Ever wonder if sexual predators might make use of social networking sites like MySpace? Well the answer is a big, enormous, resounding, Yes. The site, which pulls in 60 million unique users each month, and has 180 million profiles, announced just a few months ago that it had kicked 7,000 sex offenders out of the community. But yesterday the company revealed that they have actually knocked out 29,000 convicted sex offenders using the system—a number that authorities say will continue to grow. This isn’t the first scary news of this sort for the site. In an article covering the MySpace news, the Boston Herald reports that on Monday, a Virginia man pleaded guilty to kidnapping a 14-year-old girl he met through the site. But now a coalition of several state attorneys general is leading the charge to keep MySpace safe, and possibly require kids to get verifiable permission from their parents before they register on the site. Yeah, that seems like a pretty good idea.—Gregory Mone
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.


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How would they be able to identify everyone? Anyone can sign up for any username with wrong name information, ha?
The MySpace administrators would probably be able to see the IP address of the offenders. That address can be linked to the offenders' home, work, where ever they happen to be using the website. Next thing you know, cops are knocking down their doors.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. An IP only identifies the INTERNET CONNECTION someone is connecting from. If he went to a cafe, for example, his IP would change. In addition, everyone behind that router in the cafe has the same external IP.
A mistake on the previous post, it was made by me. I copied "Anomaly" into the wrong field.