. Today's computers can contain thousands, if not upwards of a million. For an officer putting together a case, that's pretty much an impossible amount to work through.

"There's the human factor," Det. Sgt. Gillespie said. "Could you assign somebody to sit at a computer and look at a million pictures of babies being raped?"

As computers get faster and storage capacity grows, the Microsoft program to comb through images becomes even more important in the fight against child pornography, Det. Sgt. Gillespie said.

"Like Bill Gates said, there's going to be more [computing] advances in the next 10 years than there has been in the last 40. We already can't handle the volume. So, basically, my e-mail said, 'Technology is obviously your area. It's not ours. We're policemen, and we need help.' "