After learning how to play what I like to call “The Omegle Geo-Location Game” from some random Omegle user, I felt like I had to let the world know about such a fun way to interact with people on Omegle. After doing a little research on the internet and not finding a definitive guide I felt obligated to explain to the world how such a task could be accomplished.
While Omegle does not have the most prestigious reputation, I find that at times it can be a great way to connect with other humans without the same overhead as typical interpersonal interactions. By interacting with random people from all over the planet on Omegle, I found that I was able to gain a greater perspective of how others from around the world live.
One day shortly after connecting with a user I received a message that said, “I bet I can guess where you live.” This excited me as I knew such things were technologically possible and I quickly responded with “Only if you promise to tell me how to do it!!!”
The process of finding someones IP address on Omegle is relatively easy is due to the fact that the connection between users is a peer-to-peer connection, as explained in Omegle’s Terms of Service. Using a network protocol analyzer like Wireshark to reveal the UDP packet’s header ip address and then using a service such as Geobytes geo-location web app, the ip address is then used to determine a user’s (approximate) geographical location.
Originally I thought it would be neat to make a web application that would allow users to establish a connection to Omegle while having an integrated dashboard that allowed for geo-location services and an automatic language translationer to facilitate a greater degree of communications. I eventually gave up on this idea as it really did not seem to have much potential in the “change the world” category.
The catalyst for me making this video came during a job interview. When the subject regarding my experience with making training videos I was honest in saying that I had done not it before, but was willing to produce a sample of my abilities overnight. With that level of accountability at hand I made a few safe-for-work screen captures of my Omegle geo-location game and awoke early (hence the puffy eyes) the next day to edit and script/record the narrative.
Since making this video I have gotten both negative and positive feedback on its contents. The video currently has [insert_php]
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[/insert_php] views! The funniest comment is about how comforting this video was after someone was dealing with someone else who was playing the Omegle geo-location game. And yes, I did get the job.