14 December 2007: Cyber Chat

Users of internet chatrooms are constantly being warned that the person on the other end may not be who they say they are, with paedophiles regularly posing as children to make contacts. And now, it seems, it may not even be a person.

A Russian company has come up with a computer program that, it says, can simulate flirtatious chatroom exchanges. It boasts that the program can chat up as many as 10 women at the same time and persuade them to hand over phone numbers and other information. The makers claim that "Not a single girl has yet realised that she was communicating with a computer program", and that the settings on its software can be changed to attract men.

Computer security experts say the software could be used to collect people's personal details for identity fraud, though the creators deny it was intended for that use.

SaintFM repeats the warning – be very cautious in chatrooms.