msn

[glenis]

my niece downloaded a "robot" that her friend sent her on msn, when she talks to it ,it respond as if it were a real person who was answering ,it answers questions,knows what the capital of germany is,even speaks german,but the replies come through too quickly to be a person,as nobody types that fast ,it claims its not a virus or spyware,what exactly is it she is talking to ?

[Aquariel]

She may be talking to a basic AI that is programmed with a database of specific responses. More than likely it is one of these new viruses that attempt to get into someone's system by actually trying to converse with the user - especially when it said it wasn't a virus, that would instantly get bells ringing for me. Virus writers are trying ever more bizarre ways of getting through firewalls - I would advise to get rid of it just in case.

It could be something like this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20051209/tc_nf/40032