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Apple Monitoring Video Chat Connections?

LucasLand

LucasLand

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 6, 2002
759
93
New England
I've gotten word that since iChatAV video connections are sent through Apple's servers, they have the ability to actually watch and monitor people's video chats with one another. This will enable them to prevent people using them for illegal or pornographic purposes. If caught, they can cancel your mac.com account.

Even if you're not doing anything wrong, how would you feel if someone at Apple was sitting at their desk just watching you and another person having a video chat?

Just something to think about regarding this powerful new technology.
 
I doubt this is true, or at least the part about cancelling .mac accounts, apple can't dictate how you use iChat in your personal life.
 
Re: Apple Monitoring Video Chat Connections?

Originally posted by foofan
I've gotten word that since iChatAV video connections are sent through Apple's servers, they have the ability to actually watch and monitor people's video chats with one another. This will enable them to prevent people using them for illegal or pornographic purposes. If caught, they can cancel your mac.com account.

Even if you're not doing anything wrong, how would you feel if someone at Apple was sitting at their desk just watching you and another person having a video chat?

Just something to think about regarding this powerful new technology.
Click to expand...

ROFL! Post of the day :D
 
Is it true that the data is sent through their servers? What about people using AIM names?

It seems to me that having all the data go through their system rather than directly between clients would be an inefficient system.
 
And who exactly did you get this information from?

A) A friend of a friend

B) Your dad, who was delivering donuts to Apple HQ and overheard it

C) AOL chat room

D) I can't tell you, the guy would lose his job

E) All of the above

:eek: zzzzzz
 
Re: Apple Monitoring Video Chat Connections?

Originally posted by foofan
...they have the ability to actually watch and monitor people's video chats with one another. This will enable them to prevent people using them for illegal or pornographic purposes.
Click to expand...

Now *that's* a job I wouldn't want... monitoring thousands of naked men sitting in front of their computers at 2a.m.
 
Originally posted by medea
I doubt this is true, or at least the part about cancelling .mac accounts, apple can't dictate how you use iChat in your personal life.
Click to expand...

Sure they can. I highly doubt any of this is true, but if it were, it would be mentioned in the TOS... It's Apple's service, they can do whatever they want with it, within the bounds of contract law.

:)
pnw
 
But you don't need a .mac account to use iChat, so I don't think it would be fair to cancel the accounts of people who do happen to have them.
 
the more i think about the more likely I think its possible. Everyone knows there are tons of pedophiles out there contacting kids. The law catches them by pretending to be a child on the other end of the instant message. They can't do that with videochat. The only way you could prevent someone from contacting children is to be secretly watching the ongoing video chat. And if they can watch it, they can record it too.
 
I've gotten word that since iChatAV video connections are sent through Apple's servers, they have the ability to actually watch and monitor people's video chats with one another. This will enable them to prevent people using them for illegal or pornographic purposes. If caught, they can cancel your mac.com account.

Even if you're not doing anything wrong, how would you feel if someone at Apple was sitting at their desk just watching you and another person having a video chat?

Just something to think about regarding this powerful new technology.
Click to expand...
I highly doubt that is true. What about right to privacy? This simply does not make sense.
 
Re: Re: Apple Monitoring Video Chat Connections?

Originally posted by Flowbee
Now *that's* a job I wouldn't want... monitoring thousands of naked men sitting in front of their computers at 2a.m.
Click to expand...
That's the truth...and Flowbee, stop trying to v.chat with me in the middle of the night. I'm sleepin' man! ;)
 
Originally posted by macphoria
I highly doubt that is true. What about right to privacy? This simply does not make sense.
Click to expand...

Of course it doesn't make sense. For a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that if Apple was really monitoring iChat AV conversations, nobody would continue to use it. It would be a huge scandal, and Apple's reputation would be damaged permanently.
 
Find out the easy way.

Kill everything but iChat, open an AV connection, then netstat and look at the connections.

I'd do it but im at work and all my buddies are PC/Linux users...plus im too busy toying with panther.
 
I can't see it happening.
Apple is not responsible for the (mis)usage of their services. If you use iChat AV as a pornographic webcam app, Apple is not the one to blame. Like KaZaA is not responsible for the content of the shared files...
BTW, imagine youself flying around the world, and finally in some hotel you're able to get a broadband internet connection. You at last have a video connection with wife & kids, where one of 'em is very scarcely dressed..... Yeah, Apple is watching.... NO WAY.
Maybe the FBI, or CIA, or Interpol, but not Apple.... gimme a break. Ha ha.
 
Yep, not to difficult to test. I would use

lsof -i

to find out. It would tell you which application is talking over the network. Very easy to test, just let me know your aim name, I have an iSight
 
OK, let's try and correct your major misconception here about the way iChat AV works:

Your iChat AV conferences are NOT transferred through Apple's servers!

Don't believe me? Grab a copy of tcpdump (you can get it via the Fink project) and sniff your own network connection when you start up an iChat AV conference.

Here's what happens:

When you attempt to establish an audio or video conference, an initial packet containing the invitation is sent to the recipient via .mac / AIM. This contains wonderful thinks like your IP address, so that you don't need to exchange this info manually.

A response is then sent from the recipient to you via .mac/AIM. Once that's complete, then the machines use a .mac server called snatmap.mac.com to setup some sort of NAT forwarding. This is how iChat AV functions through NAT routers such as Linksys and Dlink, without having explicit portforwarding configured.

However, once all this negotiation is complete, your actual video and audio data is sent from your system to the recipient's. Apple servers are NOT involved. Think about the bandwidth costs otherwise! Apple would be hemorrhaging money faster than the iTunes Music Store could make it if it had to act as a reflector for every iChat AV conference going on out there.

Additional details as to iChat AV's protocol can be found here:

http://www.macintouch.com/ichatav.html#jul01

http://zeitblog.zeitgeist.com:8668/comments/2003-06-25

(note: When the author of the above link speaks of iChat using Apple's servers, he's referring to having to have a .mac or AIM account in order to participate).

Again, if you want to verify this yourself, get a copy of tcpdump from the Fink project (http://fink.sourceforge.net) and run something like this before you establish a connection:

tcpdump -i en0

(replace en0 with your ethernet/airport device name ... /sbin/ifconfig will help you determine this).

You'll see all the traffic going across your network, and you'll notice that once the invitation is over, nothing goes up to Apple's servers during a conference.
 
Zorkon: Great post! I read the original post and thought: What a large load of smelly stuff, well that's not exactly what I thought :)

In addition to your points, just think about the logistics of doing that kind of monitoring! What happens when iChatAV for Windows comes out? Imagine how many people would be required to monitor all the connections!

Rubbish.
 
Why would Apple cancel your .mac account if you were using iChat to porn people? What's the rationale? Apple's a pretty open-minded company.

(Yes, I just used the word "porn" as a verb. Verbing weirds language.)
 
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