Microsoft helps cops catch predators

Canadian police and Microsoft have just increased the odds against online pedophiles. They've launched the "Child Exploitation Tracking System," a secure database housed at Ottawa's National Child Exploitation Coordination Center and "designed to help officers link and share huge amounts of information," the Associated Press reports. The database "contains information gathered from international sources as well as from investigating Canadian officers, allowing investigators to plug in an email address, credit-card number or even an Internet alias and see what related information may be known," the AP adds. The so far $3.7 million project is "a bit of a miracle," its originator said. It all started with a January '03 email to Bill Gates from Sgt. Paul Gillespie of the Toronto police sex-crimes unit, "asking for help in battling child pornography."