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YouTube's ban on “hacking techniques” threatens to shut down infosec YouTube
- aiscapehumanity 7y agoOverbearing youtube, 10 years from now if it's still a medium it may be a far-cry from an expressive and genuine platform (Even worse-so than it is now). How long until biohacking, and other things are blocked based on the same sensitivity triggers for the topic?
- olliej 7y agoDon’t worry the hatespeech will still be there, for something to be banned it needs to do something that like 80% of politicians oppose (“hacking” videos are only useful for crime, so we must stop the kids from criming), or that causes advertisers to pull out, or if the content otherwise hits their bottom line (reporting on hate crimes, privacy, tracker blocking, etc). Anything else is fine - you have to be either small target or get a large amount of media attention for them to enforce some semblance of their stated policies (which is why defcon and black hat videos haven’t been touched)
- stcredzero 7y agoOverbearing youtube, 10 years from now if it's still a medium it may be a far-cry from an expressive and genuine platform Yahoo's not the place it was in its heyday. Facebook's not the place it was in its heyday. Even Google's not the place it was 10 years ago. I don't think anyone is immune. The best you can do it to make sure the trajectory is positive. Netflix isn't the place it used to be. I think that's positive, though. How long until biohacking, and other things are blocked based on the same sensitivity triggers for the topic? All the really cool stuff should disappear from YouTube. That's just the natural order of things. They no longer want to be edgy. They want to be fat and happy off those big establishment corporate dollars. They've positioned themselves to be the next cable. That just means they want to be the current "vast wasteland." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_and_the_Public_Interest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_and_the_Public_Inte... The faster YouTube becomes the next cable, the better. The less time the public discourse spends squished under the pressing thumb of the corporate oligarchs, the better.
- no-like-no-sub 7y ago>"Be sure to hit that like button and subscribe!" When I hear this standard YouTuber meme, I always trip hard over the dislike button and never quite make it to subscribe. :^)
- realusername 7y agoThey have to say it because otherwise people don't subscribe. I know some youtubers who never did it hut had to resort to saying it because their subscriber numbers where stagnating otherwise.
- 8bitchemistry 7y agoThen there are refreshing youtube channels like "Primitive Technology" where he never says a word and manages to end up with 9.5 million subscribers...
- AndrewUnmuted 7y agoBut you know... people CAN just be ok with their subscriber numbers stagnating a bit. Whoring for likes/subscribes is desperate and it cheapens the hell out of your art. It may give you more likes/subscribes but there are other great things that come from artistic creation than the pitifully minimal effort required by the clicking of a button.
- Cederfjard 7y agoIt isn't always about art though? If more subscribers equal more views over time which in turns equals more ad revenue, then I can't blame someone who's trying to make a living for doing something that might come across as cheap to some.
- indigochill 7y agoAs I understand, it's not about the likes/subscribes, really, but that at subscriber count directly translated to more favorable monetization terms for the content creator. That is, they're basically internet buskers.
- duxup 7y ago>an expressive and genuine platform (Even worse-so than it is now) Yeah it already is hard enough to dig through the sea of YouTube personalities who mimic each other and start up with the YouTube-isms. Nothing is worse when someone you follow stars doing reaction videos, rants... YouTube drama :( I already rarely leave the handful of channels I follow. Too much garbage to dig through.
- Swizec 7y agoMy fav part is repeatedly getting recommendations for many years old videos when something like a week’s worth of new comments is uploaded every minute ... why youtube why?
- rhizome 7y agoBecause recommendation engines suuuck.
- Avamander 7y agoI've noticed older videos as well and often they're really good. Not everything new is better.
- Swizec 7y agoBut it recommends me videos I remember seeing 5 years ago that just seems unnecessary
- Cederfjard 7y agoThe point isn't to make you a more informed and well-rounded person, it's to keep you on YouTube so you see more ads. I bet "old favorites" that might make you feel nostalgic or have rewatch value (it's not a gamble, you already know it's good) makes a significant number of people stay longer.
- Swizec 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- olliej 7y agoWe should just go through and report all the defcon and black hat talks, along with most other security talks, including those by google researchers.
- Rebelgecko 7y agoI reported Google's recent video about their CTF hacking competition. We won't be safe as long as dangerous videos like that exist on Youtube.
- userbinator 7y agoWhat's next, cracking and reverse-engineering? Debugging? (Anti-authoritarian) programming? As usual, Stallman tends to be quite prescient: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html (perhaps more like "right to watch" in this context.)
- jammygit 7y agoI always think he’s mostly right, but a little too uncompromising, but then everything he says comes true. I don’t know how he predicted so far ahead at the time, it’s humbling. As a software author working at startups, am I part of the problem? I don’t understand how to make a good living without locking down the code to some extent, with few exceptions (it’s hard to found red hat)
- crankylinuxuser 7y agoI thought at first that he was a pompous ass who was out of touch and mostly wrong. And slowly, I noticed that he was still a pompous ass, but he was right. And longer I observe, I notice that he wasn't wrong, but ahead of the curve. And instead of being an ass, he was calling these issues out before they reared their ugly heads... but lo and behold they did eventually. That's why I'm a proud member of the FSF.
- User23 7y agoHe is literally a genius. The question you should be asking yourself is “why do I have to take freedom away from others to earn a living?”
- Applejinx 7y agoNo, the question you need to ask yourself is 'how small of a living can I stand?'. I make a living programming audio software that's GPL-compatible (I'm using MIT license on the grounds that nobody succeeds in the music business unless they allow themselves to be exploited). Stallman can use anything of mine, I just can't use the capital F free stuff GPL users create in exchange, but I get to feed 'em if anything I do is worth having. I do make a living, it's just a very poor and insecure living. I sleep a lot easier, though, and it's very unmistakably a 'First World' living even if it's sort of constrained. How small a living can you stand? How rich do you have to be to have 'enough', and do your 'quality of life' calculations include personal guilt over screwing people over, or not doing that? Software freedom matters to my day-to-day life, but so does the fact that my income's low enough that I qualify for Section 8 housing. Without that, I'd lose some things making it possible to be writing the free software. Can you afford to be on the side of good, or do you have to play for team evil in order to keep the doors open? If it's the latter, can you plan for a heel/face turn and execute a dramatic betrayal of Team Evil? I did (sort of). I was selling the audio software for years and merely keeping all my code proprietary (and getting sucked into the hype mechanic, more and more) and when I made my exit and went full Patreon I executed a clear, very public transition from commercial to open source, even reserving that as a threshold for the Patreon to hit. Took a major loss in revenue right away, but made that threshold pretty soon, and now I don't have to go back. But I wouldn't have been able to do it without years of exposure as a commercial developer. Just like doing an IPO or executing an acquisition strategy, you can execute a heel/face turn into Free Software if you handle it properly. You need to care about the values of it, that's part of the return for you, but I'm still seeing annual returns in excess of, say, index funds. I'm growing at about 34% a year (started out more, but that's over the last year and ignores launch) and I feel I can continue to expand at that rate through taking on more interesting (and costly) projects. Note that this is not passive, this is working capital and is continually funding new stuff I'm able to take on. Hey, if it works for Amazon… ;)
- bouncycastle 7y agoIt's like banning Karate & Judo because it teaches violence. (When it actually improves personal security/safety)
- keyle 7y agoYouTube is less and less about You.
- narrator 7y agoIt's like they've got too much content anyway, so why not just start banning stuff?
- DarkWiiPlayer 7y agoIronically, they remove the videos that people watch, not the thousands of terabytes of videos with 3 clicks in the last 6 years.
- mikro2nd 7y agoIt would be sad if they removed the videos with 3 click in the last 6 years, because those are the ones of your granddaughter, living thousands of km away, taking her first steps, or reading her first reading primer by herself. These are the things that help families stay in touch. Just because they don't attract mass clicks (and aren't intended to) does not detract from the value they have for the small number of viewers to whom they matter.
- xwdv 7y agoHas everyone forgotten that you can easily just host your own website and throw up whatever video content you want there? I can’t imagine creating a ton of educational content and then having it all depend on the whims of a single platform. This is not the end of infosec or hacking videos.
- hobs 7y agoIts much much much more expensive to host video content than anything else.
- Nuzzerino 7y agoThis time is different, because hackers are more likely to have the ability to solve this problem (even if it weren't for the fact that YT already solved it once more than a decade ago). YT probably made a big mistake here.
- sn41 7y agoIf I understand correctly, YT is able to solve it because it has huge data centers which can cache the videos at appropriate locations all around the world. Honest query: do you think an individual/small group can replicate this? Perhaps GNU can take this up as an initiative.
- quotemstr 7y agoThis ever-increasing censorship is the inevitable result of buying into the idea that speech can be "harmful" and that big tech companies have some kind of "responsibility" to remove it.
- toofy 7y ago> ...buying into the idea that speech can be “harmful”.. Speech can’t be both so powerful we must protect it at all costs and simultaneously harmless. I understand that it is incredibly important to protect free-speech but to imply it has no impact is disingenuous. We fight for it because it has power not because it is powerless.
- mrhappyunhappy 7y agoTell that to the surviving members of families who died at the hand of isis who do their recruiting on Facebook of all places.
- tomtompl 7y agothat's so shallow. One could easily counter you with "tell that to the surviving members of families who died at the hand of terrorists who walked into the europe without a right to do so"
- algaeontoast 7y agoYouTube is now officially dead to me. R I P
- whatamidoingyo 7y agoDon't know why you're downvoted. Probably because quite a few people here work for Google. I hate this downvote/upvote system so damn much.
- constmu 7y agoIt is downvoted because it is incorrect.
- sponns 7y agoWhat's incorrect? It was a personal comment? Even here we've got people who boss over others due to lack of understanding. Can't expect that from machines.
- mrhappyunhappy 7y agoIt doesn’t add anything to discussion.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- the_duke 7y agoIt is downvoted because it is a zero-effort comment that doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. This is not Reddit. (yet)
- dang 7y ago"Please don't make insinuations about astroturfing. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried, email us and we'll look at the data." "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Fudgel 7y agoOther discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20346865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20346865
- ChrisAntaki 7y ago> Yesterday, Youtube froze Kody Kinzie's longrunning Cyber Weapons Lab channel Did his channel get unbanned? Kody's website links to this active channel with its first video uploaded in Oct 2017: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgTNupxATBfWmfehv21ym-g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgTNupxATBfWmfehv21ym-g edit: Yep looks like the ban was a mistake ️ > In a subsequent comment, a YouTube spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that Cyber Weapons Lab’s channel was flagged by mistake and the videos have since been reinstated. “With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call,” the spokesperson said. “We have an appeals process in place for users, and when it’s brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.” https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/3/20681586/youtube-ban-instructional-hacking-phishing-videos-cyber-weapons-lab-strike https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/3/20681586/youtube-ban-instr...
- mastazi 7y agoIt is not just this isolated case. Youtube changed their terms and conditions in such a way that affects all educational content related to infosec, more info in the other HN thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20346865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20346865
- ChrisAntaki 7y agoSpeaking personally (obv) that's scary and if they don't change the ToS I can imagine reviewers will keep making similar mistakes
- class4behavior 7y agoTo be fair, it's reasonable to forbid instructions on how to attack specific online third-party systems, just that the phrasing of YT's policy is too ambiguous and can be extended to any educational infosec content.
- mastazi 7y agoYes I agree, the article that I linked above focuses on the ambiguity of the policy wording, interesting read.
- mastazi 7y agoI believe this is a dupe, much wider discussion in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20346865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20346865
- sponns 7y agoYep. YT is officially dead to me too.... Corporates... R.I.H!
- Razengan 7y agoEvery news about authoritarian overreach prompts some discussion about the need for decentralization. Yet, decentralization of services is moot if the underlying physical connectivity layer can still be controlled/filtered from a single point. Then there's the matter of discovering decentralized/distributed services. We have literally billions of devices capable of sending and receiving signals, including millions of independent computing devices that are powered 24/7. Do we really need centralized entities to keep our species connected?
- atemerev 7y agoRegarding content and video distribution, we already have a working decentralized platform: BitTorrent. We even have clients allowing searching and previewing videos from torrents (PopcornTime and the like). The infrastructure is already there, the only barriers are psychological at this point.
- Razengan 7y ago> the only barriers are psychological at this point. For me, the barriers are: eating up more than the file's size from my limited ISP quota, and CPU and battery usage when unplugged. The CPU and battery issues can be resolved by seeding only while charging/idle/under a specific CPU temperature. One hemisphere could serve the other while half the world sleeps every day/night. As for data caps, we again see the need for decentralizing the physical connectivity layer.
- reshie 7y agotor is one answer. of course that could be blocked but there are ways of hiding its use in general.
- wvenable 7y ago> Do we really need centralized entities to keep our species connected? Yes, because while the connected future is here, it's not evenly distributed.
- true_tuna 7y agoSo like, no more defcon talks? That’d be enough to make me switch
- toofy 7y agoAs far as I can tell, defcon hasn’t gone anywhere and the one security researcher who’s videos were taken down by mistake were promptly put back up once the researcher pointed out the mistake to youtube.
- Nuzzerino 7y agoI'm on the fence about this. Script kiddies have always been the proverbial joke, but if you ask me, this category of hackers collectively is a bigger problem for the average person. They usually can't do much damage individually, but when you have so many of them that know how to cause even a minimal amount of mayhem and distraction for others, that adds up as a burden to society. I also have no respect for hackers that have no desire to put in the time and effort toward the pursuit of becoming masters at what they do, and virtually everyone who is watching hacking tutorials on YT is just looking for a shortcut so they can hack a little bit on the side between League of Legends games. So good riddance to the videos (though not sure how much difference it will make at this point). However, the real issue here is that Google is applying changes to its censorship policies at a gradual, subtler pace, rather than deciding on a coherent principle and applying it consistently. There's too much fear that Google will continue to tighten restrictions, and that next on the chopping block will be either our favorite content or stuff we produce/upload ourselves. Nobody really knows where it ends. This is something I'm definitely not okay with, and this ban is just another example of this trend.
- mrhappyunhappy 7y agoDisagree. I found the channel to be useful and educational. For example, I knew people could crack WiFi passwords but never actually understood how until I watched null byte videos. Now I can be more vigilant about protecting my WiFi. I really hate these generalizations about these wannabe hackers being kids playing League. I’m 33 and I would venture a lot of people watching those vids have legitimate interest in exploring the ethical hacker profession. You may not get the proper education nor exposure but it’s a start. Also I feel like mischief is part of adolescence that’s required to develop interest in a more serious pursuit. As a kid I did plenty of this type of “hacking“ but on a more basic level. This in turn made me more fascinated about how things work, got me into game exploiting, which lead to virtual sales, e-commerce and ultimately a decent paying job. I’m not happy that today’s society wants to monitor and deter everything. It leaves no room for exploration, growth, mistakes and learning.
- ddingus 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jordigh 7y agoI wonder if this will give a boost to a new Peertube instance dedicated to infosec content. Seems like this should be right up infosec's people alley. Peertube uses web torrenting to distribute videos, so it should be possible to host it without needing the massive delivery infrastructure of Youtube.
- slenk 7y agoI'll gladly peer my instance to it if one comes up. I wish this had a !RemindMe
- kstrauser 7y agoMore about PeerTube: https://joinpeertube.org/en/ https://joinpeertube.org/en/ I've volunteered my instance (https://video.freeradical.zone https://video.freeradical.zone) to host infosec videos, in accordance with the theme of my Mastodon instance at https://freeradical.zone/ https://freeradical.zone/ . This is explicitly within my terms of service.
- captainredbeard 7y agoNext, they'll refer to these as "military grade software techniques" or "military grade tools".
- w8rbt 7y agoEnd to end encryption was once classified as a munition. If the data is not end to end encrypted, then it is public. Everyone should understand this.
- captainredbeard 7y agoEncryption is still treated as munitions under ITAR.
- colechristensen 7y agoGood thing we have the second amendment /snark Seriously though it is a problem that people are increasingly advocating for limiting or eliminating tools which make an individual powerful (or are ambivalent to change that give away that power)
- kgwxd 7y agoI've noticed quite a few free software enthusiast posting their content to LBRY[1]. Doesn't seem like a perfect solution for every type of video getting messed up by YouTube lately, but I think infosec could find a good home there. [1] https://lbry.com/what https://lbry.com/what
- crankylinuxuser 7y agoAbsolutely not. Its more "decentralized crypto blockchain" nonsense. Nope, nope, and just nope.
- jeanlucas 7y agoLBRY would be perfect without blockchain. As someone that talks about blockchain since 2016, I see no reason why they need a slow database
- jiggytom 7y agoCare to explain how to make a censorship resistant system without a blockchain? It's one of the best use cases for it, and everything LBRY promises would not be possible without it. https://spee.ch/a/doyouneedablockchain https://spee.ch/a/doyouneedablockchain
- jiggytom 7y agoLBRY actually has one of the most valid uses of a blockchain. Don't you see what's happening on YouTube today with demonization and censorship? No hacking videos? Really. This is the best test: https://spee.ch/a/doyouneedablockchain https://spee.ch/a/doyouneedablockchain
- resters 7y agoThis is what you’d expect a video sharing site run by a major defense contractor to do.
- scarejunba 7y agoIt's inevitable. In Fahrenheit 451, books start getting banned because every person who ever gets offended starts asking for the thing that offended them to go away and people comply. This is what happens to big targets. It's why it's important to preserve the independent host.
- darkpuma 7y agoThat's an ironic book to reference in this context, since the book had such a dim view towards video.
- scarejunba 7y agoHaha I didn't even think of that. Yes, that's pretty funny.
- PavlovsCat 7y agoNot just video: > > "And in her ears the little Seashells, the timble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming on on the shore of her unsleeping mind." > So, even as she rests, Mildred is surrounded by noise, by constant entertainment, just like she is during the day with her t.v. walls. Montag's society uses these seashells for two purposes. The first is to control information, and hence, thought and potential rebellion. If they are the ones controlling what information you get, they can tell you whatever they want, giving only one perspective, and painting a rosy picture so that people are never discontented. They also use the shells to relay important information. For example, when Montag escapes at the end, they send a message through all of the seashells for everyone to look out for him, and to turn him in if they see him. They automatically have a huge civilian army at hand, through the use of the seashells. Secondly, if people are constantly "plugged in," they don't have any spare time for their minds to be on their own. If people never have silence, they never think, and so never have the kind of discontented thought that come from meditation. > Mildred stays "tuned in" so much that she really has no mind of her own. In this sense, she is a perfect citizen of her society. I hope that these thoughts helped; good luck! from https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/fahrenheit-451-what-technology-mildred-use-go-99129 https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/fahrenheit-451-what-tec...
- Lucadg 7y agoOn the other hand everytime YT removes something interesting it makes it easier for open alternatives to grow.
- mr__y 7y agoYes and no. While it solves users/audience problem for alternative platformm, there is another barier of entry: bandwidth costs. I recommend anyone to do a simple math excercise of simple multiplication: size of 20 minute 2K video * 50'000 views * price per GB of traffic on your favourite cloud/hosting platform. To make the excercise more interesting now multiply whatever result you got by the number of videos your platform is supposed to host. Assume this number to grow each month. Also assume that some users will want 4K.
- PavlovsCat 7y agoYou can monetize from the start, and get the full cut. If the monetization doesn't work out, you can pull the plug before the costs occur. You could probably even code it so that you never serve more than you made in income. You might also say you don't get to 50k views by multiplication, but by addition. I mean, if your videos are so popular that you get 50k hits in the first minute of uploading one, your audience will between them find a way to finance you. > To make the excercise more interesting now multiply whatever result you got by the number of videos your platform is supposed to host. Multiply income by the same amount though. > Also assume that some users will want 4K. I wouldn't assume that for all types of content anyway, and certainly not for all connections. In this case, that some users don't get what they want doesn't matter to those who don't want it. Whereas YT censoring things can turn off even people who aren't interested in the censored content per se, on principle, I doubt you'll find that with "not supporting 4k, because you only got started self-hosting and making ends meet". People sometimes are supportive of people in ways they aren't of companies.
- macinjosh 7y ago"YouTube"? More like "OurTube". amirite?
- wybiral 7y agoI'm just going to shamelessly plug an open source Golang project I've been developing to stream my own videos from my YouTube channel, but in a self hosted privacy-focused way. Builtin Tor onion service support so you don't need domains or a static IP address, automatic RSS feeds, no database (the video data is read from MP4 metadata), and no JavaScript (the player is just HTML video). In terms of self-hosting, obviously it's problematic if too many people access it this way, but my experience so far is that modern video compression is really good. I can get one of my 15 minute videos at 480p in around 50mb or so. That's like loading weather.com five times. And since it's streaming the bandwidth is spread out enough to support plenty of connections (especially with Golang's IO support). Check it out: https://github.com/wybiral/tube https://github.com/wybiral/tube
- markdown 7y agoThe LockPickingLawyer, even with his 100M views, must be getting worried about this. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm9K6rby98W8JigLoZOh6FQ/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm9K6rby98W8JigLoZOh6FQ/
- bayareanative 7y agoHeck, anyone offering insider advice or education in many professions and trades should be worried: medicine, nursing, legal, engineering, aviation, maintenance (automotive, aviation, industrial and many more), physics and more.
- cf498 7y agoIts also nothing new, just look at the problems Cody'sLab had and has.
- StillBored 7y agoThe "instruction hacking.." bit at the end seems a bit out of place given the rest of the page. What it feels like is that its a poorly written attempt to ban software cracking and the computerized version of the previous "Instructional theft" ban without giving people the mental strings to discover how to get free warez and bypass things like hotel keycards, free token cards for the arcade/etc. Frankly, I'm frequently surprised by what I stumble upon on youtube.. (better article with the TOS bits in question) https://www.malwaretech.com/2019/07/youtubes-new-policy-on-hacking-tutorial-is-a-problem.html https://www.malwaretech.com/2019/07/youtubes-new-policy-on-h...
- bloaf 7y agoObviously the spirit of the law is for youtube to have a way to remove "how 2 script kiddie" videos. But the letter of the law matters, and right now the letters say they can ban just about any video discussing the details of vulnerable systems.
- StillBored 7y agoThat is true, but youtube is full of things which basically violate these principals. I will pick the second item "Extremely dangerous challenges" because its nice and safe/generic to talk about. I think everyone understands what they are talking about, but youtube has tons of instructional videos for doing things which could severely maim/kill careless or poorly trained individuals. The infamous Shanghi tower climb/etc video (83M views on just one of the versions) is actually on the tamer side of this, likely only violating a couple of the guidelines. Even, less scary are all the "this is how you run a table saw" like videos. So they have broad guidelines that don't seem to be blanket enforced.
- bloaf 7y agoI think the sentiment in this comic applies here. http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=346 http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=346 That is, even if your videos are in-the-clear currently, there is no reason Youtube couldn't decide to interpret its rules more strictly in the future. Maybe your video's genre just hasn't gotten any bad press yet.
- spermboy 7y agoFrom stallman to stalin
- tanilama 7y agowhat do they trying to achieve?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ilaksh 7y agoI hope people will support distributed alternatives like BitChute.
- kypro 7y agoBitChute is really nice. I use it quite a bit now. I've been trying out some Reddit alternatives recently too. They all get hardly any traffic, but they've reminded me how much I miss the "anything goes" culture the web had a decade ago.
- tjpnz 7y agoNow might be a good opportunity for Pornhub to offer a reskinned version of their site. They already have the infrastructure and people do host non-porn related content there.
- sterlind 7y agoFantastic idea, and honestly Pornhub's values are a good match. They're used to hosting explicit, controversial content, resisting even copyright takedowns (unfortunately), yet they do a good job of keeping outright atrocities off the platform (e.g. snuff films, child porn etc.) But how would they make money off it? Infosec expats from YouTube are probably the most likely population to use ad-block of anyone!
- tdxcbkifxx 7y agoPolitical extremists Potentially dangerous science experiments
- zhangweifang 7y agoMaybe, PornHub will be the best website for “hacking techniques” video.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cy6erlion 7y agoTime to revive the cypherpunks! We are hackers we can crack the hell out of these capitalists that are trying to shape reality or we can build our own platforms, people go where the hackers go, the internet was created by hackers lets take it back! www.gnu.org is a good place to start.
- bayareanative 7y agoCorporate, ad-supported platforms are inherently prone to arbitrary censorship... they always have been and always will be. If you want freedom, viewer/donation-supported distribution not tied to corporate interests is the only way to go. But, you have to get someone to pay or it all comes crashing down.
- l33tbro 7y agoCan anyone else advise of some other infosec channels like Null Byte? I want a chance to binge some of this stuff in case they disappear.
- xupybd 7y agoIf there is any group capable of finding a new home and thriving it's the infosec crowd. This is another move from YouTube to limit their content to more advertising friendly genres. I don't like it but it gives me hope there may be some competitors rise up in that space.
- foobar_ 7y agoBanning is the new book burning.
- charliebrownau 7y agoHow many times do individuals have to keep getting Content removed Free Speech labeled as "hate speech" Truth censored Exposing Mainstream system Exposing corporations for people to FINALLY be willing to use actual free speech platforms for content
- charliebrownau 7y agoGday Platforms that censor speech List :- * Facebook * Twitter * Google & Youtube * TUMBLR * Pateron * Stripe * Paypal * Twitch * Spotify * Apple * Sony * pin interest * LinkedIn * Mailchimp * Wordpress * mastodon * azure * Mastercard * Godaddy * MEDIUM * Shopify * Cloudflare * pusher * WIKI * Reddit * teespring * Slack * coinbase * GOFUNDME * VISA * Square * Bitpay * ROKU * Netflix * Indiegogo * Disqus * VIMEO * Ravelry Regards, Charliebrowau
- eyeball 7y agoThey’re killing off mousetrap Monday too. “Cruelty to animals” May they be infested with plague rats.
- slig 7y agoAnd yet there are hundreds of videos of animals suffering (electrocution, glue, etc) by non-English channels with hundreds of thousands of views and they don't seem to care.
- beecat 7y agoSolution: Publish your infosec tutorials as fetish videos on pornhub. I bet they have a better monetization model for creators anyways.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rehasu 7y agoWell, well, well. Does a high tech community need Youtube as a video platform though? The famous German hacker community "chaos computer club" simply uses their own platform to begin with: https://media.ccc.de/ https://media.ccc.de/
- pluma 7y agoThe benefit of YouTube isn't primarily video hosting. The benefit is discoverability and (to a certain extent) community.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cuillevel3 7y agoIt's the same with Github, sure you can host on your own domain, but "search for voctoweb on Github" is so much easier than "oh just go to my homepage at sdkljfsdl.sdf".
- rehasu 7y agoIf you use google instead of github search you can find it even if it's on a self-hosted gitlab, though. And since both use git as API nobody is stopped from forking from gitlab to github either.
- pluma 7y agoYeah good luck searching for something unfortunately named that doesn't already happen to be super popular, though.
- torified 7y agoThe internet promised so much, but is being ruined by corporations and governments. I can't help but feel the ruining is accelerating. I hope the infosec community can come up with some kind of decentralized way to actually share free speech. If anyone is capable, they are. The discovery problem is an illusion. If you build it, they will come.
- scoutt 7y agoDon't be so pessimistic. There are still plenty of resources and places to discuss whatever you want. Youtube is like that big commercial avenue in the city, where you can only see mainstream stuff. If you look for the bookstore that has hacking/engineering/pyscology books, you'll have to go elsewhere. But it has always been this way.
- beaconstudios 7y agothere's plenty of niche content that finds its home on YouTube. It's as if the commercial avenue was infinitely large and could contain every shop you could wish for.
- mooselumps 7y agoYou have to leave the avenue for porn. Pornhub has good enough porn, can find something for most any niche. Soon you’ll find though, if you’re really into this or that, individual studios that cater to your niche create videos with high production value that are all around better than what you dig up on pornhub. There are marketplaces for small studios like clips4sale.com (nsfw). Also aggregators for specific niches / topics, etc. Maybe anti-YouTube people can look to porn for the way out?
- xfitm3 7y agoYou have to know what you're looking for, which I think is traditionally the biggest hurtle.
- syshum 7y ago
- techrich 7y agoThis comes down to what advertisers want, they call the shots on the content on youtube.
- cf498 7y agoI dont think youtube can run their business without infocsec personal. But the US community as a whole also doesnt seem to have a problem with working for for 3 letter agencies, so its not really surprising that youtube doesnt have to worry about their personal leaving. Please think about what kind of effect your work has on the wider world. Some here are likely in the privileged situation that changing the job because of your conscience is a possibility. edit: I would add to think about the next generation of us and what example those actions sets, but i dont think i have to. Too many people here already grew up in an environment where taking jobs at 3 letter agencies is nothing out of the ordinary and the head of the NSA gets to speak at DEFCON while kids rot in jail for the same curiosity that made us who we are today.
- toxicFork 7y agoThis creates opportunities for niche driven video sites to show up, if they have not already. For example "YouTube for infosec". The web is going to go more towards specialisation as the "one place for all kinds of content of this format" model is becoming too big to handle. For various reasons, from searching, to moderation, to curation.
- eric_h 7y agoBut video is the most expensive thing to transmit over the interwebs. How do we afford it? Where do we get the interest to fund it?
- paulcarroty 7y agoMost of people of course don't like the pressure, but it's looks too classical: Youtube is a monopoly in video hosting. Monopolist always dictate his own rules, so better be prepared to adventures. My channel monetization was banned and I'm very grateful, there's a lot of bigger things to do.
- Uptrenda 7y agoA channel dedicated to creating point-and-click cracking tutorials for complete [expletives] gets banned (go figure.) People cry: waahhh, free speech, think of the [security researchers.] Sorry, but I fail to see how any of this relates to infosec. If it were really about security research then most of the content would be about theoretical topics like classes of vulnerabilities, how PoCs work, how to write basic shell code, links to assembly programming, and so on. But instead these geniuses give us gems like: how to run [this script] to break this [system version], a guide for tween dummies. They distill their knowledge and weaponise it for use by anyone, and that's not security through obscurity. That's knowingly building a loaded gun, showing people that its cool to fire it, handing it to children, and then saying: lol, don't use this okay, totally for research only! Yeah, sure. Anything for dat ad revenue, right? Face it, none of the people watching these videos are there for education. The only people this benefits are the script kiddies. InfoSec researchers sure as hell aren't using YouTube for their vuln disclosures and don't need to be spoon fed cooking recipes for doing pen tests or R & D.
- macspoofing 7y ago>People cry: waahhh, free speech, think of the [security researchers.] What do you think free speech means? Speech you like? And yes, think of not only groups you can think of like "security researches" (sic) but all those groups you can't think of. These policies are a dragnet. Yeah, they'll MAYBE catch some guys you think shouldn't be on there (and by the way, I'm pretty sure YouTube was banning those guys anyway), but they'll catch a hundreds times more. People who maybe doing peripherally related things, like educational content, or historical content, or satirical and comical content, or a mix of all those and infosec stuff, in all kinds of languages, etc., etc. etc. But you'll say "They can just appeal", and you know what, if Twitterverse makes a stink about something, maybe it'll work, but 99% of those will never appeal and that content will be lost. Or maybe they'll lose their appeal because what constitutes infringement will fall on the interpretation of some offshored minimum-wage worker (much respect to them), or capricious whims of executives who don't want bad publicity. >The only people this benefits are the script kiddies. You sure about that? Really? Really really? How about them reporters in censor-happy countries, I bet you they are script kiddies too because they aren't programmers. That's one example, but how about all those other groups you and I can't even think of because we're just not that aware of all the things that happen in the world. And how do you think you learn about infosec? I bet a non-trivial amount of InfoSec professionals started off as 'script kiddies'. In fact, I bet all the good ones were 'script kiddies' (pretty sure Snowden was a script kiddie). You know what the difference is between a vulnerability testing tool for use in securing your network vs probing another for nefarious penetration? Nothing. --- I fully get the motivation of these companies. They want safe content for advertisers, so YouTube will never be a free speech zone. What I don't get are cheerleaders, usually on the left now, who want these behemoths to keep adding more and more restrictions. Who want a corporate behemoth to act like their mommy and daddy and protected from things they are afraid of and do the same for others too.
- reneberlin 7y agohttps://d.tube/ https://d.tube/ Decentralized. Based on ipfs. Uses https://steemit.com/ https://steemit.com/ Works like a charm
- unixhero 7y agoTime to start hoarding the ippsec videos, and lock picking lawyer for good measure.
- fimdomeio 7y agoThe thing that bores me the most is that the sentence not event makes sense. "Showing users how to bypass secure computer systems". If you can bypass a computer system, in which way can it be considered secure?
- drukenemo 7y agoBecause every security system is potentially flawed, contain bugs and therefore is vulnerable to hacking.
- ArchD 7y agosecure system != security system There is such a thing as an insecure security system.
- m0skit0 7y agoSo if I build a flawed security system, it is not insecure?
- jtbayly 7y agoOf course it is. Just what the parent said. It is an insecure security system. (As opposed to a secure security system.)
- AstralStorm 7y agoCue "protected by ROT13 encryption" jokes. US wanted to have this as a law and got quickly informed how insane it is.
- krapp 7y agoROT13 is for rank amateurs. I protect my data with multiple rotations of ROT26 encryption.
- 7y ago
- noobermin 7y agoCurious, googlers post here. Do any people who work on youtube read these? While googlers do reply to these sorts of comment sections I've never seen one from youtube do so.
- chihuazhang 7y agossss
- vectorEQ 7y agoso use a different service?
- malicioususer11 7y agoa black box im not allowed to look at? sounds like a fun security research problem. :3
- chihuazhang 7y agoSss
- chme 7y agoLock-picking is probably next then...
- puskavi 7y agoWell, I think that almost 60% of these videos are totally useless and possibly malicious. sucks anyways
- aiisjustanif 7y agoThey teach some people tools of the trade for their actual jobs.
- khnov 7y agoEvery day I hate more theses big corporations that treat us like fucking sheeps, rebellion is a duty in our time !
- heinrichhartman 7y agoThe most upsetting thing for me is, that YT acts in both legislative and executive functions here. It's one thing to make a rule, to ban "hacking techniques". But there should be an independent party who get's to decide whether a particular video is about "hacking techniques" or not. > Is teaching kids how to use wireshark(1) already hacking? > How about the Chrome dev-console? The current state of things, where: a) a proprietary algorithm decides if a rule is violated or not and b) you have no way to appeal decisions taken by YT, is appalling. Update: Well, there appears to be a YT-internal process to appeal censoring decisions. But who knows how well that works. In the past, appealing to copyright take-downs was practically impossible.
- turok 7y agoThe issue is that effective free speech is now facilitated by private entities who are not legally beholden to it. The public forum is now privatised and more and more monopolised.
- zouhair 7y agoThis is what happens when you have no real public space on the Internet. Corporations will hide under the guise of private property. We really need to redefine the public space on the Internet.
- dgzl 7y agoWhat do you suggest? If you intend on redefining it in a way that takes away property rights, then I won't support it and neither should you.
- Dayshine 7y agoHow about a trade-off, something like: In order to receive "Safe harbour" copyright immunity for uploaded user content, you have to have fairly lax rules on content (e.g. only blocking actual criminal content, which is all youtube have done before this, right?). If you want to significantly curate your content, you can't hide behind the legal protection of "uncurated user content".
- dgzl 7y ago> If you want to significantly curate your content, you can't hide behind the legal protection of "uncurated user content". Is YouTube gaining some benefit from pretending to be an open platform? I'm not sure what you're saying here. Likewise, isn't copyright infringement is a criminal offense?
- Dayshine 7y agoNo, I'm suggesting changing laws. Youtube currently benefits massively from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_... as they are not directly liable for people uploading content they don't own. I'm suggesting that we only let people have that immunity if they aren't significantly curating their content. If they significantly curate their content, they should be able to curate copyright too.
- axilmar 7y agoI agree with youtube in this case. Any video that gives an opportunity to malevolent people to do harm must be banned from youtube. But it must be banned from general purpose video viewing sites only, not from the internet. Specialized sites should be allowed to host these videos. Altenatively, youtube must create a new category of videos that are viewable only when the real identity of the viewer is confirmed.
- lonnyk 7y ago> Any video that gives an opportunity to malevolent people to do harm must be banned from youtube. What if those same videos help oppressed people do do good?
- enterx 7y agofirst they came for alex jones.
- rv-de 7y agoOne word: Vimeo.
- 0xdeadb00f 7y agoVimeo does not support creators (it doesn't pay them to make content).
- rv-de 7y agoAnother word: Patreon.
- patrickaljord 7y agoVimeo recently banned Project Veritas (which is still up on youtube), Alex Jones and plenty of other channels. Not sure it's a less censuring alternative.
- rv-de 7y agoI think every platform has the right to censor and also the duty to do so. Like gore or cp etc. This shapes a profile for a platform. In vimeo's case they distanced themselves from some conspiracy theory fanatics which is fine with me. Meaning I endorse that profile as a visitor and who doesn't just needs another platform. And one reason why those outlets (like Alex Jones & Co.) often aren't accepted around for long is because they attract rather garbled minds with some tendency towards toxic social interaction.
- enterx 7y agodoes church in your opinion has the right to ban certain types of books too? regardless of answer, please elaborate. do you see the slipperness of that slope?
- root_axis 7y agoChurches aren't businesses, they have different legal rights. Still, if you walk into a Baptist Christian church reciting versues from the Quran you will find yourself quickly banned and the church is within its rights to do so, even if muslims wouldn't like that. Fortunately, a mosque has the same freedom.
- gravy 7y agoAh yes, the best way to combat "hackers" is to purge them to darker corners of the web and remove their space to play freely and openly.
- LoSboccacc 7y agofirst they came for the fake news, and I said nothing because I didn't care about the fake news' rights then they came for the altright, and I did say nothing because I didn't like the alt right content then they came for the historical channels for they talked about the rise of fascisms and I did say nothing because I was thinking of the easily influenced children then they came for the technical content, and there was no one left to speak for me
- root_axis 7y agoI can't help but cringe when people compare the machinations of a video entertainment company to literal genocide.
- mikeash 7y agoNah, first they came for the pornography. Bans on adult content are almost universal on mainstream services. Somehow this is never considered censorship by the tech community. It’s only when they start to ban other content that anyone cares.
- quantum_state 7y agoIs this considered to be “evil” that google said it would not do?
- motohagiography 7y agoThis is fantastic news. The best possible way to get new platforms is to kick technically competent hackers out of existing ones. We should encourage other platforms to deplatform vulnerability researchers too.
- systematical 7y agoDon't be evil, unless ______.
- systematical 7y agoKnowledge is power for the people. Best to keep the people powerless.
- looterzz 7y agoLooking forward to Floatplane, youtube's terms and conditions have been awful for years, not to mention the outright ban on anything even remotely controversial and the automated tyranny.
- Wh1skey 7y agoAt this point, it’s time to finally quit YT.
- 2Ccltvcm 7y agoYouTube needs to accelerate their banning process so they can become solely focused on mainstream psychological brainwashing clickbait. This way my favorite creators can actually move to other freer platforms and get paid without fascist payment processors and trying to abide by YouTube's insane terms and conditions. YouTube is going the way of cable TV channels dedicated to infomercials. The interesting stuff will be purged soon. The writing is on the wall. Backup and escape while you can. It will not get better.
- xfitm3 7y agoI donated to youtube-dl and started archiving my favorite channels.
- peter_d_sherman 7y agoThe problem here is that "hacking techniques" to a black hat are also, equal-and-oppositely, legitimate security research and prevention -- to a white hat / security researcher / ethical hacker... In other words, they're aspects of the same thing... The idea that you're going to ban something because one aspect of it has a negative social purpose is philosophically unsound... We don't ban videos on electricity or electrical engineering because people can be electrocuted... We don't ban videos on chainsaws because they could be used to cut a person in half... We don't ban videos on cars because they could be used to run people over... Everything in the universe can be used for a positive or negative purpose, when you start banning things because some people use these things for negative purposes, you misunderstand that those effects are caused by the actor, not the information and/or the tool that's being used...
- username444 7y agoIronically, I tracked the real world identity of someone using stolen credit cards in my ecom site BECAUSE he posted a tutorial/how-to on YouTube showing the vulnerability tool (script kiddie), under his real name. SMH. This won't stop this information from being disseminated, but it may save some idiots from themselves.
- koheripbal 7y agoIt would be ironic if Youtube did this because they were tired of fulfilling warrants from governments over authors of these videos
- paulcole 7y ago> The idea that you're going to ban something because one aspect of it has a negative social purpose is philosophically unsound Uh, guns?
- rmellow 7y agoIf you meant to stay on topic (reads like a tangent), I believe firearm videos are still kosher on Youtube. Look up FPSRussia.
- peter_d_sherman 7y agoYouTube should just ban EVERYTHING, I mean, absolutely every video -- except for highly edited, highly censored, Barney The Purple Dinosaur(tm) children's videos, where the political party that is in power in the region of the world where the video is shown -- gets to do ALL of the editing... <g>
- root_axis 7y agoImagine a video site where you had to pay money to have your videos hosted. In this scenario, the platform would be obligated to host your content as long as it was legal.
- HocusLocus 7y agomoney quote "just ask all those American cities that are paying out to ransomware creeps who got hold of a defect that the NSA kept secret so they could use it against "bad guys."
- anm89 7y agoI could almost see this being an attempt to try to back people off from encouraging them to moderate. Pick something that they can make a very plausible claim to be doing for "public safety" but that they know will cause an uproar from respected voices in tech for being counter productive. Then they can faux throw their hands up in the future and say, "it's in everyone's best interest for us not to moderate". I'm not really saying strongly this is the case, it's a bit tin foil hat, but I wouldn't be shocked if it was true either.
- month13 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIdZ2oPyB1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIdZ2oPyB1Y Counterpoint; LiveOverflow (also a channel on YouTube featuring reverse-engineering) had this to say on the manner, in very broad strokes, YouTube monetization, and hosting, is a luxury and they as a private org can choose what or what not to host.
- dirtyoldmick 7y agoonline gun control
- dotsarefun 7y agoYouTube is nothing more than the propaganda arm of Google at this point.
- m0zg 7y agoThey (and all other creators who produce anything that YT might at some point deem even remotely controversial) should just move to BitChute. It kinda looks ugly, but it basically provides the same functionality, without YTs overbearing politics and hostility towards the 1st amendment.
- intopieces 7y agoWhy do these things have to be on YouTube specifically? PeerTube exists.
- todd8 7y agoDoes this mean all those lock picking videos have to go too?