5 ms·

The new kings of YouTube botting

89 points by nols 11y ago

have_faith 11y ago
The map of where the views come from is expected (Russia, India, South East Asia). The bit that I find most interesting is: > Vass says that he keeps 500views.com running by paying a monthly retainer to "a number of high-traffic websites to have them run hidden scripts." >"The script contains the YouTube link we need to increase views on..." Looking at the map, you have to assume that the high-traffic websites are specific to those regions. Otherwise you would expect IP addresses from other countries to show up more often Is there a (relatively) easy way of scraping for these malicious tags to create a catalog of what websites are hosting the malicious code? You could pay for the view boost service. Scrape the top 5,000 sites in those regions of the world and hope your bot gets roped into being part of the botnet (as you could identify the video you paid to boost). Just an idea.
- valarauca1 11y ago
  >Is there a (relatively) easy way of scraping for these malicious tags to create a catalog of what websites are hosting the malicious code? Better yet people do it for you. If you are running uBLOCK for FireFox, go into its 3rd party filters to enable most Ad/Spamware/Analytic networks depending on the filters you enabled.
seibelj 11y ago
My experience is that buying likes, views, installs, etc. works for niche products that need to rise in rankings. You rise a few spots, then organic kicks in, and you have just the edge needed to take over the competition.
- theseatoms 11y ago
  Edge, how so? Is the idea to catch competitors with their "marketing -> marketshare" guard down?
  - seibelj 11y ago
    Let's say you find some hyper-specific niche, like calculators for some obscure section of the American tax code. Very, very useful for a small amount of people. So you throw together an app in less than a day and put it on the app store. The market is so small, that there really isn't room for more than 1 app, and it's so specific, people aren't going to really bother searching around. So being the first or second app they see when they search "section XYZ tax calculator" is critical to getting any installs. As the app stores algorithms for thinly installed apps basically come to down to total installs, followed by rating, followed by recent updates, paying $5 on fiver for a hundred installs can really make a difference. Once you rise enough, people start finding you organically, they install, you rise higher, and it becomes a feedback loop. This is a contrived example, but if you can make apps and want to sling ads as a way to earn money on the side, it can really help.
dcw303 11y ago
Buying fake traffic removes the first hurdle. People are social, and instinctively don't trust something that has not been endorsed. It's like walking by an empty restaurant - you assume the food must be bad. But it doesn't get you past the second hurdle. If you have bad content, no-one is going to share it. Which means zero percent growth. Zero percent growth on top of half a million paid-for views is still zero real visitors. If you have good content and can ethically reconcile buying traffic, I guess this tactic could work. But if you can't, you need a network of people to help publicise your launch.
- z3t4 11y ago
  While I'm very aware of the social factor, I still use that heuristic. For example when deciding what software package to install, I heavily base my decision on amount of contributors and monthly downloads! (witch could be easily faked). Startup idea: Make a trusted, corruption free review site, with employed reviewers.
meeper16 11y ago
This is why I'd rather be a Google(YouTube) than facebook or twitter. Imagine all the fake accounts, likes, bots, unknown spam that are giving us the next geocities. It's simply cheapens everything about social media in general.
- assetsquared 11y ago
  Couldn't agree more. By utilising bots, you dilute the valuable analytics you could get from the impressions you actually make. The most valuable part of social media is the analytics, no matter how small the audience
- xzel 11y ago
  What is the difference between buying fake views/accounts/friends etc. or backlinking and other SEO 'tricks'? Unfortunately for them, both companies have to curate their product. For a google example, see the Rap Genius issue from awhile back: http://genius.com/Genius-founders-rap-genius-is-back-on-google-annotated http://genius.com/Genius-founders-rap-genius-is-back-on-goog...

89 points by nols 11y ago

The map of where the views come from is expected (Russia, India, South East Asia). The bit that I find most interesting is: > Vass says that he keeps 500views.com running by paying a monthly retainer to "a number of high-traffic websites to have them run hidden scripts." >"The script contains the YouTube link we need to increase views on..." Looking at the map, you have to assume that the high-traffic websites are specific to those regions. Otherwise you would expect IP addresses from other countries to show up more often Is there a (relatively) easy way of scraping for these malicious tags to create a catalog of what websites are hosting the malicious code? You could pay for the view boost service. Scrape the top 5,000 sites in those regions of the world and hope your bot gets roped into being part of the botnet (as you could identify the video you paid to boost). Just an idea.

valarauca1 11y ago
>Is there a (relatively) easy way of scraping for these malicious tags to create a catalog of what websites are hosting the malicious code? Better yet people do it for you. If you are running uBLOCK for FireFox, go into its 3rd party filters to enable most Ad/Spamware/Analytic networks depending on the filters you enabled.

seibelj 11y ago

My experience is that buying likes, views, installs, etc. works for niche products that need to rise in rankings. You rise a few spots, then organic kicks in, and you have just the edge needed to take over the competition.

theseatoms 11y ago
Edge, how so? Is the idea to catch competitors with their "marketing -> marketshare" guard down?
- seibelj 11y ago
  Let's say you find some hyper-specific niche, like calculators for some obscure section of the American tax code. Very, very useful for a small amount of people. So you throw together an app in less than a day and put it on the app store. The market is so small, that there really isn't room for more than 1 app, and it's so specific, people aren't going to really bother searching around. So being the first or second app they see when they search "section XYZ tax calculator" is critical to getting any installs. As the app stores algorithms for thinly installed apps basically come to down to total installs, followed by rating, followed by recent updates, paying $5 on fiver for a hundred installs can really make a difference. Once you rise enough, people start finding you organically, they install, you rise higher, and it becomes a feedback loop. This is a contrived example, but if you can make apps and want to sling ads as a way to earn money on the side, it can really help.

dcw303 11y ago

Buying fake traffic removes the first hurdle. People are social, and instinctively don't trust something that has not been endorsed. It's like walking by an empty restaurant - you assume the food must be bad. But it doesn't get you past the second hurdle. If you have bad content, no-one is going to share it. Which means zero percent growth. Zero percent growth on top of half a million paid-for views is still zero real visitors. If you have good content and can ethically reconcile buying traffic, I guess this tactic could work. But if you can't, you need a network of people to help publicise your launch.

z3t4 11y ago
While I'm very aware of the social factor, I still use that heuristic. For example when deciding what software package to install, I heavily base my decision on amount of contributors and monthly downloads! (witch could be easily faked). Startup idea: Make a trusted, corruption free review site, with employed reviewers.

meeper16 11y ago

This is why I'd rather be a Google(YouTube) than facebook or twitter. Imagine all the fake accounts, likes, bots, unknown spam that are giving us the next geocities. It's simply cheapens everything about social media in general.

assetsquared 11y ago
Couldn't agree more. By utilising bots, you dilute the valuable analytics you could get from the impressions you actually make. The most valuable part of social media is the analytics, no matter how small the audience
xzel 11y ago
What is the difference between buying fake views/accounts/friends etc. or backlinking and other SEO 'tricks'? Unfortunately for them, both companies have to curate their product. For a google example, see the Rap Genius issue from awhile back: http://genius.com/Genius-founders-rap-genius-is-back-on-google-annotated http://genius.com/Genius-founders-rap-genius-is-back-on-goog...