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Google ordered to identify who watched certain YouTube videos

552 points by wut42 3y ago

decremental 3y ago
Someone post the pirate link so we can read this.
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goles 3y ago
https://archive.is/kAXQ1 https://archive.is/kAXQ1
mschuster91 3y ago
> “This is the latest chapter in a disturbing trend where we see government agencies increasingly transforming search warrants into digital dragnets. It’s unconstitutional, it’s terrifying and it’s happening every day,” said Albert Fox-Cahn, executive director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. If companies would respect the spirit behind GDPR and not store data that is not needed to fulfill a user's requests and protect the data that they must have in a way that makes dragnet searches impossible, this would not be a problem. Instead, we have sites not being ashamed in informing you about literally thousands of external ad broker, tracking, notifications and whatnotelse integrations. To u/decremental: you seem to be shadowbanned, here's an Archive link: https://archive.ph/kAXQ1 https://archive.ph/kAXQ1
- pvg 3y ago
  They are just banned https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35995962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35995962
  - pierat 3y ago
    One in the same on HN.
    - pvg 3y ago
      It's not shadowban if you're told you're banned and it doesn't come from the Shadoban region of Japan.
  - j33zusjuice 3y ago
    How is a banned account making visible comments? Also, how did you find that post?
    - rootusrootus 3y ago
      You can see dead comments by enabling showdead in your HN profile.
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - wging 3y ago
    The comment in question appears in incognito mode. I don't think they're banned.
    - pvg 3y ago
      The comment got vouched to life.
  - decremental 3y ago
    That's true, I'm just banned but it still lets me comment and that's fine with me. No pesky fake internet points to worry about.
    - balls187 3y ago
      This account is the Illuminati.
- loeg 3y ago
  > If companies would respect the spirit behind GDPR and not store data that is not needed to fulfill a user's requests and protect the data that they must have in a way that makes dragnet searches impossible, this would not be a problem. Saving user watch history is useful for users. Sure, make it optional, but I find it really useful that youtube shows me if I've already watched a video, and that I can find recently seen videos in my watch history.
  - boppo1 3y ago
    There should really be levels of history. I don't want youtube keeping every video I've ever watched on file, so I have history off. However, now, if I leave a video and come back to it the next day, my place in the video is lost. Lemme specify the length of time to keep history pls.
    - kvmet 3y ago
      Why does allowing them to store your watch history mean that they MUST also share it with 3rd parties? Why isn't "I want _you_ to know but I don't want you to use it against me." an option?
      - ddingus 3y ago
        Because dollars. Being able to sell histories means being able to sell supposedly more effective ADS. Also shows ads were viewed and by whom. Precision of any kind in demographics is worth a lot of money.
        CatWChainsaw 3y ago
        As far as I can tell this is just the truth, so I'm curious who downvoted and why. Guilty consciences?
        loeg 3y ago
        It conflates data collection with selling data. Google, Meta, etc do not sell their users' data (for purely commercial reasons).
- throwaway237289 3y ago
  > If companies would respect the spirit behind GDPR and not store data that is not needed to fulfill a user's requests and protect the data that they must have in a way that makes dragnet searches impossible, this would not be a problem. This is ridiculous. Literally the authorities are the one demanding information, so that they can abuse that power. And you're blaming the people with information? Stop fighting the wrong war: hold the people with power accountable. That's the government here. They can use force and put you in jail. That's power.
  - tomrod 3y ago
    Both, not either.
  - kevinmchugh 3y ago
    Anyone collecting data needs to consider how the data can be misused. Whether that be by a (repressive) government, a hacker, or a future purchaser of the data
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aprilthird2021 3y ago
With the TikTok ban, jawboning, and now this, it feels like the US really wants to control the narrative its citizens see, now much more than previously...
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- Clubber 3y ago
  >the US really wants to control the narrative its citizens see They had control for decades, then traditional television/cable media started to collapse. They're trying to take control of "new media," in the internet.
  - foreverobama 3y ago
    [dead]
- falsaberN1 3y ago
  TikTok has a narrative? I thought it was all about cooking recipes that may or may not destroy you if you make them as instructed.
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    Yes. It totally switched the narrative on Israel (and that's great imo). They didn't ban videos of Palestinians getting murdered and bombed, like other platforms did. It's a bit insane since even my apolitical friends got exposed to the raw videos and now it really shaped their opinion. I won't push it since I know this never actually happens, but it got zoomers to maybe even consider the conflict important enough to be an issue that swings their vote (the issue is that we don't vote lol). For me that's awesome. But it really really really didn't sit well with members of Congress I guess, and boomers in general.
    - falsaberN1 3y ago
      Huh. I guess it's obvious I don't use TikTok (I'm past 30, I have no business going there) but I had no idea it had actual political content.
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FpUser 3y ago
>"...undercover agents sent links of YouTube tutorials for mapping via drones and augmented reality software, then asked Google for information on who had viewed the videos, which collectively have been watched over 30,000 times." For fuck's sake, there are thousands upon thousands of companies and individuals with totally legit commercial interest in this tech. I bet Zwift and the likes are doing just that.
- anamax 3y ago
  > undercover agents sent links of YouTube tutorials for mapping via drones and augmented reality software, then asked Entrapment?
  - koolba 3y ago
    I read that as “they sent a list of URLs”. Not, “they uploaded a bunch of videos”.
  - FpUser 3y ago
    Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or an agent of the state induces a person to commit a "crime" that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit. Viewing the links and using technology covered by those is anything but. This is trying to make crime suspects out of thin air. So much for fucking free democratic society.
  - initplus 3y ago
    Entrapment isn’t just “any time police trick you during an investigation”. It is only entrapment if the police actually induce you to commit the crime you are charged with. Viewing these videos is not a crime.
    - anamax 3y ago
      Presumably the police think that people who viewed those videos are somewhat likely to have committed some crime. At least some of those people wouldn't have thought of committing that crime without being exposed to those videos. That's not at the level of a cop saying "hey, let's go rob a bank" to some sap, but ...
randomdev3 3y ago
If doing shady shit, you're not using your own IP, let alone Google account...
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- colechristensen 3y ago
  You overestimate the average kind of person doing shady shit.
addicted 3y ago
There are different incidents here. The first one where the police uploaded videos and wanted viewer information is absolutely egregious and makes me wonder how a court could authorize that. The next one, which I didn’t fully understand, but appeared to be in response to a swatting incident where the culprit is believed to have watched a specific camera livestream and the police provided a lot of narrowing details (time period, certain other characteristics, etc) appears far more legitimate.
- godelski 3y ago
  I don't understand how either of these are remotely constitutional. They sure aren't what is in the spirit. They asked for information about a video watched 30k times. Supposing every person watched that video 10 times AND supposing the target was one of the viewers (it really isn't clear that this is true), that's 2999 people who have had their rights violated to search for one. I believe Blackstone has something to say about this[0]. Literally 30x Blackstone's ratio, who heavily influenced the founding fathers. I don't think any of this appears legitimate. Edit: Ops [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
  - changoplatanero 3y ago
    The second one seems a lot more narrow and more legitimate
    - dirtyhippiefree 3y ago
      I remember Larry Ellison (Oracle) in the news saying that Privacy Is Dead a quarter century ago, long enough the article merely referred to it as famous (no date needed) in 2018. It was written six years ago... https://securitycurrent.com/privacy-is-dead-long-live-privacy/ https://securitycurrent.com/privacy-is-dead-long-live-privac...
  - mingus88 3y ago
    Cell phone tower data has been used for a decade now in pretty much the same way. Did you happen to pass by a cell tower in a major city around the time a crime was committed? We all have. Well, your IEMI was included in a cell tower dump. Probably dozens of times. Did you happen to drive your car over any bridge in the Bay Area lately? Did a municipal vehicle pass you and catch your license plate with their ALPR camera? Guess what? Your name went through a database of an LEO search if they wanted to find a perp for that time/location. Privacy has been dead for a long time. The worst part is people don’t care. The Snowden files changed nothing. If there was ever a point in history where people would have given up their cell phones for their civil liberties, that would have been the time to do it.
nonethewiser 3y ago
Im increasingly coming to the opinion that anonymity isnt guaranteed so you should assume everyone knows what you do.m and who you are. So you should probably just use your real name and do way less online. Havent fully swallowed this pill but its feeling inevitable.
- rapind 3y ago
  100%. We probably shouldn’t protest or even discuss non-conforming ideas. Just agree with the current rulers on all things to be safe. Also make sure to vote for the right leaders because who knows how long that’ll remain private.
  - scubbo 3y ago
    Not sure if you're being downvoted because people think you're serious, or because they dislike sarcasm.
    - globalnode 3y ago
      Ive seen sarcasm downvoted here before, its usually a literal crowd here on HN
      - Hnrobert42 3y ago
        A “literal crowd” sounds mildly pejorative. I think it’s more that HN prefers productive, rational discussions. Sarcasm is passive aggressive and a more circuitous route to the point than a literal one. Last, sarcasm isn’t usually even funny. When it is, it’s only funny to those who are with the point.
        uoaei 3y ago
        Critical feedback is still actionable. We don't need to guard adults from hearing difficult things and feeling difficult emotions.
gotoeleven 3y ago
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Eisenstein 3y ago
Let's walk through this rationally: Take the crime they are investigating and ignore that; it is a red herring. Say that there is a stalker who hacked someone's devices and pulled private information and videos from them, and posted them publicly. Something unequivocally bad. We would all agree that there needs to be a way to investigate and stop this person and seek justice for the victims. Until recently, taking this to the cops would get you a blank stare and nothing would happen. At least now in certain places it is taken seriously. But traditional investigative methods don't work. They would need to get access logs to the places where that data was uploaded, at the very least. Cops are not particularly great at investigating (most crime is solved by confessions or just catching them in the act). They don't have any reason not to just blindly grab all the data and sort through it by hand, because that's what they know how to do, and if they request it and get denied, why would they care? They either try something else or say 'fuck it'. Local Judges see a request for records and a block of time and it seems reasonable to get that info. No one is sitting and explaining to them the implications of allowing cops access to personal information from viewer logs. Historically, the lower courts are not the place to seek enlightened rulings. Google? I honestly have no love for them, and they bend over for China every day for worse stuff, so I would be surprised if they gave two shits about their users, except that if this becomes common enough they might actually have to devote support to these requests, and they hate giving support, so they might fight it just for their own self-interest. The problem is that there is no settled case law here and no clear legislation, and I would hesitate to take any important cases to the Supreme Court until at least Mr. "Is This a Pube on My Coke Can" is gone.
knightoffaith 3y ago
For those who have not already heard of it, check out invidious: https://invidious.io/ https://invidious.io/ A list of public instances (which you probably want to use if you're concerned about being identified) here: https://docs.invidious.io/instances/ https://docs.invidious.io/instances/
- recursive 3y ago
  Videos still get served by youtube. Maybe you know something I don't, but I wouldn't assume this is a way to get absolute anonymity against YT.
  - ycombinatrix 3y ago
    How do you propose we watch YouTube videos without getting served by YouTube? Youtube only sees the Invidious instance, not the end-user clients. That's probably as good as it gets.
    - recursive 3y ago
      Me? I have no such proposal.
  - knightoffaith 3y ago
    Well, I don't know if there's any way to be absolutely anonymous on the internet. It seems to me that there's still good reason to prefer using invidious on an instance used by many people as opposed to youtube directly. Can't make perfect the enemy of the good.
    - tredre3 3y ago
      Can't make perfect the enemy of the good. It's fine to recommend invidious as a safety against what happened in the article. But you should also point out that, by default, the videos are still served by Google and they see (and log) your view. https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#q-what-data-is-shared-with-youtube https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#q-what-data-is-shared-with-yo... Plus of course https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#q-what-data-is-collected-by-invidious https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#q-what-data-is-collected-by-i...
balls187 3y ago
The order was merely a nicety. I cannot imagine any company succeeding at taking a stand against the United States Federal Government on when it really wants something. Likely the same with any other major nation state (I bet the chinese govt once showed Google it could at will access all their data, in order to capitulate cooperation, while the US is given full access at any time for any reason)
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- xethos 3y ago
  I don't like Apple. I'm cheering on the current lawsuit brought by the feds. I do not, and never have owned, an iPhone, and Apple is not the bastion of privacy they sell themselves as. That said, credit where it's due: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...
- c0pium 3y ago
  What are you basing this on? The US government gets told no about things it really wants literally all the time. Edit: this is also not the federal government, state and local government has even less juice than the little the Feds possess.
- px43 3y ago
  Eh, no. Are you familiar with MUSCULAR? It was in the Snowden leak. Basically Google kept telling the NSA to fuck off, so the NSA dug a hole and tapped some fiber to exfiltrate clear text communications between data centers, which was apparently a lot of important stuff back then. Within weeks of the MUSCULAR leaks, all Google datacenters were communicating with each other with proper SSL termination. Are you familiar with Aurora? It was that time in 2009 when a Chinese military unit broke into Google and started poking around for information about some known dissidents. They were expunged quickly and the level at which Google stepped up their security game is unparalleled in the history of infosec. Yes, the NSA or various law enforcement groups can get information from Google if it goes through the proper channels, and there's probably a handful of intelligence community insiders who hand data out of Google from time to time as well, even as part of various intelligence sharing agreements, but the idea that the NSA just has free access to whatever they want there is ridiculous.
rufus_foreman 3y ago
I'm all for freedom and individual rights and all of that. But you also have to look at what is going on here. This person is suspected of selling Bitcoin for cash. It says so right in the article: "undercover cops sought to identify the individual behind the online moniker “elonmuskwhm,” who they suspect of selling bitcoin for cash" Says it right there. To anyone who thinks that is acceptable or that there is some sort of overreaction by the authorities, I don't even need three words to refute you. Three numbers is enough: 9-11
- politician 3y ago
  > This person is suspected of selling Bitcoin for cash. There must be more to it than that; buying and selling Bitcoin isn't illegal.
  - balls187 3y ago
    Per the GP—this is likely about someone laundering money for terrorist organizations that the US is investigating.
    - palmfacehn 3y ago
      The year is 2024. Everyone who disagrees with my political views is a confirmed national security threat and a terrorist. I hope they throw the book at these bitcoin boys.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    Well, in the US in general it might be. The police are saying that it is probably a crime under money laundering and unlicensed money transmitting laws. The issue is that particular set of laws are mostly outrageous and quite unintuitive in practice. They criminalise a lot of quite reasonable activity - in this case, like selling bitcoin for cash. Although the thread root refutation makes no sense. Freely trading bitcoin leading to 9-11 is going to have to involve some flexible mental gymnastics since 9-11 happened in a pre-Bitcoin world. In practice AML style laws are generally targeting tax evasion.
tamimio 3y ago
> The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos.. Hopefully that clarifies for some folks why these big tech/social media companies insist on having your phone number as a “2FA for security” despite all the sim-swap attacks.. simply for this moment, because you might be using a VPN, and address/name aren’t in your google account, but definitely your phone number is there, it’s even worse if you’re using an android too, as they probably will pull out all your app/browsing history..
- chatmasta 3y ago
  You can avoid this with Google by using a virtual WebAuthN device (ironically via Chrome devtools), and then you will unlock the ability to enroll in MFA with a QR code for an OTP URL.
  - getcrunk 3y ago
    This sounds like it’s new though? And maybe is for testing/dev and will go away?
  - c0pium 3y ago
    Which really underscores that all of the MFA stuff is actually about security. Because of course it is.
  - crotchfire 3y ago
    You can't avoid it during account creation. So they still have the number.
    - chatmasta 3y ago
      I was able to avoid it, albeit two years ago, when signing up with Apple "Hide My Email." I never gave Google my phone number for that account.
- ehhthing 3y ago
  [flagged]
WillieCubed 3y ago
> The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. Interesting aside: Viacom used a similar broad request back in 2008 [1] in its lawsuit that nearly put YouTube out of business in its infancy. This time, it's the government making the request, and Google has way more data to potentially provide. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20100702111029/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gvFPgT3MNrzaN7r-Y37eFI-qv4bA https://web.archive.org/web/20100702111029/http://afp.google...
datavirtue 3y ago
Isn't that what they already do? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Animats 3y ago
"In conversations with the user in early January, undercover agents sent links of YouTube tutorials for mapping via drones and augmented reality software, then asked Google for information on who had viewed the videos, which collectively have been watched over 30,000 times." Huh? Why? Is this because some country doesn't like people having good mapping technology? Israel and China object to precision mapping, but the US historically has not.
- templeosenjoyer 3y ago
  It was likely a fake mutual interest and they hoped "elonmuskwhm" would watch the videos so they could gather some data about them. That's how I interpreted it anyway.
arp242 3y ago
Somewhat related story from a few years ago: Justice Department withdraws FBI subpoena for USA Today records ID'ing readers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27408647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27408647 - Jun 2021 (174 comments)
MilStdJunkie 3y ago
Eleven hundred steaming pantloads of hot bullshit. This is textbook fishing trip. The real zinger of all this . . the thing that has me riled . . is that this is going to be used to put away who knows how many poor-ass sadsack innocent citizens who can't afford counsel, before the poooh-leeeeease finally bust that one guy who has the money to afford legal representation. Upon which everyone goes oh right this was really illegal SILLY US Someone posting up illegal videos? We already got laws for that, you sons of bitches. WATCHING videos? Like, "everyone in the country who watches this video?" Get the hell out of here.
someotherperson 3y ago
Casual reminder that Invidious[0] and Piped[1] exist. Farside[2] can automatically redirect you to a working instance, for example: https://farside.link/invidious https://farside.link/invidious If you add a redirector plugin for your browser, you can add a capture for something like this: https?://(.*?\.)?youtube.com/(.*) And push it to something like this: https://farside.link/invidious/$2 For example: https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM [0] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious [1] https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped [2] https://farside.link/ https://farside.link/
self_awareness 3y ago
1. Upload a video to YouTube, 2. Make it non-public, but possible to view for people who have links, 3. Post it to some shady underground forum full of people who want to do bad things to you for money, 4. Build the net of connections and track people who did watch the non-public link, see who knows who in this degenerate world of extorsions and theft, 5. Send the message to criminals that if they want to continue what they're doing, then even YouTube isn't safe for them, 6. Profit. TBH, if the above would be true, I would even be happy. But I'm biased, because I sincerely hate thieves and extorsionists.
anon115 3y ago
[flagged]
Bu9818 3y ago
Use Invidious, use RSS, use yt-dlp, use Tor.
HeartStrings 3y ago
Why are you linking to paywalled scam sites?
Razengan 3y ago
All this surveillance and cops still can't catch day to day petty thieves and scammers.
- tacocataco 3y ago
  This stuff is meant to control the working class, not help them. Working as intended.
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phkahler 3y ago
Why can't the police track down someone who calls in a threat from the phone records? How can people be more anonymous with "caller ID" than YouTube?
stainablesteel 3y ago
its eerily similar to the federal government forcing elon to give every piece of data on every person who ever liked a trump tweet the water is already boiling, its time to jump out
maxlin 3y ago
https://archive.is/2fCUs https://archive.is/2fCUs (Never not seen an archive link of a paywalled article buried so carrying my part of that responsibility)
atlgator 3y ago
Just waiting to get pinched for my secret shame: bourbon hunting videos. I don't even drink bourbon.
password4321 3y ago
Police sweep Google searches to find suspects; facing its first legal challenge 2022-06-30 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31938350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31938350

552 points by wut42 3y ago

decremental 3y ago

Someone post the pirate link so we can read this.

deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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goles 3y ago

https://archive.is/kAXQ1 https://archive.is/kAXQ1

mschuster91 3y ago

> “This is the latest chapter in a disturbing trend where we see government agencies increasingly transforming search warrants into digital dragnets. It’s unconstitutional, it’s terrifying and it’s happening every day,” said Albert Fox-Cahn, executive director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. If companies would respect the spirit behind GDPR and not store data that is not needed to fulfill a user's requests and protect the data that they must have in a way that makes dragnet searches impossible, this would not be a problem. Instead, we have sites not being ashamed in informing you about literally thousands of external ad broker, tracking, notifications and whatnotelse integrations. To u/decremental: you seem to be shadowbanned, here's an Archive link: https://archive.ph/kAXQ1 https://archive.ph/kAXQ1

pvg 3y ago
They are just banned https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35995962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35995962
- pierat 3y ago
  One in the same on HN.
  - pvg 3y ago
    It's not shadowban if you're told you're banned and it doesn't come from the Shadoban region of Japan.
- j33zusjuice 3y ago
  How is a banned account making visible comments? Also, how did you find that post?
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    You can see dead comments by enabling showdead in your HN profile.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- wging 3y ago
  The comment in question appears in incognito mode. I don't think they're banned.
  - pvg 3y ago
    The comment got vouched to life.
- decremental 3y ago
  That's true, I'm just banned but it still lets me comment and that's fine with me. No pesky fake internet points to worry about.
  - balls187 3y ago
    This account is the Illuminati.
loeg 3y ago
> If companies would respect the spirit behind GDPR and not store data that is not needed to fulfill a user's requests and protect the data that they must have in a way that makes dragnet searches impossible, this would not be a problem. Saving user watch history is useful for users. Sure, make it optional, but I find it really useful that youtube shows me if I've already watched a video, and that I can find recently seen videos in my watch history.
- boppo1 3y ago
  There should really be levels of history. I don't want youtube keeping every video I've ever watched on file, so I have history off. However, now, if I leave a video and come back to it the next day, my place in the video is lost. Lemme specify the length of time to keep history pls.
  - kvmet 3y ago
    Why does allowing them to store your watch history mean that they MUST also share it with 3rd parties? Why isn't "I want _you_ to know but I don't want you to use it against me." an option?
    - ddingus 3y ago
      Because dollars. Being able to sell histories means being able to sell supposedly more effective ADS. Also shows ads were viewed and by whom. Precision of any kind in demographics is worth a lot of money.
      - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
        As far as I can tell this is just the truth, so I'm curious who downvoted and why. Guilty consciences?
        loeg 3y ago
        It conflates data collection with selling data. Google, Meta, etc do not sell their users' data (for purely commercial reasons).
throwaway237289 3y ago
> If companies would respect the spirit behind GDPR and not store data that is not needed to fulfill a user's requests and protect the data that they must have in a way that makes dragnet searches impossible, this would not be a problem. This is ridiculous. Literally the authorities are the one demanding information, so that they can abuse that power. And you're blaming the people with information? Stop fighting the wrong war: hold the people with power accountable. That's the government here. They can use force and put you in jail. That's power.
- tomrod 3y ago
  Both, not either.
- kevinmchugh 3y ago
  Anyone collecting data needs to consider how the data can be misused. Whether that be by a (repressive) government, a hacker, or a future purchaser of the data
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aprilthird2021 3y ago

With the TikTok ban, jawboning, and now this, it feels like the US really wants to control the narrative its citizens see, now much more than previously...

deleted 3y ago
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Clubber 3y ago
>the US really wants to control the narrative its citizens see They had control for decades, then traditional television/cable media started to collapse. They're trying to take control of "new media," in the internet.
- foreverobama 3y ago
  [dead]
falsaberN1 3y ago
TikTok has a narrative? I thought it was all about cooking recipes that may or may not destroy you if you make them as instructed.
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  Yes. It totally switched the narrative on Israel (and that's great imo). They didn't ban videos of Palestinians getting murdered and bombed, like other platforms did. It's a bit insane since even my apolitical friends got exposed to the raw videos and now it really shaped their opinion. I won't push it since I know this never actually happens, but it got zoomers to maybe even consider the conflict important enough to be an issue that swings their vote (the issue is that we don't vote lol). For me that's awesome. But it really really really didn't sit well with members of Congress I guess, and boomers in general.
  - falsaberN1 3y ago
    Huh. I guess it's obvious I don't use TikTok (I'm past 30, I have no business going there) but I had no idea it had actual political content.

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FpUser 3y ago

>"...undercover agents sent links of YouTube tutorials for mapping via drones and augmented reality software, then asked Google for information on who had viewed the videos, which collectively have been watched over 30,000 times." For fuck's sake, there are thousands upon thousands of companies and individuals with totally legit commercial interest in this tech. I bet Zwift and the likes are doing just that.

anamax 3y ago
> undercover agents sent links of YouTube tutorials for mapping via drones and augmented reality software, then asked Entrapment?
- koolba 3y ago
  I read that as “they sent a list of URLs”. Not, “they uploaded a bunch of videos”.
- FpUser 3y ago
  Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or an agent of the state induces a person to commit a "crime" that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit. Viewing the links and using technology covered by those is anything but. This is trying to make crime suspects out of thin air. So much for fucking free democratic society.
- initplus 3y ago
  Entrapment isn’t just “any time police trick you during an investigation”. It is only entrapment if the police actually induce you to commit the crime you are charged with. Viewing these videos is not a crime.
  - anamax 3y ago
    Presumably the police think that people who viewed those videos are somewhat likely to have committed some crime. At least some of those people wouldn't have thought of committing that crime without being exposed to those videos. That's not at the level of a cop saying "hey, let's go rob a bank" to some sap, but ...

randomdev3 3y ago

If doing shady shit, you're not using your own IP, let alone Google account...

deleted 3y ago
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colechristensen 3y ago
You overestimate the average kind of person doing shady shit.

addicted 3y ago

There are different incidents here. The first one where the police uploaded videos and wanted viewer information is absolutely egregious and makes me wonder how a court could authorize that. The next one, which I didn’t fully understand, but appeared to be in response to a swatting incident where the culprit is believed to have watched a specific camera livestream and the police provided a lot of narrowing details (time period, certain other characteristics, etc) appears far more legitimate.

godelski 3y ago
I don't understand how either of these are remotely constitutional. They sure aren't what is in the spirit. They asked for information about a video watched 30k times. Supposing every person watched that video 10 times AND supposing the target was one of the viewers (it really isn't clear that this is true), that's 2999 people who have had their rights violated to search for one. I believe Blackstone has something to say about this[0]. Literally 30x Blackstone's ratio, who heavily influenced the founding fathers. I don't think any of this appears legitimate. Edit: Ops [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
- changoplatanero 3y ago
  The second one seems a lot more narrow and more legitimate
  - dirtyhippiefree 3y ago
    I remember Larry Ellison (Oracle) in the news saying that Privacy Is Dead a quarter century ago, long enough the article merely referred to it as famous (no date needed) in 2018. It was written six years ago... https://securitycurrent.com/privacy-is-dead-long-live-privacy/ https://securitycurrent.com/privacy-is-dead-long-live-privac...
- mingus88 3y ago
  Cell phone tower data has been used for a decade now in pretty much the same way. Did you happen to pass by a cell tower in a major city around the time a crime was committed? We all have. Well, your IEMI was included in a cell tower dump. Probably dozens of times. Did you happen to drive your car over any bridge in the Bay Area lately? Did a municipal vehicle pass you and catch your license plate with their ALPR camera? Guess what? Your name went through a database of an LEO search if they wanted to find a perp for that time/location. Privacy has been dead for a long time. The worst part is people don’t care. The Snowden files changed nothing. If there was ever a point in history where people would have given up their cell phones for their civil liberties, that would have been the time to do it.

nonethewiser 3y ago

Im increasingly coming to the opinion that anonymity isnt guaranteed so you should assume everyone knows what you do.m and who you are. So you should probably just use your real name and do way less online. Havent fully swallowed this pill but its feeling inevitable.

rapind 3y ago
100%. We probably shouldn’t protest or even discuss non-conforming ideas. Just agree with the current rulers on all things to be safe. Also make sure to vote for the right leaders because who knows how long that’ll remain private.
- scubbo 3y ago
  Not sure if you're being downvoted because people think you're serious, or because they dislike sarcasm.
  - globalnode 3y ago
    Ive seen sarcasm downvoted here before, its usually a literal crowd here on HN
    - Hnrobert42 3y ago
      A “literal crowd” sounds mildly pejorative. I think it’s more that HN prefers productive, rational discussions. Sarcasm is passive aggressive and a more circuitous route to the point than a literal one. Last, sarcasm isn’t usually even funny. When it is, it’s only funny to those who are with the point.
      - uoaei 3y ago
        Critical feedback is still actionable. We don't need to guard adults from hearing difficult things and feeling difficult emotions.

gotoeleven 3y ago

[flagged]

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Eisenstein 3y ago

Let's walk through this rationally: Take the crime they are investigating and ignore that; it is a red herring. Say that there is a stalker who hacked someone's devices and pulled private information and videos from them, and posted them publicly. Something unequivocally bad. We would all agree that there needs to be a way to investigate and stop this person and seek justice for the victims. Until recently, taking this to the cops would get you a blank stare and nothing would happen. At least now in certain places it is taken seriously. But traditional investigative methods don't work. They would need to get access logs to the places where that data was uploaded, at the very least. Cops are not particularly great at investigating (most crime is solved by confessions or just catching them in the act). They don't have any reason not to just blindly grab all the data and sort through it by hand, because that's what they know how to do, and if they request it and get denied, why would they care? They either try something else or say 'fuck it'. Local Judges see a request for records and a block of time and it seems reasonable to get that info. No one is sitting and explaining to them the implications of allowing cops access to personal information from viewer logs. Historically, the lower courts are not the place to seek enlightened rulings. Google? I honestly have no love for them, and they bend over for China every day for worse stuff, so I would be surprised if they gave two shits about their users, except that if this becomes common enough they might actually have to devote support to these requests, and they hate giving support, so they might fight it just for their own self-interest. The problem is that there is no settled case law here and no clear legislation, and I would hesitate to take any important cases to the Supreme Court until at least Mr. "Is This a Pube on My Coke Can" is gone.

knightoffaith 3y ago

For those who have not already heard of it, check out invidious: https://invidious.io/ https://invidious.io/ A list of public instances (which you probably want to use if you're concerned about being identified) here: https://docs.invidious.io/instances/ https://docs.invidious.io/instances/

recursive 3y ago
Videos still get served by youtube. Maybe you know something I don't, but I wouldn't assume this is a way to get absolute anonymity against YT.
- ycombinatrix 3y ago
  How do you propose we watch YouTube videos without getting served by YouTube? Youtube only sees the Invidious instance, not the end-user clients. That's probably as good as it gets.
  - recursive 3y ago
    Me? I have no such proposal.
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  Well, I don't know if there's any way to be absolutely anonymous on the internet. It seems to me that there's still good reason to prefer using invidious on an instance used by many people as opposed to youtube directly. Can't make perfect the enemy of the good.
  - tredre3 3y ago
    Can't make perfect the enemy of the good. It's fine to recommend invidious as a safety against what happened in the article. But you should also point out that, by default, the videos are still served by Google and they see (and log) your view. https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#q-what-data-is-shared-with-youtube https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#q-what-data-is-shared-with-yo... Plus of course https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#q-what-data-is-collected-by-invidious https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#q-what-data-is-collected-by-i...

balls187 3y ago

The order was merely a nicety. I cannot imagine any company succeeding at taking a stand against the United States Federal Government on when it really wants something. Likely the same with any other major nation state (I bet the chinese govt once showed Google it could at will access all their data, in order to capitulate cooperation, while the US is given full access at any time for any reason)

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xethos 3y ago
I don't like Apple. I'm cheering on the current lawsuit brought by the feds. I do not, and never have owned, an iPhone, and Apple is not the bastion of privacy they sell themselves as. That said, credit where it's due: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...
c0pium 3y ago
What are you basing this on? The US government gets told no about things it really wants literally all the time. Edit: this is also not the federal government, state and local government has even less juice than the little the Feds possess.
px43 3y ago
Eh, no. Are you familiar with MUSCULAR? It was in the Snowden leak. Basically Google kept telling the NSA to fuck off, so the NSA dug a hole and tapped some fiber to exfiltrate clear text communications between data centers, which was apparently a lot of important stuff back then. Within weeks of the MUSCULAR leaks, all Google datacenters were communicating with each other with proper SSL termination. Are you familiar with Aurora? It was that time in 2009 when a Chinese military unit broke into Google and started poking around for information about some known dissidents. They were expunged quickly and the level at which Google stepped up their security game is unparalleled in the history of infosec. Yes, the NSA or various law enforcement groups can get information from Google if it goes through the proper channels, and there's probably a handful of intelligence community insiders who hand data out of Google from time to time as well, even as part of various intelligence sharing agreements, but the idea that the NSA just has free access to whatever they want there is ridiculous.

rufus_foreman 3y ago

I'm all for freedom and individual rights and all of that. But you also have to look at what is going on here. This person is suspected of selling Bitcoin for cash. It says so right in the article: "undercover cops sought to identify the individual behind the online moniker “elonmuskwhm,” who they suspect of selling bitcoin for cash" Says it right there. To anyone who thinks that is acceptable or that there is some sort of overreaction by the authorities, I don't even need three words to refute you. Three numbers is enough: 9-11

politician 3y ago
> This person is suspected of selling Bitcoin for cash. There must be more to it than that; buying and selling Bitcoin isn't illegal.
- balls187 3y ago
  Per the GP—this is likely about someone laundering money for terrorist organizations that the US is investigating.
  - palmfacehn 3y ago
    The year is 2024. Everyone who disagrees with my political views is a confirmed national security threat and a terrorist. I hope they throw the book at these bitcoin boys.
- roenxi 3y ago
  Well, in the US in general it might be. The police are saying that it is probably a crime under money laundering and unlicensed money transmitting laws. The issue is that particular set of laws are mostly outrageous and quite unintuitive in practice. They criminalise a lot of quite reasonable activity - in this case, like selling bitcoin for cash. Although the thread root refutation makes no sense. Freely trading bitcoin leading to 9-11 is going to have to involve some flexible mental gymnastics since 9-11 happened in a pre-Bitcoin world. In practice AML style laws are generally targeting tax evasion.

tamimio 3y ago

> The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos.. Hopefully that clarifies for some folks why these big tech/social media companies insist on having your phone number as a “2FA for security” despite all the sim-swap attacks.. simply for this moment, because you might be using a VPN, and address/name aren’t in your google account, but definitely your phone number is there, it’s even worse if you’re using an android too, as they probably will pull out all your app/browsing history..

chatmasta 3y ago
You can avoid this with Google by using a virtual WebAuthN device (ironically via Chrome devtools), and then you will unlock the ability to enroll in MFA with a QR code for an OTP URL.
- getcrunk 3y ago
  This sounds like it’s new though? And maybe is for testing/dev and will go away?
- c0pium 3y ago
  Which really underscores that all of the MFA stuff is actually about security. Because of course it is.
- crotchfire 3y ago
  You can't avoid it during account creation. So they still have the number.
  - chatmasta 3y ago
    I was able to avoid it, albeit two years ago, when signing up with Apple "Hide My Email." I never gave Google my phone number for that account.
ehhthing 3y ago
[flagged]

WillieCubed 3y ago

> The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. Interesting aside: Viacom used a similar broad request back in 2008 [1] in its lawsuit that nearly put YouTube out of business in its infancy. This time, it's the government making the request, and Google has way more data to potentially provide. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20100702111029/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gvFPgT3MNrzaN7r-Y37eFI-qv4bA https://web.archive.org/web/20100702111029/http://afp.google...

datavirtue 3y ago

Isn't that what they already do? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Animats 3y ago

"In conversations with the user in early January, undercover agents sent links of YouTube tutorials for mapping via drones and augmented reality software, then asked Google for information on who had viewed the videos, which collectively have been watched over 30,000 times." Huh? Why? Is this because some country doesn't like people having good mapping technology? Israel and China object to precision mapping, but the US historically has not.

templeosenjoyer 3y ago
It was likely a fake mutual interest and they hoped "elonmuskwhm" would watch the videos so they could gather some data about them. That's how I interpreted it anyway.

arp242 3y ago

Somewhat related story from a few years ago: Justice Department withdraws FBI subpoena for USA Today records ID'ing readers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27408647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27408647 - Jun 2021 (174 comments)

MilStdJunkie 3y ago

Eleven hundred steaming pantloads of hot bullshit. This is textbook fishing trip. The real zinger of all this . . the thing that has me riled . . is that this is going to be used to put away who knows how many poor-ass sadsack innocent citizens who can't afford counsel, before the poooh-leeeeease finally bust that one guy who has the money to afford legal representation. Upon which everyone goes oh right this was really illegal SILLY US Someone posting up illegal videos? We already got laws for that, you sons of bitches. WATCHING videos? Like, "everyone in the country who watches this video?" Get the hell out of here.

someotherperson 3y ago

Casual reminder that Invidious[0] and Piped[1] exist. Farside[2] can automatically redirect you to a working instance, for example: https://farside.link/invidious https://farside.link/invidious If you add a redirector plugin for your browser, you can add a capture for something like this: https?://(.*?\.)?youtube.com/(.*) And push it to something like this: https://farside.link/invidious/$2 For example: https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM [0] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious [1] https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped [2] https://farside.link/ https://farside.link/

self_awareness 3y ago

1. Upload a video to YouTube, 2. Make it non-public, but possible to view for people who have links, 3. Post it to some shady underground forum full of people who want to do bad things to you for money, 4. Build the net of connections and track people who did watch the non-public link, see who knows who in this degenerate world of extorsions and theft, 5. Send the message to criminals that if they want to continue what they're doing, then even YouTube isn't safe for them, 6. Profit. TBH, if the above would be true, I would even be happy. But I'm biased, because I sincerely hate thieves and extorsionists.

anon115 3y ago

[flagged]

Bu9818 3y ago

Use Invidious, use RSS, use yt-dlp, use Tor.

HeartStrings 3y ago

Why are you linking to paywalled scam sites?

Razengan 3y ago

All this surveillance and cops still can't catch day to day petty thieves and scammers.

tacocataco 3y ago
This stuff is meant to control the working class, not help them. Working as intended.

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phkahler 3y ago

Why can't the police track down someone who calls in a threat from the phone records? How can people be more anonymous with "caller ID" than YouTube?

stainablesteel 3y ago

its eerily similar to the federal government forcing elon to give every piece of data on every person who ever liked a trump tweet the water is already boiling, its time to jump out

maxlin 3y ago

https://archive.is/2fCUs https://archive.is/2fCUs (Never not seen an archive link of a paywalled article buried so carrying my part of that responsibility)

atlgator 3y ago

Just waiting to get pinched for my secret shame: bourbon hunting videos. I don't even drink bourbon.

password4321 3y ago

Police sweep Google searches to find suspects; facing its first legal challenge 2022-06-30 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31938350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31938350