ChatAlert?
21 11 2006Australian IT has an interesting article on a new Australian software tool and service called ChatAlert! which:
employs fuzzy logic to analyse phrases, slang and speech patterns in chat and instant messaging sessions, testing them against a range of threat categories. Depending on the parameters set by parents, children will be given an onscreen warning, while parents will receive a text message to their mobile phone, or an email
I’m in two minds about this level of surveillance, but I’m sure a lot of parents will buy this tool for peace of mind while their kids are chatting. However, I thought I’d check out the company’s website and found some interesting descriptions, but I was rather concerned by the prominence of typos on their “How does ChatAlert! work?” page:
For a service that relies on locating and evaluating specific words and text I find it rather concerning that they can’t even proofread their corporate website!
Update (28/11.06, 5.25pm): As Fraser Larcombe notes in the comments, the typos are fixed.
that’s v funny. hope they read this post.
Thank you for the spellcheck, the errors are being changed as I type. We do check for these things but the odd one, or two do get through. it would be nice to say we were all perfect
but we are human after all.
Fraser, glad to be of service!
LOL! How I laughed when I saw this blog! Although I suspect that the phrase dictionary used to run the program is completely accurate as I doubt very much that they wrote it.