The majority of users behave as expected. Anonymity leads to abusive language and general silliness online. Advertisers have taken advantage of the unfiltered and unmoderated service using robotic and human zombies alike. Still others engage in cybersex. In a world where identity does not matter, sophomoric behavior is the norm and civility has no bearing.

Omegle is not only for bots, spammers, trolls, and sexters. In Asia, the service is often used to practice English and to experience Western culture; unfortunately, it is not so much Western culture but online culture that users experience. Others use the service to exchange personal information, and these are the most interesting of all.

Omegle functions on a foundation of anonymity; yet, strangers are often found exchanging contact information with each other. Why do strangers seek data about others whose identities they could not verify? Why is the ASL preamble so popular? A research group, composed in part of Omegle users, was founded to investigate this very question.

Omegle Group Chat

Group Chat is an extension of Omegle that allows users to chat with many strangers simultaneously. At its core is a panel of like-minded individuals interested in observing strangers in a group setting. The extension randomly picks up strangers from Omegle’s user pool, many of whom have joined the project. Over time, it has evolved into a community in itself.

Omegle Logger

Another branch of the project deals with strangers in their native environment. Chat logs are recorded from Omegle without interference or modification, to investigate the following questions:

• what are strangers interested in talking about? (i.e. what makes the longest conversations?)
• what are the current trends in trolling?
• how do normal strangers deal with trolls?
• how do trolls deal with trolls?
• what are the evolutionary patterns of memes?
• do any strangers wonder if they were being observed?

Anonymity is preserved to the extent that participants choose, according to the Omegle standard. Needless to say, such pristine recordings have been an invaluable resource in behavioral research.

Conclusion

While this is an ongoing study, the current data point to a general desire for recognition and society. The Internet is a wonderful tool for social interaction, but it may be a daunting prospect to navigate alone. It is natural, then, that many would shed the cover of anonymity for solidarity. Omegle is not the public washroom that founder Leif K-Brooks likened his service to be after all.

You can blame it on Chris Anderson’s book Free. After reading his book, I started kicking around the idea of what we can do that’s ‘free’. Sure, we have free bits (open-source hardware designs, available code, etc.), but we don’t have free physical widgets. Now combine that with our love of creating shear havoc (AVC, C&D letter, Portable Rotary Phone), and you get Free Day.Nobody gives away a free physical thing. There’s always a catch. So up front: you have to pay shipping. Other than that, it’s open season.

• $100 max per household
• You pay shipping
• Limit of $100,000 in giveaways for the day
• Starts 9AM MST January 7th, 2010
• Ends 11PM MST January 7th, 2010 (or when we hit $100k, whichever comes first)
• Rainchecks for popular items will be allowed

So… go grab some parts?

Totally unrelated photo of the moment, just because. May the warmth of the flame carry us through the long winter nights of finals preparation?

It is morning and I have two final exams later today back to back… and I’m slightly ill. As a result, I have been taking a lot of time off to think about random things. Today will be a disaster, but I’ll survive. I know that whenever I think of my wonderful friends. Because of you, I feel that I am not alone in the world. Because of you, I feel that I am special. Because of you, I have an audience for my silly exploits. Because of you, I can pour my mind out onto the internets. If you’re reading this, I thank you very much for sharing in my thoughts.

Sometimes I feel that I have not spent as much time with you as I could have. While I am not studying, I am your regular hacker and script monkey, instead of being useful. I might even have offended you at times when I am not feeling my best. And during the past few days I have not been keeping up at all with what’s going on around me. It is my ultimate goal to be useful to society… but how could I, if I could not even help my closest friends? As I partake of this wild life’s journey, there are those that I would not, could not forget. I hope you can forgive my selfishness.

It may sound strange, but I’m going to say this anyway: I love you and I treasure your friendship. Knowing you has made my life meaningful in so many ways, and I have grown so much because of you. I am proud to know you all.

Bark with me if you’re my dawg?

When I checked my chat bot this morning, I discovered that it was being subjected to reCAPTCHA challenges. This welcome change has drastically cut down the amount of spam seen on Omegle. While it appeared that Group Chat was no longer necessary (its original purpose was to create an oasis amidst the spam) or viable, those in my IRC channel asked for more. Knowing that Group Chat still had a place, I set out to rewrite the entire framework.

The fundamental changes are:

• the bot no longer needs to maintain tens of simultaneous connections, since the spam rate is much lower
• IRC support sits at the core of the system instead of having been added on as an afterthought
• should the bot encounter a reCAPTCHA challenge, users present in the channel will be able to solve the challenge via the reCAPTCHA API

To see Group Chat in action, feel free to join #inportb on freenode. Or if you want, you might just luck out on Omegle… Have fun out there!

You have been randomly selected to join an exclusive Omegle group chat…

The fundamental rules are the same: there is no need to reveal your identity and you may leave at any time. I hope Group Chat has been an enjoyable experience for you. Since you’re here, I might as well answer some common questions:

• Group Chat is neither part of nor endorsed by Omegle
• Yes, this is a real chat room on Omegle
• Up to around 20 people are in the chat room at once
• The chat room is powered by a proxy bot written in Python
• The script uses less than 4MB of memory and less than 40MHz of processor time
• The chat lags purely because of Omegle’s AJAX interface
• Group Chat is bridged with IRC! Join #inportb on freenode for less lag

Due to the recent proliferation of spam, I have implemented a number of spam filters, both automatic and manual, designed to keep the chat clear of junk. Here’s a sampling of the cruft caught by the filters:

** STAT:        spambots/s      22.2272497218
13317 :: bot filter – hi, 18/f/new york, wanna see my nüde video? GO HERE: hxxp://……/8hMmzE
85117 :: bot filter – hi, 20/f/florida, wanna see my naked video? GO HERE: hxxp://……/8hMmzE
67937 :: bot filter – hi, 20/f/new york, wanna see my pr0n video? GO HERE: hxxp://……/8hMmzE
54294 :: bot filter – hi, 20/f/new york, wanna see my pr0n video? GO HERE: hxxp://……/8hMmzE
83998 :: bot filter – hi, 19/f/new york, wanna see my pr0n vid? GO HERE: hxxp://……/8hMmzE

Here’s some other crud that I would not dare post on any blog… and on average, the spam rate is approximately 80%. Enjoy spam-free Group Chat!

Update: there has been more work on Group Chat.

Oh my gosh, you know my name! None of the other guys I had sex with remember my name.

Free shipping! Only on eBay.

It is now less than an hour until 16:00 UTC, but a couple of Google Wave invitations are already being passed around on Twitter. One of these has found its way onto eBay, where the highest bid was $2000 and rising. What would you do to “be the one of the 1st to sink your teeth into the beta”?

Check here for more Google Wave merchandise, including invitations and fan gear. As for me… I’ll just wait patiently for a few more hours.