A software programmer from Wolverhampton has developed an army of 100,000 virtual robots to search internet chatrooms to track down paedophiles. Jim Wightmanhas invested £35,000 of his own money developing the virtual roving watchdogs that target suspicious chatrooms and masquerade as young users to monitor conversations. The artificial intelligence programmes, known as "bots", act exactly like humans in the way they communicate, and have the power to locate suspect users to within about 50 metres. The bots target internet users who are acting suspiciously or ask suspicious questions. Every time they discover something suspicious they report back to Mr Wightman with the location of the internet user. The 29-year-old former finance software programmer yesterday released 100,000 of the virtual robots onto the internet and is in talks with London's Metropolitan Police to see if his "netnannies" could be used by police to track down paedophiles. Mr Wightman has spent months developing the programmes and software. "We tested the artificial users on 2,000 people over 13 hours, and not one could tell they were not really human," he said. "They use information from all over the internet to come up with believable, natural answers - and it seems to work." The army of internet wardens is controlled by six main computers across the country, which are able to detect chatrooms most likely to be used by children. "I do a lot of programming for insurance companies and banks but I wanted to do something that would benefit the world socially," Mr Wightman added. "I'm outraged at the way paedophiles are able to get away with what they do, so if this new technology can help, I will be delighted. "If we can get sponsorship for what we are doing, we will be able to get more processing power and increase the artificial users we send out." Research published last month by children's charity NCH found 27 men have been jailed in the UK in the last three years for indecently assaulting children they met through the internet. Det Insp Darren Brookes, who leads the West Midlands Police Internet Investigations Unit, said anything trying to make the internet a safer place should be applauded. "We do use various forms of technology, but the key for us is education," he said. "We want to drum home the message to people of all ages about safe use of the internet." | 
