MySpace Predator Caught By Code

An anonymous reader writes, "Wired News editor and former hacker Kevin Poulsen wrote a 1,000-line Perl script that checked MySpace for registered sex offenders. Sifting through the results, he manually confirmed over 700 offenders, including a serial child molester in New York actively trying to hook up with underage boys on the site, and who has now been arrested as a result. MySpace told Congress last June that it didn't have this capability." Wired News says they will publish Poulsen's code under an open-source license later this week.

Comments

Re:Don't believe it

[WilliamSChips]

Or, he could just use Python ;)

Re:I think these quotes says it all

[bill_kress]

Many kids, esp. the children of conservatives actually want to have sex with what we'd call a sexual predator. Imagine these conservative parents running around trying to shield their children from everything in the world, and the children trying harder and harder to get into trouble--drugs, gay sex, whatever.

They can't stop their determined child--nobody can--so they go to the law. This is ineffective as well since there are so many other ways to reach your goal if you're determined to piss off your parents, or just differentiate yourself from them.

I think the best solution is gradually giving responsibilities over their lives to a child. Scale it so you start when they are 5 and by the time they hit 16, they have 95% control of their lives, 100% when they are 18. Around 10 anything that won't harm them for life should probably be in their control, at 15 anything that won't kill them...

If they are going to make bad decisions, let them make the decisions when they are 7 and not 17. At 7 you are caught stealing candy and slapped on the wrist--plus you get a really useful discussion with your parents, at 17 you get aids and die.

Re:May I be the first to say...

[dsanfte]

I didn't say "registered sex offender", I said convicted child rapist. I understand the difference, but apparently the mods do not.