*From:* <nick at webthing.com>



You seem to have missed the motivation that immediately sprang to my mind.

IRC is a powerful means of communication, used widely by the Open Source community. This - above all Linux - is MS's great enemy. But IRC is of course internet chat. The "chat is evil" FUD is aimed squarely at the open source community.

I work from home myself, in remote West Devon. My only regular contact with professional colleagues is over the 'net, notably in relevant Apache and W3C channels. If MS - with the mainstream media - can demonise internet chat, they could make life that bit harder for people like me.

Please - informed journalists such as yourself need to get the message across that kiddie-protection is a bandwagon-of-mass-FUD.

 Your article, while knocking down their pretensions with reference to history, also concentrates on precisely the subject they _want_ to plant in the public mind!