Private Chat may be discredited at Chatroulette.com
By Gina on July 14, 2010 | Phishing, private information, researcher, video camera, chat, Chatroulette
Recently researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder and McGill University announced about three kinds of attacks that could be released against Chatroulette.com. It seems like users of increasingly popular video chat site may communicate not anonymously as they think they are.
The site was originated last year by 17-year-old Russian entrepreneur Andrey Ternovskiy and become under fire . The main purpose of Chatroulette is to gather users randomly to chat with each other while they are connected to their video cameras. It is one-on-one communication website.
Researchers made a test to check site’s security. They used prerecorded video with a pretty woman and did this by making the video choppy, as if it came from a low-bandwidth network and using text-based chat, instead of audio chat. It looks like this trick worked because just one of recipients asked researcher to prove their identities. In other cases researchers were able to make people to talk about their selves and provide their private information. The fact is that people are very trustful on these social networks.
Richard Han, an associate professor with the University of Colorado, said: „The novelty and apparent intimacy of a chat session could make it easier to con people into making friending scammers on Facebook or even visiting malicious websites. If you can present an attractive persona there people start to trust the person on the other side and they lower their guard and they start to reveal information about themselves.“
Moreover, researchers also found a way to make chats less anonymous. Because Chatroulette.com backend system shares user IP addresses, researchers were able to use IP-mapping services to get a general idea of user's location.
However, Ternovskiy sees it as a no big deal thing. He commented: "I think it's an interesting piece of work, and I am thankful to the people who made it. However, I think that it would be exaggeration of some sort to look at it too seriously. You should be aware - don't trust strangers. But it shouldn't stop you from entertaining yourself.“
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