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I presume this site is created by the Chatroulette people themselves, as surely they'd be the only ones with access to the IPs of users? [Edit: Just tried Wire

I presume this site is created by the Chatroulette people themselves, as surely they'd be the only ones with access to the IPs of users? [Edit: Just tried Wireshark with chatroulette and you can see the UDP packets going to/from the other user, I guess this isn't always the case if you're both behind NAT gateways]

bugs 17y ago
I think it was found that people were directly connected or the ip address was forwarded.
python123 17y ago
Why would you think that? The domains chatroulette and chatroulettemap don't seem to be related. The real site has is own nameservers and is registered out of the UK. The map is served by Dreamhost and is registered out of Colorado. The real site was created by a talented young person. The map site was probably created by a talentless old person (sorta like the HN demographic).
travisp 17y ago
Apparently Chatroulette involves a direct connection between individuals, so it's possible to determine the IP address of the person you are connected to. For it not to be a direct connection, Chatroulette would require some pretty heavy resources to stream everyone's video.
- MichaelGG 17y ago
  As per http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/chatroulettes-founder-17-introduces-himself/?src=twt&twt=nytimesbits http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/chatroulettes-found... : "Network throughput is 7 gigabits a second." which would sort of line up with ~20K users at ~50K video streams.
swolchok 17y ago
I posted a comment to this effect here about 3 weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128322 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128322 I can confirm that the UDP stream is not always available and that I was behind a NAT during my testing.
CuriousDave 17y ago
I have an open Chatroulette session and Wireshark running at the same time. A lot of traffic is running by me in Wireshark as users connect and disconnect. What am looking for that tells me the other person's general location? Which, out of all those scrolling IPs, is the one of interest?

bugs 17y ago

I think it was found that people were directly connected or the ip address was forwarded.

python123 17y ago

Why would you think that? The domains chatroulette and chatroulettemap don't seem to be related. The real site has is own nameservers and is registered out of the UK. The map is served by Dreamhost and is registered out of Colorado. The real site was created by a talented young person. The map site was probably created by a talentless old person (sorta like the HN demographic).

travisp 17y ago

Apparently Chatroulette involves a direct connection between individuals, so it's possible to determine the IP address of the person you are connected to. For it not to be a direct connection, Chatroulette would require some pretty heavy resources to stream everyone's video.

MichaelGG 17y ago
As per http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/chatroulettes-founder-17-introduces-himself/?src=twt&twt=nytimesbits http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/chatroulettes-found... : "Network throughput is 7 gigabits a second." which would sort of line up with ~20K users at ~50K video streams.

swolchok 17y ago

I posted a comment to this effect here about 3 weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128322 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128322 I can confirm that the UDP stream is not always available and that I was behind a NAT during my testing.

CuriousDave 17y ago

I have an open Chatroulette session and Wireshark running at the same time. A lot of traffic is running by me in Wireshark as users connect and disconnect. What am looking for that tells me the other person's general location? Which, out of all those scrolling IPs, is the one of interest?