Instant Messages

[mariposarosada]

What is the name of your state?
Pennsylvania

I have a question regarding instant message conversations, particularly AOL IM, and their admissability in court. Someone has altered the content of a conversation I had with them on-line, printed it out, and is using it against me. I don't know if this person saved the log or not.

Anybody know anything about this?

[CdwJava]

It's rebuttable. They will assert that it is a word-for-word printout of the statements, and you will argue that it was not. One of you will need to present some kind of proof that it was or was not adultered to make the argument the most compelling. Otherwise it comes down to your word against the other person's.

I am not sure if AOL logs these chats or not. You might have your attorney make an inquiry with AOL on this matter, and if they DO log chats for a period of time, see how he can get a copy.

My gut instinct is that IF AOL logs these chat messages, they are saved for a very short amount of time.

- Carl

[mariposarosada]

Anyone else?

[Crazed98]

Someone I know was accused by the police of threats over AOL IM.

When the police came to his house they said they had logs of the conversation and if it continued he would be brought to court on those charges.

IDK if the cops were bluffing but they were real serious because they were police from a different town 40 min away, and cops aren't going to drive 40 min into another town just because someone said they were threatened over AOL without any real evidence.

Besides asking an attorney you can go down to your local police station. There should be an officer there that specializes in computers and maybe he can shed some light on the situation.