
Sqwiggle: Someone is watching you - ericbieller
http://www.chriskranky.com/sqwiggle-someone-is-watching-you/
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bradleydwyer
I used Sqwiggle for a few months but a software update sometime late last year
made it something I refused to use.

The changes meant that:

1\. You can prevent somebody initiating a video call by setting your status to
"busy".

2\. The busy flag is removed when you are the only person in the chat room.

3\. The camera indicator is disabled when nobody else is in the chat room.

4\. You don't accept incoming video chats, they happen automatically.

Given that I mostly used Sqwiggle in a browser tab it was very easy for me to
lose track of that fact it was running. It's one of many tabs and there is no
indicator my camera is active if I'm alone. I typically have headphones in too
but don't always wear them, so there is often no audio cue that a chat just
initiated.

This is actually something that happened. I had an active call for 3.5 minutes
that I was completely unaware of with video and audio streaming to the remote
caller without my knowledge, after I had set the busy flag.

I work at home, and the ability for somebody to have a live audio/video stream
into my house without my permission is unsettling. Especially as the only
protection mechanism I have for that is to remember to terminate the
application or close that browser tab every time I walk away from the computer
or want to prevent video/audio sessions.

It's been a couple of months now since I last used Sqwiggle, so perhaps the
clearing of the busy flag has reverted back to earlier behaviour, but
ultimately I think unless I can change my profile to prevent automatic
connection of video calls I'd never be comfortable with it.

~~~
ericbieller
Hey there, Eric here from Sqwiggle. Thanks for the detailed comment! Seems
like you may have encountered a bug with busy mode. If you have it enabled, no
one should be able to initiate a conversation with you. They can, however,
"ping" you, which will allow you to choose to accept the connection. But it's
possible I mis-understood what the exact issue was, if so, feel free to
clarify :)

We definitely resonate with the general privacy concerns and are working on a
mode which will allow you to turn the camera off, which we'll have completed
very soon.

If you end up giving it another try, please let me know if you run into any
issues or have any further feedback. Thanks!

~~~
bradleydwyer
Hi Eric,

I meant to drop you guys a message a while back, but just never found a moment
to do it.

There was a redesign a few months ago, notably this was when the camera became
inactive if you were alone in the chat room. The issue with the busy state is,
prior to this software release/version the busy flag was never removed unless
you removed it or initiated a chat (after you accept the ping).

After the redesign, the busy flag was removed when any of the following
conditions occurred:

1\. You manually removed the busy flag.

2\. A video chat is initiated (you are pinged and accept the call)

3\. You became the only person in a chat room.

As I mentioned, it's been about 2 months since I last used Sqwiggle, so I'm
not sure if the above is still true.

~~~
tommoor
Bradley, we're also changing busy to be persistent across devices and sessions
in the next few weeks, I think this will help your situation.

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spectre256
Both the author of this post and the commenters here are correct for taking
note of the privacy implications of Sqwiggle, but to completely dismiss the
entire product seems to be both silly, and missing the point.

Proclaiming "I won't use Sqwiggle because then people could see me" is exactly
the same as saying "I won't work at my desk because people can see me". Both
traditional offices and Sqwiggle allow one to achieve privacy if they'd like.
For an office, you go into a conference room or something similar. To achieve
the same effect with Sqwiggle, you simply close the program or browser tab.

Sqwiggle's stated goal is to replicate the ease of determining colocated team
members' status/activity when you are not colocated. No one is insisting you
run it 24/7, just like no one insists you live your life at your desk at work.

A very strange and dismissive article overall. The paragraph starting with "I
don’t think Sqwiggle will be around long though" seemed especially cynical.

~~~
bradleydwyer
I read the article as positive and the "won't be around long" comment seemed
more directed at an acquisition rather than a failure due to lack of demand.

I don't really see my comments as silly. I work for a startup and Sqwiggle was
used exclusively while I was in my home. Apart from completely terminating the
application/tab I had no way to prevent a live video and audio stream that
happened to be able to look into my living room and pick up audio from
anywhere in my house (it's a small house).

It wasn't 24/7 but the team did have a strong insistence that it be running
while working and that is somewhere between 12 and 16 hours a day, 6 days a
week.

That's not much private time in my home for me or the rest of my family. I
liked the product and a few tweaks would probably make it acceptable to use.

Fix the busy flag clearing and allow my profile to disable auto video call
connection. The other strategy that might solve it while keeping the spirit of
instant chat would be to default to the busy state and have a timed non-busy
state. e.g.:

/Here 3H

Which disables the busy state for 3 hours.

------
izolate
My team and I tried to use Sqwiggle but kept running into problems with the
video or audio track not loading. But these bugs can be ironed out.

I have one major gripe with the concept of capturing a photo on an interval.
What if it catches me picking my nose? That could be embarrassing. Not picking
my nose is not a solution. I am a primate with fingers and I like to pick my
nose.

~~~
bradleydwyer
I'd say it caught every member of our team picking their nose at least once,
obviously with a permanent record via screenshot for posterity ;-)

------
overgard
There's nothing weird about finding a camera in your home that you only have
partial control of unsettling. If you think YOU get to decide when my webcam
is active, then I am going to refuse to install your dumb software.

------
seivan
This is slightly off topic - I get the impression Sqwiggle isn't "doge-
fooding". Could be wrong, but that's the impression. I'm hoping to be wrong
though.

~~~
ericbieller
Hmm what gave you this impression? In fact we've been using Sqwiggle daily
since our very first prorotype :) Tbh I don't think we would get half as much
done without it, we certainly wouldn't be as connected given that we're a
distributed team.

~~~
seivan
Mostly because you're stating SF as a location for dev roles :) - I guess I
was wrong. Thanks for clearing that up. Interesting...

~~~
tommoor
Ah, thanks for the note - I've changed the Angellist to clarify this :)

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MWil
wouldn't a simple motion-detected: yes flag or motionLastDetected:XX:XX:XX be
less invasive?

~~~
pdenya
As the article states, it's helpful for others to see whether or not you're on
a call or eating or whatever else.

~~~
ericbieller
There's also a personal element. It's nice to see the faces of the people you
work with throughout the day. Certainly has helped to create a tighter social
bond on our team.

------
arcameron
If you're interested in this, you might also try
[https://echoplex.us](https://echoplex.us)

~~~
X4
cool. thx for the link! Demo:
[https://chat.echoplex.us/](https://chat.echoplex.us/)

