[Keith Hurst]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6333673.stm

Seriously has no one told these people how little time it takes to set up a new Yahoo or Hotmail ID to enable these scum to continue in chatrooms ?

Another complete waste of time and money !!

KH

[Sonic67]

Yes I've just noticed it. Maybe IP addresses might work but not chat room names or e-mails.

[Pack Dude]

I would imagine the offender would have to register any or all e-mail address, chat room names and identities and so on he/she uses. Failure to do so would be a criminal offence.

I think it would be better to ban Sex Offenders from using the internet for life.

[Singh400]

Actually I was creating a email address the other day, much much hard and complex than it used to be. Still doable in 5 minutes though.

[neilmcl]

Don't hotmail/Yahoo addresses eventually get reused. So what happens if a new hotmail or Yahoo user registers and ends up with an email addy that's previously been used and registered on this list.

[unique]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

Yes I've just noticed it. Maybe IP addresses might work but not chat room names or e-mails.

problem is people who don't have fixed IP addys. you can also use a proxy to hide the IP. they would need a combination of things

mind, they could already be wanting all of that, it's just not made clear in the news reports

whilst it might not do that much good, if they found evidence of the person avoiding the law and they thought they had done something but had little evidence to prosecute, they could do them for using unregistered details instead (the old al capone trick)

[dejongj]

I am amazed that in 2007 the politicians (and media) still demonstrate a total lack of understanding how things work and are proud shouting about it...

Absolute waste of time and money...

[GBDG1]

It's abit like asking paedophiles to register what their favorite outfit is so that they are easier to spot while walking down the street.

[Boy Named Sue]

The so-called expert in that article is a moron:

If everyone had a single internet identity for life, like a National Insurance number, this would make it far easier to track people, he said.

Oh really? In actual fact NI numbers are being handed out like candy

on 1 June it emerged that thousands of workers suspected of being illegal immigrants were given NI numbers.

Same dumb solution to everything - build a big database and track everyone, and assume that makes everything secure and safe. When all it does is give a false sense of security and people can still cheat the system, while the powers that be ignore the problem. It makes us less safe, not more