ChatRoulette is not-so-anonymous

March 10, 2010 10:38 PM

Of course lots of not-so-safe-for-work things show up on ChatRoulette. What else can you expect when you offer anonymous access to strangers' webcams? But ChatRoulette Map makes the "service" not-so-anonymous by plotting screen shots on a map based on IP addresses. (via)

And I saw someone who could be my neighbor naked and humping a stuffed raccoon

posted by nbergus (45 comments total)

Adult Friend Finder's IP-interpreting banner ads seem to think that I'm randomly in Delaware, Portland, or (hilariously) Vladivostok, so good luck with that.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:41 PM on March 10, 2010

Metafilter: someone who could be my neighbor naked and humping a stuffed raccoon
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 10:48 PM on March 10, 2010 [4 favorites]

Part of me hopes that some of the idiots who show off webcam shots of their junk wind up having it sent to their bosses email in revenge.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:49 PM on March 10, 2010

I live on the same block as the cable head end / fiber backhaul box. IP geolocation services correctly report my location to within 50 feet or so.
posted by ryanrs at 10:50 PM on March 10, 2010

Last week I took my laptop with me to the local community radio station where my dad has his show, and fired up Chatroulette to give people a behind-the-scenes look at a radio station.
While we did run into a few people who did things like demand my mom take off her clothes, we also ran into a bunch of cool people who I took on a virtual tour around the station with my laptop- one kid actually called up the studio (he must have been thirteen) and asked me questions about broadcasting for almost an hour. For all he was concerned, he was talking to Kai Ryssdahl.

If you're willing to deal with and skip over the Internet Perverts, you can actually do some really neat stuff with Chatroulette.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:51 PM on March 10, 2010 [24 favorites]

While we are on the subject, the most entertaining thing to come out of this latest media fad.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:53 PM on March 10, 2010 [7 favorites]

That was a lot duller then I expected. Also, there doesn't seem to be any way to actually link to anything. There's a big fat dong in on 72nd and 3rd in Manhattan (and, um 55 and 5th), though. First (out of like 15) girls on 3rd and 12th

(also, since when are IP address -> geolocation resolution so... granular? I always thought they were mostly just your city, or whatever.)
posted by delmoi at 10:59 PM on March 10, 2010

The heatmap thing that condenses multiple points into a number, is that part of the Google Maps API, or do I need to look elsewhere for it?
posted by pwnguin at 11:32 PM on March 10, 2010

Chatroulette is 4chan troll central. They load up a fake webcam and run a GIF image on loop. They share gifs (obviously NSFW and incredibly disgusting pictures) using this method.

The "neighbor humping a stuffed racoon" is on the second page of the gifs.
posted by amuseDetachment at 11:32 PM on March 10, 2010 [3 favorites]

pwnguin: It's not default, most people use clusterer.js (although there are more accurate ones, it's what everyone seems to use, so there's good framework support for several languages). If it's a ruby app, it's included in YM4R's Mapstraction API.
posted by amuseDetachment at 11:37 PM on March 10, 2010

So this can help me meet Jerkbeast in person? Awesome.
posted by EatTheWeak at 11:52 PM on March 10, 2010

Metafilter: someone who could be my neighbor naked and humping a stuffed raccoon in (hilariously) Vladivostok
posted by armage at 12:03 AM on March 11, 2010

Also coming back to this thread I would like to state that I have never been to Adult Friend Finder and that the banners were on other websites.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:25 AM on March 11, 2010 [5 favorites]

While we are on the subject, the most entertaining thing to come out of this latest media fad.

Minute 4:03 has a pretty good segment where Keith Olberman parodies himself.
posted by !Jim at 12:30 AM on March 11, 2010

Should be called TwatRoulette imo.

Next!
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:21 AM on March 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

That's funny. There are 7 in my city right now, 3 of which are traced to a big industrial zone which suggest that people were using chatroulette from the office, or via some remote login to the office... And guess which ones had screenshots of dicks?
posted by handee at 3:04 AM on March 11, 2010

Up here in the Seattle area, every single map point was a roughly 17 to 29 year old guy wearing a baseball cap. (I will say the Kent dude fulfilled every expectation I had about the denizens of that fine city.)

Thankfully, no dicks, well, literal ones, anyway.
posted by maxwelton at 3:31 AM on March 11, 2010

Well there goes my weekend, thanks loads. Back down to the park in my coat like the old days.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:31 AM on March 11, 2010

I found this last night and spent probably 5 minutes trying to zoom in and click on the colored, numbered dots. What are those things?
posted by DU at 4:22 AM on March 11, 2010

Metafilter: someone who could be my neighbor naked and humping a stuffed raccoon
posted by Pollomacho at 4:58 AM on March 11, 2010

They load up a fake webcam and run a GIF image on loop.

That explains all the dudes in bear costumes. I'm not creeped out by all the masturbators (fake OR real), but I WAS sort of skeeved out by the sheer number of guys who seemed to be in to dressing up like some animal.

WTG 4chan.
posted by muddgirl at 6:01 AM on March 11, 2010

You: hello
> Your partner disconnected. Reconnecting...
> Connected, feel free to talk now
You: ?
> Your partner disconnected. Reconnecting...
> Connected, feel free to talk now
> Your partner disconnected. Reconnecting...
> Connected, feel free to talk now
> Your partner disconnected. Reconnecting...
> Connected, feel free to talk now
You: hello?
> Your partner disconnected. Reconnecting...
> Connected, feel free to talk now
You: hello?
> Your partner disconnected. Reconnecting...
> Connected, feel free to talk now
> Your partner disconnected. Reconnecting...
> Connected, feel free to talk now

Great to be rejected by hordes of random young men looking for masturbation partners...
posted by Meatbomb at 6:13 AM on March 11, 2010

Yeah geolocation's not so hot.

My office comes out as being Cambridge, Manchester or London (I'm only in one of those, promise).

My home comes out as being an office complex in Sheffield, a place called Keiley (which I think is near Sheffield), London, or occasionally somewhere in Florida...
posted by sodium lights the horizon at 6:14 AM on March 11, 2010

Meatbomb : Great to be rejected by hordes of random young men looking for masturbation partners...

Getting your wang out can only increase the chances of one of them stopping to talk to you...
posted by sodium lights the horizon at 6:16 AM on March 11, 2010

This map is fascinating. Chatroulette exists because of a fiction of anonymity. The wankers think no one knows who's wanking, the lonely hearts think it's a safe outlet, and everyone enjoys the frisson of a random chat discussion with a stranger. No one understands that IP addresses are not terribly anonymous.

Well, almost no one. And this map app does a beautiful job of demonstrating just how non-anonymous you are on the Internet, even as a naked IP address. Yeah, sure, some of the addresses aren't going to be correct. But it's close enough.
posted by Nelson at 7:13 AM on March 11, 2010

Great to be rejected by hordes of random young men looking for masturbation partners...

...just like going to the bars.
posted by The Whelk at 7:40 AM on March 11, 2010 [2 favorites]

Nelson: "The wankers think no one knows who's wanking, the lonely hearts think it's a safe outlet, and everyone enjoys the frisson of a random chat discussion with a stranger. No one understands that IP addresses are not terribly anonymous."

I could also dedicate my life to trying to find out who's posting spam on my livejournal, but why? I have trouble imagining someone going through all the work of tracking down a chatroulette partner, unless that person does something illegal.
posted by roll truck roll at 7:40 AM on March 11, 2010

MetaFilter: Close enough for chatroulette.
posted by acro at 7:52 AM on March 11, 2010

No one understands that IP addresses are not terribly anonymous.

I disagree. I think people do understand that, the problem is that people don't expect anyone but chatroulette to have that ip address.
posted by devnull at 7:56 AM on March 11, 2010

im taht guy

w/ the dick
posted by cobra_high_tigers at 8:46 AM on March 11, 2010

On re-read, I think it's probably best to say most people have no idea what an IP address is. Or that simply by being online, people often have a good guess where you are to the nearest mile. Geolocation by IP address just isn't visible to people most of the time, except the occasional freaky targeted ad or guess from some website you create an account on. Whatever the case, this map makes it crystal clear to people how easy geolocation by IP can be.
posted by Nelson at 8:46 AM on March 11, 2010

That's funny. There are 7 in my city right now, 3 of which are traced to a big industrial zone which suggest that people were using chatroulette from the office, or via some remote login to the office.

When I was digging around my quadrant of the country last night, there were TWO logins geotagged as coming from what appears to be the Seattle Seahawks clubhouse inside of Qwest Field. One of them was a huge black man, the other was a huge black man with a paper bag over his head. I don't follow football, but I think it's hilarious that possibly some players are using CR from the team locker room.
posted by hippybear at 9:06 AM on March 11, 2010

Great to be rejected by hordes of random young men looking for masturbation partners...

I confess that I had some fun griefing the masturbators just by pointing the camera at the pen full of playing puppies and going on chatroulette. Most of them just immediately clicked way, if one didn't I just said ""PUPPIES!!!" to their penis and then they'd go away. Only one masturbator kept going through my saying "PUPPIES!!!" to ask if I'd turn the camera on myself, but left when I just said "PUPPIES!" again.

Lesson: relatively few men want to masturbate to puppies. I believe that this is a Good Thing.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:11 AM on March 11, 2010 [2 favorites]

I've jacked off on
the cam
that was
chatroullette

and which
you were probably
hoping
to not see

forgive me
I was so horny
good luck
I'm behind seven proxies
posted by stet at 9:23 AM on March 11, 2010

I generally give guys who expose themselves a point score and a rundown of their performance and how they stack against the people they compete with. It seems to be the last thing they're expecting. This is excellent, I wonder if I can use it to send people their results?
posted by Phalene at 9:26 AM on March 11, 2010

We'd like to advise maine.edu to stop using student's names in their hostnames.

Ya, that'd be a good idea.
posted by Mitheral at 9:45 AM on March 11, 2010

Toronto seems to have an unusual amount of female users. Also baseball caps.

And the map says they're all sitting out front of the provincial legislature.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 9:50 AM on March 11, 2010

I'm curious about if this is real or just a faked or mocked-up site.

The same pictures show up for me now as were here eight hours ago.
posted by SteveInMaine at 10:28 AM on March 11, 2010

Chatroulette is 4chan troll central. They load up a fake webcam and run a GIF image on loop. They share gifs (obviously NSFW and incredibly disgusting pictures) using this method.

On the Mac I use camtwist for video and soundflower for sound to transmit episodes of 1960's Doctor Who, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, and generally whatever random tv show I happen to be watching at the time.

Which is, you know, against the spirit of Chatroulette, but if I were using it and came across an episode of Caprica, I'd be pretty amused.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 10:30 AM on March 11, 2010

Wow, there are actually pairs of hot chicks near me. Being shocked by dicks, judging by the looks on their faces.
posted by Eideteker at 10:48 AM on March 11, 2010

I'm intrigued by how few people in the Pacific NW are using it, compared to California and the East Coast.
posted by redsparkler at 11:22 AM on March 11, 2010

We're a little pale for webcamming up here, is the thing. Hard to light us well when we're whacking off at random strangers.
posted by EatTheWeak at 12:04 PM on March 11, 2010

(I will say the Kent dude fulfilled every expectation I had about the denizens of that fine city.)

The Everett one was pretty cool, though.
posted by gurple at 12:42 PM on March 11, 2010

>On re-read, I think it's probably best to say most people have no idea what an IP address is.

Well, those of us in English-speaking countries outside the US are acutely aware of geoloc (see, to the point where we can't be bothered typing the whole word anymore), since we're reminded every time we try to follow a hulu link, or, well, basically anything.
posted by overyield at 4:30 PM on March 11, 2010

Sarah?
posted by Rhaomi at 7:02 PM on March 11, 2010 [1 favorite]