Gossip-seeking robots roam Net

Source: MSNBC

(http://www.msnbc.com/news/525138.asp?cp1 , January. 2001)

LONDON, Feb. 1 ‹ Virtual robots could soon be roaming the Internet to track down the source of spurious rumors or pornographic photographs.

WHETHER IT’S A speculator starting a rumor to move share prices or a pedophile supplying illegal images, RumorBot software will trawl through search engines and databases to find the source.

“The idea is to track and analyze, in real times, online newsgroups, chatrooms and lists,” Stephane Perino of Agence Virtuelle told New Scientist magazine.
       

The Geneva-based company recently launched RumorBot, which uses 44 software agents to track the source of a rumor by analyzing the time and location of each posting.
       
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