Voice chat for teaching how to use SL?

If you wanted to have some kind - any kind - of voice chat for use in teaching how to use in Second Life, would Skype or Googletalk or Yahoo chat or other easy to use popular systems work ok, and do those allow people to detect your IP numbers or other identifying information beyond what you put into those systems?

I am aware of the existence of TeamSpeak so no need to mention it like I had never heard of it.

Almost everyone here is too afraid to reveal their voice to make any use of voice in any way.

I would use voice for helping people but I do that at my job already. And I'm payed to be patient with those people. If I had to do it for free (more than I already do for other things) I might snap and go on a rampage...[ins. Jack's rant from Fight Club here].

As for revealing my voice. People already know I'm a male, and a dork. But I'm open like that.

Yahoo Voice = User can pull your IP with packet sniffers

SKype = Decentralized p2p, less likely if not impossible.

Teamspeak = Nope. As long as you're not the server.

GoogleTalk = I'm not sure. I need to try that out.

Ventrillo = No idea. I've never played with it.

Roger Wilco = Still, no idea.

Hope that vague list helps you at all.

Ventrilo is the best I've used, and AFAIK, only the server gets each person's IP address. That being said, I think peoples' paranoia over revealing their IP address is a bit much; what can you really find out from a typical home IP address? That I'm a comcast subscriber somewhere in Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Delaware?

From a business address, you might be able to glean that I'm one of 200 employees at a company somewhere in southeastern Pennsylvania.

That's far from an address and phone number. I understand things malicious computer attacks could potentially be a problem, but these very rarely target home networks.

Just my two cents.

Regards,

-Flip

I've used Skype and Gtalk successfully in parallel with SL. As voice chat programs are rather "narrow" in what they allow, compromising your system through them is probably a bit difficult.

If you are concerned about someone getting and then misusing your IP address either you are unduely concerned or your system is very poorly protected. Outside of some obscure voice chat programs, almost all will establish a direct connection to your machine which will allow the person you are chatting with to get your IP address.

Shields Up is a good, free "white hat" site that will probe your system for vulnerabilities if you are truly concerned about intrusion via your IP address. I cannot speak for their security products should they show that you are vulnerable, as I am not familiar with them.

My concern has to do with SL account privacy, that is, a person with multiple accounts who lives in an area with few SL members is pretty much giving up alt anonymity if their IP addresses are revealed. In many cases that would ruin SL for them entirely.

SweetPrincess LaFluff with the wiggle in her walk who lives in the middle of nowhere does not want it getting out the their IP address is the same as their little used DrabMan Jonaston avatar , if you get my drift.

With IP address security, the men playing women could use their male account and not have to worry about being outed. Same for the old people playing young, and anyone else with multiple accounts one of which would be judged by them to be voice compatible and one not.

I am not worried about people tracking down where a person lives or getting access to their computer. Other people may be, but not me.

It is true that if people only used one account with the voice chat system that would only provide half the information needed to connect two accounts with one IP address. But their are other ways in which IP addresses and other identifying information is leaked, I think anyone playing a music or video file from their hard drive is broadcasting some identifying information that is readily viewable in the Debug menu in SL, isn't that right?

I sent you a notecard about something called SecondVoice, it uses an ingame object and an external program to enable voice in SL

Sexy Talk. Under developement for use exclusively with SL for over a year now. Crystal Clear Quality Sound. Totally Anonymous. Uses Yahoo's free game servers' voice ports. Easy to install(tiny) and runs with an exremely low amount of resources, unlike skype and yahoo. Check it out!

http://www.sexy-talk.org

Ack, please don't use my alt as an example, I don't want people to know about her!

That sounds like one of those 900 numbers, but on the internet. If anything holds it back, it'll be the name.

Ah, GRC. I had the good fortune to be taught by the same high school programming teacher as the guy who writes those programs. And let me tell you, that teacher knows how to write a proper program. None of this new fangled "just grab a chunk of memory, it doesn't matter how big" crap, programs were written right or you failed his class. ^.^


I was thinking the other day how great it'd be to have peer to peer voice communication built into SL. Then I thought about how few people would actually use such a service if it existed because of the old internet addage, "the internet, where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents." Hearing the voice of a beer gutted, chain smoking, 40 year old male come out of a tawny, slender female with perfect breasts (as perfect as SL allows, at least) would totally destroy interaction on SL. But still, it WOULD help for things like TeaZers University (or the various other newbie schools on SL) or one on one tech support in game from Lindens.

why do people get so hung up about their ip address ? - from my understanding in the eyes of a court of law, your IP address is concidered public knowlege.

Because people hear about crackers putting humorous headlines on CNN, or back door trojan viruses that upload program listings to some guy in the middle of who knows where and they get paranoid. Suddenly it's firewall this and proxy that, spoofers and stealth moding. I mean sheesh, it's not like just anyone can track you down to your home thanks to one IP. Your computer does not send out a beacon that reports its location (unless you fill in that information on a whois form for a domain name that points directly to your computer).

With just an IP address, the most a person can figure out is who your net provider is and where abouts you connect. And that region is pretty big, on the order of "Hi, I connect to some place in Southern Ontario!" which I'll tell you anyways in an online conversation. As a matter of fact, here, for those interested. I connect to the net via some server three hours from my house on a highway. I believe very strongly that only the highly skilled (and thus uninterested in little old me and my gameless computer) or a Bell employee (<insert canned laughter and rimshot> could find me with such information. And since my IP address will be different in a few hours anyways as my DSL modem cycles it won't matter anyways.

Voice chat would be best implemented in SL directly, by having the sims mix audio streams grid-side for every avatar nearby. Otherwise managing physical locality of speed would be a total nightmare.

The issue of 'would anybody use it' is an interesting one though. Should features be allocated priority on the basis of how many people there are living alternative lives? I guess it IS called Second Life ....

Well it just seems a shame to make a feature, especially one as yes but no as this one, that no one would end up using except a few instructors.

On the other hand I may be underestimating the sexual connotations of the feature and of the residents who would use it. o.O

I have been using Skype for a couple of months now and I absolutely love it. Seems to work flawlessly with Second Life and it's a great internet phone outside of SL.

I love Skype as well, but I can't use it at the same time as SL because my CPU is a little underpowered, and I don't have that much bandwidth to spare either.
However, you are very welcome to add me on Skype or any other chat program! My Skype handle is eggstasy and I'm a GMT user.

Hi, I'm Surina and I'm a GMT user... errr... I mean, I have Skype as well. *blush*

I would have to disagree with your statement. I have met many people who are eagar to talk

I believe that more people talk in Vent or Teamspeak then we realize.

If I were teaching a class, I would simply stream myself (in MP3) on my land.

The students wouldn't need anything special to listen and don't need to worry about being heard. It's a lot easier and faster to explain complex things to a group and field questions in your real voice, even if you're the only one speaking.

The name might not be as bad as the gray text on a black background and that the page linked, apparently the main page, doesn't describe what the product is, so far as I could see.