You can be sure that any story with the words “kids” and “roulette” in it is not going to end well. If your kids are pretty typical – they’re curious, adventurous, take some risks they shouldn’t (maybe because they don’t see them as risks), and they have a web cam, then you should know about a growing trend called chat roulette.

The term originally came from the web site ChatRoullette.com, created by a 17-year-old Russian student in his bedroom. But it has created a new kind of social networking which, if it takes off, could be a real threat to your kids.

ChatRoullette.com first emerged in early 2009 and was based on one simple and troubling premise. Any user with an internet connection and web cam can engage in a live web chat with a complete stranger from anywhere in the world.

The person at the other end of the camera, and maybe at the other end of the world, is selected completely at random – hence the roulette part. If as a user you’re not interested in talking to that person, you can immediately roll the dice and be connected to the next complete stranger. And the next, and the next. See the troubling path?

It’s obviously a recipe for real danger for kids. Their chats and images can be recorded and shared with millions of other users, especially troubling if your kids share inappropriate images of themselves. And the “game” is obviously irresistible to online predators.

After a lot of bad publicity, the site may be going offline permanently. But given its success – more than 1 million site visitors a day according to Tech Crunch – others are likely to follow. A site called MeetRandom.com claims to list all the popular “roulette” type sites, and lists them in order of popularity, site like SexRoulette, LolliChat, and NastySpace.

Lessons learned?

• If you haven’t heard of ChatRoullette.com and your kids have, you obviously have some important catching up to do.
• If your kids use a web cam, you might want to think about insisting they only use it in a common area in your home, where you can monitor them. Web cams are not a good idea in your kids’ bedrooms where they may be more tempted to engage in risky behavior.

Chatroulette shines Webcam where kids shouldn’t look
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10454519-238.html?tag=mncol;txt

Related posts:

1. Why Identity Protection for Kids Matters
2. Candid Kids Can Be Safe, Too
3. IN THE HEADLINES: “Sextortion” — a New Threat for Your Kids
4. IN THE HEADLINES: Intersections SVP of Operations Andy Gerry on Kids and Identity Theft
5. Reflections from a Black Hat Hackers’ Conference (Part Two)