Thursday, July 15, 2010

Look, it's not like you need another reason not to use it, OK?

It seems that there are some pretty serious security problems with Chatroulette:
Boffins at the University of Colorado at Boulder and McGill University were able to show that a pre-recorded low-quality video of an attractive woman could fool the majority of participants into thinking the feed was live. The approach might be used as a prelude to phishing attacks, for example. The researchers also found it was possible to use an IP-mapping services to get a general location on another participant. A variety of man-in-the middle attacks, where hackers intercept and potentially manipulate the data stream between two participants, might also be possible.
How to put this delicately? Chatroulette has recently added automated penis-recognition technology. I'm guessing that their users aren't overly concerned about privacy.

1 comment:

MikeH. said...

Penis recognition technology!!!

So, this should be able to look beyond any attempts at disguises, like a colored contact lens, a skullie, a glue on beard or maybe dressing in drag?

"That's him!!! That's Jason Bourne!!! What's his location?"

"He's in a sixth floor men's room... in THIS building, sir!!!"

Next thing ya know, they'll be incorporating this into biometric technology. Kinda puts a whole new spin on the concept of the mark of the beast.

MikeH.