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YouTube is taking down educational hacking videos
- api 7y agoyoutube-dl is your friend.
- pixelbath 7y agoWhile I agree with the sentiment, that's not really what this is about. Youtube-dl does nothing for videos already taken down, nor does it help content creators.
- aussieguy1234 7y agoThe link is to a data hoarding subreddit. They could use it for archiving purposes, before videos get taken down.
- sus_007 7y agoOh, you must be new to that subreddit then :D
- jakoblorz 7y agoThat’s really sad! Censoring informative content should never be part of any corporate strategy, especially in countries having freedom in their constitution. Have a look at PeerTube (https://joinpeertube.org https://joinpeertube.org) if you don’t know it yet.
- bitL 7y agoSelf-hosting PeerTube is trivial. So is self-hosting NextCloud (DropBox alternative). So is self-hosting PixelFed (Instagram alternative). So is self-hosting Mastodon, RocketChat, Code-Server (VSCode) etc. Rent a $5/month VPS and have 100% control over what you publish and federate with like-minded as you like. At some point those services will support 90% of all monopoly features and 99% features you care about. If you are worried about some unwanted illegal content coming in from federated users, it's trivial to get Deep Learning filters to remove 99% of unwanted content (e.g. porn) as well. You can decide the rules.
- Scoundreller 7y agoNow launch a search engine in front of it. What’s old is new again.
- rvz 7y agoWell YouTube's actions is really unsurprising given that they have made it more unclear on which videos meet their Terms of Service. If that wasn't enough, creators also complained about 'The Algorithm' scanning their videos to demonetize or take down videos for the same reason. At this point, It is worth looking at other alternatives such as Bitchute, PeerTube, etc with Patreon support to avoid this senseless behaviour that YouTube is doing to its creators. If they can do it to creators with crazy conspiracy theorist videos or creators who have political opinion videos, YouTube can do it to anyone.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thrwn_frthr_awy 7y agoThis is the consequence of monopolies. Before YouTube gobbled up the world there were great, niche video sites ran by fans of the coolest things. They are mostly gone now. It is sad. The web really used to be an adventure. I miss that part of the internet. You felt like you found these secret underground worlds where people were really into something. Now it’s different. Maybe what we have now it what is needed for content creators to be fairly compensated, but I will still miss it.
- r_singh 7y agoThis resonates with me so much. On a slightly unrelated note: When these to-be monopolies are just starting and raising dollars, their service and everything is on point. Once their too big to have competitors, there is absolutely no way of even contacting them (even if you're in the clear and they're wrong). Customer service from these tech monopolies really makes me feel like we're all cattle.
- input_sh 7y agoIf you have, let's say, a billion users, each of which can report stuff, and have some algorithm that weeds out 90% of bogus reports, how big would your customer support team need to be to handle the remaining 10% in a reasonable time span?
- r_singh 7y agoI get this argument about having millions of users reporting stuff. But just have a look at Facebook and Google's balance sheet, and the figures that other non profitable monopolies raise. However big the support team needs to be should be their problem, or rather part of their plan. And if they don't have enough money for a big enough team (or just don't prioritise support enough), then honestly, I don't think it's truly scalable or sustainable. And eventually we as consumers will learn. This whole tech pump and dump (or promise something and change it later when it's time to profit[1]) wave is new, and we're just beginning to learn how companies change once they have enough leverage. I'm sure if they don't take customer support seriously, they will pay a price for it in the long run. Would just like to clarify, that I don't think expecting personal support for non-paid services is reasonable. But as a paid customer (for e.g. of Uber), one should at least be able to call an IVR. But these cos. deliberately make it harder for you to get their numbers. [1]for e.g. how youtube was free speech and niche artists, how google would get you to the result the quickest
- harlanji 7y agoTime to mirror and self host your channel. Check out my open source package iSpooge Live on GitHub... it’s git a script to download, HLS encode for 3 playback rates, and generate a static site that’s all tuned for a CDN. Been using it for over a year myself.
- kawfey 7y ago>iSpooge That is a really unfortunate name. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spooge https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spooge
- Sendotsh 7y agoYou might want to reconsider the project name if you expect anyone to take it seriously. Especially with how you add "Powered by FreshSpooge" to the sites. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spooge https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spooge
- diodesign 7y agoIs this actually happening? Because it makes little sense when you consider that YouTube-parent Google is sponsoring security education videos. See this GCP-sponsored LiveOverflow video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-P9USG6kLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-P9USG6kLs Maybe Google's killing off dodgy script kiddie vids, and leaving quality content up (and I mean the rest of LiverOverflow's videos et al, not just the paid-for stuff.)
- ggggtez 7y agoI think this came up months ago and it was clarified it was just a mistake, not an actually policy. Google didn't actually ban educational videos, but people drew conclusions from Twitter and assumed the worst against reason. Reddit comments seems to confirm that this is just fear mongering at this point, and the OP should know by now what happened.
- dbuder 7y agoGoogle is an outright liar in many cases where it says it was AI or a mistake.
- freyr 7y agoIf you read the comments in the Reddit thread, this is clickbait fear-mongering. It's a sad state of affairs when Reddit users are savvier than HN users.
- pizzazzaro 7y agoYes. We should all trust anonymous strangers on the internet over... anonymous... Strangers... On the internet...
- freyr 7y agoI mean, you could spend a minute reading both sets of commenters. One is well-informed and reasonable, the other is an angry mob carrying pitchforks.
- acoye 7y agoI saw a gold comment on YT "Live Overflow" a while back … > guess we'll have to publish on YT all project zero's news and see how they react.
- jaimex2 7y agoThis is great news for tutorial sites. I wonder if channels like 'Lockpicking Lawyer' will also get targeted?
- kawfey 7y agoIt's only a matter of time. When LPL gets ousted, I'm going wherever he's going.
- myself248 7y agoI feel like I should youtube-dl a bunch of my favorite channels right now...
- ColanR 7y agoI've been doing that for a while.
- dvtrn 7y agoStoring locally or to your own private cloud? Could you share storage setup, I'm thinking I'm going to be doing this as well
- ravenstine 7y agoNot the OP, but I just store them on a hard drive connected by USB.
- cjpb 7y agoI've been doing this for a few years now as I grew tired of video/audio getting removed without them leaving any trace of what the content was related to. My current setup consists of several scripts on my personal server - basic CLI wrappers around "youtube-dl" (supports many sites, not just YouTube) - these scripts set my default preferences as well as the destination folder depending on the parameters passed. Once the download is complete, the destination folder is just one of many paths scanned by my Plex instance. I can then pull up the video/audio on my television, computer or mobile device as I please.
- IIAOPSW 7y agoLast time this came up there was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion all the penetration testers move to pornhub.
- tjpnz 7y agoIt's not as crazy an idea as it may sound and there's supposedly a lot of gun related stuff there right now. I'm surprised as to why PornHub haven't already launched a re-skin for regular content. They've clearly got the infrastructure and knowhow to make it work.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>I'm surprised as to why PornHub haven't already launched a re-skin for regular content. They've clearly got the infrastructure and knowhow to make it work. It's outside their business model so they're not sure they can do a good job and make a good enough profit to make it worthwhile. It's the same reason your local heavy earth-moving contractors don't offer equipment rental and machine moving services even though those things use the same infrastructure (maintenance facilities and an army of low boy trailers) and workflows (dumping machines off at various addresses and picking them back up when the job is done) they already have.
- krapp 7y ago>I'm surprised as to why PornHub haven't already launched a re-skin for regular content. They've clearly got the infrastructure and knowhow to make it work. Why should they? Porn is where the money is - the mainstream content which is seeking refuge with them is difficult to monetize (otherwise, it would still be on Youtube making moeny) and has an audience that's already willing to move to Pornhub.
- lonelappde 7y ago3 months ago, 1500 points, 400 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20350306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20350306
- kawfey 7y agoI feel like more and more educational youtubers are going to be moving to platforms like Skillshare, Brilliant, and other next-gen educational/learning subscription services that already sponsor them, more or less because they're undoubtedly going to be fairly compensated for their work on those platforms vs. YouTube, and catering to an audience that is passionate about learning and doesn't post asinine troll comments. YouTube is undergoing the same transformation that happened to TLC, Discovery, and The History Channel; toy reviews, mainstream media and music, zany (yet soulless) influencers, and good-for-all-audiences content are ruling the platform because they bring in the most most advertising revenue, creating a beautiful moment in time, creating a lot of value for shareholders.
- leppr 7y agoThe one thing YouTube has for it (maybe not for long) against these platforms is that all content being free from paywalls encourages user exploration (search or clicking on random thumbnails) and thus easier discovery of your videos.
- motohagiography 7y agoI learned security from t-files, 8lgm, phrack, and bugtraq. The people who taught me learned it from mentorship. The only meaningful progress in security is by people who work against it. It's a craft subculture, and the real value of it is in securing the freedom of people to not be subjects of platforms. YouTube is lame for doing this, but it's a net positive for innovation. Let them have their walled suburb. Innovation happens at the edges, and the social-sphere had made people lazy. The bar for entry to being a hacker is so low, it's the equivalent to governments setting up programs to train people to play punk music. Tech giants have become like baby boomers who still think they are rebels. I look forward to a new generation of kids who will spit upon their hands, hoist the black flag and make hacking dangerous again.
- FillardMillmore 7y agoWhat, if any, advice would you offer someone who would like to begin learning about security today?
- wiseleo 7y agoStart with understanding Unix file permission system and the meaning of /etc/services. It will snowball from there. You need to be proficient in Unix operating systems to have a knowledge base.
- bamboozled 7y agoWith all due respect, the question was about more modern times. I feel like this was better advice in the 90s and early 2000s. It's not like knowing those things is bad, I just don't know how applicable it is now. Today the scope is far too big and there are far too many different hacking disciplines now. The advice above was probably more suited to a time when people used to be granted shell access to university computers. We live in a world where people don't even run web applications in on servers anymore, rather containers hosted in cloud platforms. That said, you really should develop a sound understanding of how computers work at a low level, it doesn't have to be perfect; but it helps you understand how even modern systems can be flawed (under all the shiny cloud marketing, they're computers after all). I would start with doing a course like: https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/. Once that foundational knowledge is understood, learn how computer networks work (IP, TCP, UDP), network stacks and then higher level protocols like HTTP, HTTP(s) and other layer 7 protocols. Learning about databases is good too, basic SQL skills are useful. By this stage you will probably bee having too much fun building new things using all the knowledge you've acquired rather than breaking other peoples stuff; Then again I guess it can still be fun to experiment with that too.
- indeks 7y agoWorth setting up a video service just for that then.
- president 7y agoIs there an official page from YouTube that lists banned categories? Even YouTube's public policy page [1] doesn't mention anything about educational hacking videos. [1] https://www.youtube.com/about/policies/#community-guidelines https://www.youtube.com/about/policies/#community-guidelines
- ggggtez 7y agoIt's there somewhere, but it doesn't say "educational hacking videos". It says "hacking and spam/phishing". It's just a rephrasing of their existing policy. It's the same idea of why they don't let you show videos advocating building bombs and using them in terrorist attacks. The videos that are banned are based on people trying to use these techniques to commit crimes. Not banning "hacking" in general.
- Thorrez 7y agohttps://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801964 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801964
- kipchak 7y agoI hate how removed videos don't retain a title. It's one thing for a video to be taken down, it's another to see a mystery box taunting me from my favorites playlist. What forbidden knowledge (cat video) is forever lost to time?
- herpderperator 7y agoDepending on how long ago it was removed, if you Google the YouTube video ID, you may find the title in the search results.
- tiborsaas 7y agoThat's what I did, I managed to recover dozens of music titles from my favourite playlist.
- Thorrez 7y agoHave you tried archive.org?
- kipchak 7y agoAh, good idea! I had figured the odds of it being indexed were unlikely but it's there from 2011. Seeing older YouTube is always nostalgic.
- dredmorbius 7y agoDoes the Wayback Machine help here? Otherwise: I've got the same complaint. I've learnt not to rely on YouTube as a durable reference. I should remember to try the Archive more often. Unfortunately, many third-party sites haven't, and frequently point at dead links.
- Ruthalas 7y agohttps://youtuberecover.com/ https://youtuberecover.com/ is a project designed to preserve the metadata of YouTube videos, searchable via original url. They have a decent database, and you can add videos to it! No affiliation, I just found it recently, and it may suit your use-case.
- ericdykstra 7y agoYouTube doesn't seem to be interested in hosting any content that isn't manufactured from a giant media corporation or just vapid clickbait entertainment. Just take a look at the trending tab to see what YouTube wants to promote: http://youtube.com/trending http://youtube.com/trending It's worth noting that "Trending" is curated by YouTube itself, and is not an algorithmically determined set of videos.
- gwenzek 7y agoThis is wrong. Trending is based on an actual mathematical formula based on the number of views per hour on the last 48h. Then on top of that you have some filtering who tries to downgrade clickbaity contents. In the US you also have human filtering. Curators can remove a video or ask the Trending algorithm to rate a video before it's normally rated but they can't add a video to an arbitrary position or change the ranking. Clickbait entertainment is probably over represented but that's also a kind of video who receives a lot of view at the same time which what "Trending" means. Source: used to work next to the Trend team.
- rolltiide 7y agowell they said they would so no surprise here
- tus88 7y agoNot to be the Devil's advocate - but what's the difference between a hacking video and an educational hacking video?
- gtirloni 7y agoIMHO, one that discusses concepts and tools versus just a step-by-step tutorial. But the distinction probably doesn't matter in this case.
- wiseleo 7y agoYou tell me... https://youtu.be/tTl5Rl8cKy8 https://youtu.be/tTl5Rl8cKy8 A skilled person will learn a lot. This is a devious attack. A curious viewer will just get a glimpse but would not be able to implement. I learned enough to replicate this attack.
- microcolonel 7y agoThis is the safe, nice YouTube you've been asking for. Hope you enjoy it. Remember when we were saying that it was going to end badly when the mainstream media were pressuring advertisers to have a moral stance on the content their advertisements are shown with? Well, this is exactly what was bound to happen. YouTube is (gradually, to reduce backlash) becoming Disney-VEVO-Time Warner tube, and that means they're going to have to find cost-effective ways to destroy all marginally-concerning-looking content.
- ggggtez 7y agoThere doesn't appear to be any evidence that educational videos are banned. This is just the same overblown news story from a month ago that they admitted was just a fluke of the content flagging system. A quick search on Google shows plenty of educational content in hacking, some from Google themselves. I'd say this borders on conspiracy theory at this point.
- microcolonel 7y agoSo much educational content, particularly historic content, is now on the continuum from delisted to removed entirely. The hacking content is just of particular interest to this community; it's not the story.
- RenRav 7y agoIs there any decent alternative to Youtube yet? This is getting ridiculous.
- bouncycastle 7y agoIt's like banning Karate & Judo because it teaches violence. (When it actually improves personal security/safety)
- codesternews 7y agoOne hand google sponsor the youtube "LiverOverflow" video to just talk about ethical hacking and penetration testing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-P9USG6kLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-P9USG6kLs On other hand they are taking other educational videos.
- freyr 7y agoEven the Redditor commenters are not falling for this. Not sure why HN is getting hit so hard by the anti-big-tech FUD over the last few days, or why we keep taking the bait. Maybe just because HN has start up culture at its core.
- imhoguy 7y agoJust came with an idea: IPFS shaddowing/mirroring, a browser plugin which seeds your public browsing cache as a source. Then as more people visit the URL and keep it cached then the resource would live the longer or forever. That would need to be zero-setup & interaction-free tool, Firefox killer-app ideally.
- hans_castorp 7y agoThere is always the Fedivers: https://fediverse.party/ https://fediverse.party/
- At1C 7y agoAsk yourself who put alphabet and their sibling companies in charge of policing and censoring internet, the users have choice find alternatives. https://www.thetatoken.org/ https://www.thetatoken.org/
- jphelps 7y agoIt almost seems that theres a business opportunity to start a site where independent creators can publish content deemed not mainstream enough for the major networks. Oh wait..
- swiley 7y agoOn the one hand I really hate censorship. On the other hand I feel like the sort of people that watch videos instead of reading documentation tend to be the kind that would misuse this stuff.
- notelonmusk 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU2hEImvdeIkYQC30AFCAt9g https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU2hEImvdeIkYQC30AFCAt... gone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOUGXVFA2IQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOUGXVFA2IQ gone https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUkAmJs3oeiKwutQ87ZV9UKw https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUkAmJs3oeiKwutQ87ZV9U... gone https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUhlfPtuG7T6mnG7-iD-5JVA https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUhlfPtuG7T6mnG7-iD-5J... nothing to see here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUjT2SQBfqtPMdX99mf4ZsMg https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUjT2SQBfqtPMdX99mf4Zs... what playlist? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU2hEImvdeIkYQC30AFCAt9g https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU2hEImvdeIkYQC30AFCAt... gone but this could also be a concerted scheme to get subscribers / views / downloads
- At1C 7y agoOther alternatives https://www.videocoin.io/learnmore/ https://www.videocoin.io/learnmore/