Trepia: A Buddy List Of Strangers

An anonymous reader writes "Trepia has released an IM client that automatically populates itself with people who happen to be around you. Something that has been done before by Apple with iChat, but Trepia claims to be 'iChat on crack' in this article featuring the software. This could have potentially revolutionary social effects..."

Comments

I can see it now

[billstr78]

WTF? You mean that 19 year old stripper is my retired next door neighbor Frank?

Amazing

[AvantLegion]

The lengths that some geeks will go to in order to avoid actual social interaction is astounding.

Kind of an interesting idea though. Although I can already imagine the pedos listing N'Sync and Lizzie McGuire as their "interests"...

"But Mom, he was my "buddy"..."

Re:Amazing

[MikeFM]

Meeting people online is a lot cheaper, safer, and easier than most real life methods. I don't like clubbing (who can afford $50/night to try to pick up drunk women who won't like you when they are sober), I don't go to school or church, I usually don't meet many people in my work as a programmer (especially single women), and most the people I hang out with are all geeks which means 95% male. I don't feel I have the time or money to invest in trying to pick women up in the old fshioned ways so online methods can be a big help.

The safety factor could be a big plus for women especially. You aren't likely to be slipped a date rape drug and find yourself tied to hotel bed while being gang raped if your meeting through the Net. Sure you have some risk when you eventually do meet the people in real life but you get some chance to screen people before going out with them.

People who think pedos are going wild online are a bit mistaken. Sure there are some but there are a lot more that are out there in real life. It'd be a lot easier to grab some brat off the street or playground than to arrange to meet them off the Net. Anything online leaves a paper trail and you can't know if the person you're talking to really is Lil Tommy or Agent Nutcracker or even Lil Tommy's parents. The majority of underage folks that get 'kidnapped' by online friends are freaky folks that are out banging anything they can anyway or at least wishing they were. Mostly horny teenagers that are wanting to get picked up.

Re:Amazing

[Negatyfus]

Meeting people online is a lot cheaper, safer, and easier than most real life methods. I don't like clubbing (who can afford $50/night to try to pick up drunk women who won't like you when they are sober), I don't go to school or church, I usually don't meet many people in my work as a programmer (especially single women), and most the people I hang out with are all geeks which means 95% male. I don't feel I have the time or money to invest in trying to pick women up in the old fshioned ways so online methods can be a big help.

Dude, you seriously need an alcohol addiction.

Re:Amazing

[MongooseCN]

I don't like clubbing who can afford $50/night...

Depends, how many seals you can take home a night?

Re:Amazing

[MikeFM]

I've been online forever too and I still disagree with you. ;)

I'm a stupid geek boy with the social skills of a turnip and even I can spot people who are full of shit. If someone can't pick out the shitheads then they probably will be hurt no matter how they go.

Besides I'm paranoid. I backtrace most the people I chat with for any length of time so that I can find out who they really are. Of course not everybody knows how to do that but it is a useful tool. I've tried to do that in real life but it takes more work. No useful IP addresses or other clues to let you trace them.

I can fool just about anybody in person. Sociopaths are very good at faking facial expressions, tones of voice, emotional responses, etc to fit their needs.

It's much harder to carry on such a dialog over the period of months without the aid of the emotional ploys you can use to distract people as in real life. It's difficult to even disguise who you are online. Even if you change your alias and try to change your style of writing and fake being someone else a good many people that know you will still recognize you. People seem to be very good at recognizing such patterns.

If people believe implausible claims without LOTS of proof then they are morons best weeded out of the genetic pool.

It's much easier to social engineer in person. Most people you can begin working on before you even open your mouth. Body language, cloths, etc are easy ploys to use.

Missing Trepia Link

[Kefabi]

Trepia link missing from article

http://www.trepia.com/

Or click here

-Kefabi

What ever happened

[Timesprout]

To joining a gym to meet people who are interested in staying in shape, joining a book club to meet people who are interested in books, joining a tiddly winks club to meet people (OK sad individuals) interested in tiddly winks?

Life is a lot more fun if you actually get out there and live it.

Hmmm

[akpcep]

In the interests of transparency and honesty I would set my interests as "hot chicks who like getting naked on cam".

Re:WIDE open to abuse

[fishbot]

It is a sad world, however, when it is necessary to judge a technological advancement by how it will be abused by perverts and child abusers.

I'm not saying your comment isn't true, as it most certainly is. It's just a shame, that's all.

The war on drugs has failed

[cperciva]

When a company claims being "on crack" as a major advantage, I think it's clear that the US war on drugs has failed miserably.

Revoltion?

[lateralus]

When I walk outside I rarely ever get excited or even mildly interested in the fact that numerous other people are in my vicinity. In fact the trend in highly populated cities is to ignore your neighbors.

I think that it was Cliff Stoll who said that computers make us disconnect from our neighbors and families. This software facilitates a society where everyone knows each other without actually having met.

I can imagine a cafe with several people chatting, only every one of them is looking into his/her computer screen utterly oblivious that they are chatting with the person beside them.

"Software for shy people - We make you new friends... so YOU don't have to!"

Rant over and out. I have to answer someone on IRC...

Re:Even more spam?

[i am lose cannon!!]

You can turn off the spam you get via MSN by setting your client to only allow messages from people on your buddy list. You're still notified when people add you to their list (and can choose to add them), but strangers not on your list can't harass you. This feature is available in Trillian, Windows Messenger, Kopete, and I *believe* Gaim (not 100% sure though).
Check the privacy options.

this is ridiculous

[leekwen]

i have no way of removing people off of my list.

and isn't it the idea to get people who are close to me? i'm in burnaby bc and i was getting people in ohio, california, new zealand... nobody at least within my own country. it was also making this god awful takka takka takka noise while doing it.

"hi where are you from? are you physically near me?"
"i doubt it, where are you?"
"burnaby, bc"
"yeah definitely in the area.. new zealand LOL!"

i'm doubting this program does anything at all, just kind of pretends it does.

What happened?

[shmuc]

If you notice, the installer obviously uses nullsoft's NSIS, but they recompiled it, and changed the banner at the bottom to "Trepia, Inc.". Isn't that a breech of GPL or whatever license NSIS is out under?

Re:Just downloaded it.

[sheol]

[Connected] There are 41 people in your area.

Male: 40
Female: 1

Something's wrong here.

Re:Just downloaded it.

[D iz a n k Meister]

This is not as hot a party as I had anticipated - Apu

Be caeful, very careful in using this software

[Anonymous Coward]

In the website of Trepia, it is mentioned "Trepia(TM) is free to use and contains no spyware or ads." But you know what: Jawed Karim, one the authors mentioned in the article, wrote another piece of code called MP3 Voyeur. Now, in MP3 Voyeur, which searches for MP3s and other media files within LANs, there is a feature that connect to his personal web server every time it was run. If it could not connect to the server, it would refuse to run! Now, coming from such an author, this tool looks a bit suspicious.

So, someone might want to fire up Ethereal and sniff those packets flying from your machines.

Re:Half Way There

[loopyfx]

I got some data off the wire, here is what I made of it after about 10 min of observation:

outgoing message:
<F><a>4181</a><b>testing out</b></F>

incoming message:
<Q><a>4181</a><b>gorgonzola</b></Q>

outgoing message:
<F>
<a>4181</a> remote uid
<b>testing out</b> message
</F>

incoming message:
<Q>
<a>4181</a> remote uid
<b>gorgonzola</b> message
</Q>

incoming member update? [0x0A between each element]
<M>
<a>4141</a> member id
<b>1054626160</b> timestamp
<c>2</c></M>
variations of <c> = 1,2

??
<N>
<a>4141</a> remote uid
</N>

login:
<C>
<a>xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx</a> my MAC
<b1>xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx</b1> my default gateway's MAC
<c>my login</c>
<d>my password, MD5'd and probably salted. 32 bytes</d>
<e>2.0</e> version?
</C>

???:
<L>
<a>0</a>
<b>1054630291</b> timestamp?
<c>2</c>
</L> ... series of <M> ...

request profile?:
<D>
<a>1498</a>
<b>1</b>
</D> ... in a series, variations of <b> = 1,2
1=full, 2=partial? ...

profile:
<O>
<a>1498</a> member id
<p>missouri</p> location
<b>1044120269</b> login time?
<d>xxxxx</d> login
<m>99</m> age
<n>F</n> sex
<g>xxx</g> first name
<h>xxxl</h> last name
<o>wardriver</o> profile data
<e>xxxx@xxxx.com</e> email
<i></i>
<j>xxxxx</j> AIM
<k></k>
<l></l>
<f>http://xxxxxxx.org</f> homepage
<r>usa</r>
<s>mo</s> state
<t></t> city
<u></u> languages?
<v></v> school?
<w></w> company?
<q></q> base64 encoded image (not always present)
</O>

Wow!!!

[autopr0n]

So now people will be able to get to know other people in the same physical place with them.

Truly revolutionary!

Beware! Trepia violates your privacy

[surstrmming]

Watch out for the click-through license agreement! The Trepia privacy policy sucks even more than their proximity algorithm:

In addition to the information entered by the user during registration, Trepia, Inc. collects information on which Wi-Fi access points are visited by each individual user. Trepia, Inc. also stores the IP addresses used by its members.

And, as if it wouldn't be enough, they also claim ownership of all materials you send through their application. Don't discuss your ideas on their chat - you give ownership to Trepia!

By submitting or entering information into the Trepia Application or the Trepia Website, or into the Trepia Service you (1) warrant that you have no rights of any kind to [your picture or text]; /.../ (2) grant Trepia, Inc. an unrestricted, perpetual, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, transmit and distribute [your picture or text] in all media, and you further agree that Trepia, Inc. is free to use any ideas, know-how, concepts, techniques or other materials you send us for any purpose.

The quoted text was found under Help->About. And did I mention that their proximity algorithm sucks duck?

Re:Half Way There

[BJH]

1054626160 timestamp

Yep, looks like it (time from the Unix epoch).

1054630291 timestamp?

Don't think so... depends on when you grabbed this capture, but I'd say it's more likely to be a session timeout of some kind.

1044120269 login time?

This is approximately 121 days prior to the two previous times, so I'd say not. Build time of the binary?