Chat Safety Guide

Chat rooms are channels on IRC servers that are used by people to communicate and chat, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Most of you think they are used by Perverts and Nerds, however they are some good places to chat out there and hopefully during this review I will provide advice on using chat rooms, which is what its all about the areas I will look at are, • Finding Chat rooms
• Personal Information
• Meeting
• Teen/Kids
• Psychologically speaking
• Faking
• Screen Names
• Scams
• Being Watched?
• Predators
• Law, Rules, Code of Conduct?
• Moderation
• Chat Lingo
• Plug-ins
• Safe Chats
• Unsafe Chats

- Finding a chatroom

You can easily find a chat room by searching for the type of chat you want in Google e.g you could search for Tech Chat, Fun Chat and xXx chat in Google and it would come with a result. And usually you can just enter a nickname and join with systems like Java chats or CGI chats (Which are just web interfaces).
Once reading this you should possibly be able to distinguish which is a good chat room and which is a bad chat room.

-Personal Information Never give out personal information fill out questionnaires or any forms online, as this could lead to many abuses. Things aren’t always as they seem, as many of you will know one of the main uses of the internet is to commit crime, with personal information people can, pretend to be you, access bank accounts, access your private data including e-mails or even come find you and harm you in some way so its always good to be Extremely careful when giving out information in a chat room or clicking links.

-Meeting

Never meet in person with anyone you have met online without Mom and/or Dad’s without someone with you, barely anyone on the internet you talk to into a chat room will tell you the complete truth and what do you have to go on they could be anyone, so stay safe!.

-Teens/Kids

Do not enter a chat room without Mom and/or Dad’s presence or supervision. Some kids and teens you meet in chat rooms may not really be kids; they may be adults with bad intentions. Remember, people may not be who they say they are, Parents make sure you try to keep tabs on who your children and teenagers are talking to. Not that any sane parent would let there child use a chatroom.

-Be aware, psychologically?

Be suspicious of anyone who tries to turn you against your parents, teachers, or friends. They may have a hidden agenda, some chatroom users are bad and try to “groom” people and get in there mind and control what you are thinking, this is mainly aimed at kids and the vulnerable but this could happen and is something you need to be aware of.

-Faking ?

Don’t be something your not. Although the Internet might feel safe, pretending to be someone else or older than you are can actually get you in a lot of trouble. Avoid the temptation as you don’t want to portrait yourself as something you’re not, seriously this can lead to many complications and probably being banned from the chatroom if you a caught.

-Screen names?

Choose your screen name carefully. Avoid using a screen name that identifies you in any way - even your gender. Most would say what’s the point in this, I would say do you really want people knowing where you live because you might choose the name “EastLondonBabee17″ or they might know your age because of your name containing your year of birth such as “2pac1988″ I would think not.
Oh and seriously avoid names that suggest you want sex male of female you may end up with 100’s of horny guys messaging you which isn’t cool, unless that’s what you want, -shrugs-.

-Scams ?

Watch out for membership applications. Some chat rooms are just cover ups for scams. Avoid giving out private information in membership applications and never give bank details or credit card information to any random website. Obviously not a good thing.

-You are being watched.

Private chat rooms do not exist. Even if you leave the public place to chat in a private room, there is no guarantee those rooms are completely private. Always be very careful what you say whenever you are online because you might be being watched by anyone, the police, moderators, vigilantes, hackers, Russian spies or anyone!

-Predators?

Keep in mind that the people you meet online may not be who they seem. Often predators are adults who pretend to be kids, girls, boys, men women, cats, dogs they will say anything if they think it will get you to talk to them. Oh and I don’t mean predator as in Predator from the films, they haven’t yet evolved to use the internet.

-Law, Rules, Code of Conduct? Remember when using chatroom you are applicable to the law that is in place in your place of origin and wherever that chatroom may be based, so don’t be silly. Also you will usually be applicable to the rules of the site/chat room you are chatting on which may come in the form of a Code of Conduct or a Rules list its always best to check this out before using a chatroom as you don’t want to upset or offend anyone, or do you? Well that’s up to you. However one main thing to remember is they have the right to remove from the service at anytime so just be careful.

-Moderation?

It’s always best to chat in places that are constantly monitored and have few people, usually what tend to happen is larger sites don’t have moderators as there are too any abusive users and they are probably making too much money off the Google ads to care. So basically to stay safe try smaller sites maybe chat rooms which just local people use your friends or chat rooms that have regular users.

- Chat Lingo

be aware when joining a chatroom you may be faced by really bad English, Abbreviations, Foreign languages or “leet speak”, chat rooms are generally associated with people who type “lyk dis a lut” which us CIAO users would find appalling, although you may make the odd mistake without MS Words spell check.

Anyway here goes users in chat rooms use many thousands of abbreviations and you will learn a new one every time you chat probably a good place to find out would be http://www.muller-godschalk.com/acronyms.html where some sado has wrote them all(well there is probably more) down for you, which is nice of him I guess.

Sadly :–( you may also be faced by similes now don’t be afraid you will usually understand what they mean as they are suppose to look like faces until people start going to far and star using ones like >#( which basically means nothing much. These are also known as Emoticons and you may have seen them in many places including MSN Messenger, Windows Hotmail and Yahoo mail. These can either be in Graphic or text form depending on the chatroom interface usually if there is a graphical interface the emoticons have been injected in so you can see the pretty pictures.

Also I will talk about 1337 or Elite speak which is generally used by nerds and can range from users saying “pwnd” or “owned” when they do something that amuses them to people tying like this “|-|3110 \/\/0r1d” generally not talking to these people will avoid confusing and make your chat experience happier.

-Plug ins.

Some chat rooms require additional software so you can access chat rooms through your web browser such as java or an active x control. Sometimes you will receive trouble with using these however if you have trouble you should just email the owner of the site and ask them what to do. However you should also be aware there are security risks when downloading software to run things on your computer. Remember if you’re not sure about something you are downloading don’t do it.

Safe interfaces I would recommend on java, Chat Space and JPIRC and on Active X MSN Chat Control. You can also connect to chat rooms through other tools that are generally thought of as safe including mIRC and ICECHAT. Which can both be found in Google, however these may require a slight amount of technical knowledge to chat with and use.

-Safe Chats

Safe chats as said above are ones fewer people use and are moderated heavily places I suggest you can get this kind of amazing service for free are.

http://www.sparkpea.net

Simply because it is heavily moderated, easy to use, has the ability to create your own rooms, is like MSN Chat in some ways and has lots of nice regulars users and staff. Other sites like this include http://www.buzzen.net, http://www.phreik.com and http://www.oacchat.com.

Yes I’m sure there is more “safe” chats our there I just don’t know them all and yes I also know a chat room can never be completely 100% dead cert safe.

-Bad Chats

Bad chats include the nasty http://www.faceparty.com chats as they are full of perverts and the terrible http://www.chat-avenue.com which is full of purvey mc pervesons. Remember generally if chat is un-moderated then you are at greater risk

-Conclusion

You enter chat rooms at your own risk and if you’re stupid or naive things you don’t like may happen to you, remember stupid things happen to stupid people. I wish you all the look with finding a nice place to chat to pass the time.

Love,

Ben.

Oachat.com are going to be offering a group service as part of there VIP Service which is similar to what was used on MSN Groups. OA VIP will soon cost £15, but this seems to look like an awesome project by the managers, something other chat sites such as Phreik have failed at in the past. OAChat has currently been leading the way in the IRCx web chat market with its new WebChat amazing many at its ease of use and stability unlike web chats seen at places like Buzzen and VSIXc.

The groups service will include most of the features MSN did including a dedicated chatroom, pictures, message boards, user permissions and My Groups. I say good luck with this project.

Cant wait to see what they come up with next why not vist http://wwww.Oachat.com today.

“The MSN Groups service has closed

As we first announced on October 23 2008, the MSN Groups service has closed.

If you would like to create a new group, we have established a partnership with Multiply - an online group and media sharing service that is tailored to the needs of larger groups. If you would like to create a small group of less than 1000 members, please visit Windows Live Groups.”

Can’t say I’m bothered that much MSN did turn into tumbleweed when they clode Paid sub and Group chat. However i do hope you have all find a new a home, do tell us about it if you have and will do our best to support your sites.

I would just like to thank everyone for being a member of the huge groups I ran and thank you to the many people who helped.

It’s easy to say I am the best groups manager ever, better then Deusbreakers ftw!

Ben

Online Groups Logo

Well today I Googling MSN Groups and it came up with this site so i had a look it’s a rather interesting site its similar to MSN Groups and they are offering support for large MSN Groups to move to them however this seems rather silly as you can’t move posts or move members due to MSN’s tightness on where groups can move.

So anyway I’ve had a look round and gives the ability to create your own site on a SubDomain or with your own Domain and you will have the option to create up to 30 groups with custom names and e-mail addresses(Like MSN groups).

It may also interest people to know that it offers a free chat service as well, which is a simple in style and ease of use and seems to work in most browsers. If youre still looking for an MSN Group Alternative it’s worth having a look and giving it a shot.

It’s not really like MSN Groups in most senses, you can’t change styles, add pages, create much etc.. but it may be suitable for some groups.

My rating for this MSN Group alternative is.

1/5

The site itself is immensely well designed, easy to use and well coded and I would say for Idea, Innovation and purpose it gets.

5/5 from me.

http://www.onlinegroups.net

Obama 08 Flashy

It’s no lie that is clearly a new era for the United States and a very Historic time. As you all know by now in 11 weeks due to a large victory in the United States election Barrack Obama will be the next president of the the second most powerful country in the world(the first being Puerto Rico which voted Obama i do believe).

Last night showed that United States previously seen by the world as a highly racist country.. well it still is in the red bits but mainly we can see there has been a switch in view for the United States.

What we hope for next is to see if there can be a change for the world led by the US which has a huge political power through through the world. In our current economic status the entire world will be once again watching the US to see what they’re going to do next and this can either go one of two ways Obama will make new a powerful decisions based on a modern world or his inexpirence will show and yet again the US will have failed to elect a suitable president… but anyones better then bush I must say.

The election has been a good one I was up all last night until 6 am watching it(I’m from the UK) and I was shocked that how much of the states had switched to democrat. McCain did a good job and may have been an equally suitable president and he gave a valiant runner up speech but we all know for change to happen a change in views was needed and that is what the democratic party has provided.

Now we are all left with the big question, did The United States make the right decision we can only wait and see…

—-

Oh and can i just say this dude is an idiot

king_hypermaniac@hotmail.com

M..wow i can’t believe who just got elected for president says:
obama is a dumb fuck
M..wow i can’t believe who just got elected for president says:
come live in america and tell us that moron
M..wow i can’t believe who just got elected for president says:
fucking piece of shit faggot

There was no need for that all i had was congralutions obama as my name

</end blurb>

The MSN Groups Move to Multiply was a complete failure looking at peoples opinions and from what I can see…

I tried it myself and the layout at Multiply was absolutely useless and barely any of the same features were offered and its completely obvious MSN Group owners have shown distaste to the groups as well as the

Low Quality Group management - No to do stuff like e-mail all members?
No Custom Pages - Only The Whats New Page?
Blogs Instead Message Boards?
The fact that it’s nothing like an MSN Group - It’s just a lot of widgets
Assistant Manager accounts not being able to move groups - For example GrapevineEdge One of MSN’s Biggest Groups
Names of people who posted older messages that were transfered linking to wrong accounts. - Click any name like ascii ones takes you no where ..
Not inviting all the members of your group to join it. - Very stupid…

The key one being the fact that it’s nothing like a group especially having no forums… i personally wont be moving any of my large groups and suggest to people considering moving there groups their to look at alternatives for a place to move there group as in the long run you will be left with a service that yes has some of your content but is completely implausible for running a community.

If MSN or Multiply had thought about this decision I do believe they would of at least asked MSN Groups users what they thought about this decision. Most MSN Group’ers have stated they would like something that atleast offers the same service as MSN Groups which Multiply does not.

In My next blog on this issue I will discuss MSN Group alternatives.

Please leave your comments on this!

This is just a starter a blog that I’m Posting as an Initial blog to get this Chat Blog rolling, I will be posting update to date information on chat related sites & products as well as random other blurbs about TC and other random information.