Althouse: "The most-viewed YouTube video of all time, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s 'Despacito,' disappeared from YouTube today after being defaced by hackers."

April 10, 2018

"The most-viewed YouTube video of all time, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s 'Despacito,' disappeared from YouTube today after being defaced by hackers."

"The video’s image was altered and replaced with a masked gang holding guns (from Netflix show Casa de Papel), and the description was changed by hackers calling themselves Prosox and Kuroi’sh."

The Verge reports.

20 comments:

MadisonMan said...: Wow, I've never viewed the most-viewed video of all time.

Sad.; 4/10/18, 8:48 AM
Fernandinande said...: Wow, I've never viewed the most-viewed video of all time.

AFAIK, I've never seen any of the top 100 videos and haven't even heard of most of the people.

I'm happy as long as nobody messes with the Russian car accident videos.; 4/10/18, 8:58 AM
rhhardin said...: I'm amazed youtube doesn't back the stuff up and simply restore it.; 4/10/18, 9:04 AM
n.n said...: YouTube is a security and gun-free zone.; 4/10/18, 9:04 AM
Nonapod said...: Interesting. I fancy myself as someone who is at least peripherally aware of the more significant elements of the current popular culture. And yet I have never heard of this Despacito thing, the name or the actual song. I guess I need to reevaluate. I'm officially a square.; 4/10/18, 9:04 AM
MadisonMan said...: And yet I have never heard of this Despacito thing

I believe the Biebs also recorded it. I'm not yet totally out of it :); 4/10/18, 9:09 AM
mccullough said...: Good to know how easy it is to hack you tube. They are having a bad month.; 4/10/18, 9:21 AM
Bill Peschel said...: It wasn't just one video (read the story). A number of them, associated with Vevo, so it might be that Vevo was hacked and the result appears on YouTube.

The story linked to Wiki's list of top 100 videos on YouGoob, with views in the billions. Wow, that's a lot of bots.; 4/10/18, 9:40 AM
Xmas said...: Watching the video now. I can understand why it's "Most Viewed".; 4/10/18, 10:03 AM
richlb said...: Meanwhile "Gangnam Style" remains untouched. Go Psy!; 4/10/18, 10:17 AM
Sam L. said...: Never heard of either of them.; 4/10/18, 10:43 AM
MadisonMan said...: I looked through the list of 100-most viewed. It's kind of interesting, the internationalization of the views.

I recommend "Stressed out" (#52). Great song.

Poor Carly Rae. About to fall off the bottom of the list.; 4/10/18, 10:51 AM
Infinite Monkeys said...: Sesame Street version - El Patito

Who does the closed captioning for videos, the video creator or YouTube? I'm asking because this one has, "Yellow little buddy, I squeeze you and squeeze you. I know it doesn't phase ya." Maybe the hackers can get into this one too and fix it.; 4/10/18, 2:01 PM
Infinite Monkeys said...: My previous comment should not be taken as an actual invitation to hack anything. I thought I should clear that up since people are still pretending that they thought Trump was serious when he joked that Russian hackers should try to find Clinton's missing emails.; 4/10/18, 2:05 PM
Etienne said...: When I got my first computer login in 1971, the first thing we did was to try and figure out other peoples passwords. We succeeded past our wildest dreams.

One of the worst things a country can do, is allow their citizens to use passwords on the Internet.

The 21st Century requires more sophistication, and I would say that the US Military has the best system so far.

It's a 3-factor system:

1) Something you have: a smart card
2) Something you know: a PIN
3) Something you are: a fingerprint (compared to the one stored on the smart card)

I personally don't like fingerprint sensors, as you can chop a persons finger off, after getting them to tell you their PIN before you kill them.

An alternative to a smart card is the YUBI key, but it has no biometrics, so
is only 2-factor.

An second YUBI alternative for cheap civilians (also 2-factor):

1) Something you have: a YUBI U2F mode USB Key
2) Something you know: password

After you login with your name and password it asks for your YUBI key, which you insert into USB and touch the button.

A more basic 2-factor alternative is:

1) Something you know: a password
2) Something you have: a SMS message receiver/transmitter (e.g., cell phone)

Alas, most businesses on the Internet provide none of this.

c'est la vie; 4/10/18, 2:19 PM
Nonapod said...: Etienne reminded me of Blizzard's weird keychain thing for World of Warcraft, (a "two factor" authentication). It would generate a random 6 digit number that you'd use in addition to your normal account password.

It's kinda funny that a video game offers more security than most voting systems for example.; 4/10/18, 2:55 PM
Darrell said...: YouTube is able to restore the defaced video in minutes. If they wanted to.; 4/10/18, 3:35 PM
Floris said...: From the description, it does not sound like videos from any good songs were affected.; 4/10/18, 4:03 PM
bagoh20 said...: I think it's the most viewed becuase they are counting the views of the other 10,000 music videos that are nearly identical to it. It does have slightly more than the average of hot girls that are gyrating nearly naked, and the production quality is high, but it's a slight difference only in degree from many many others, and the music is nothing special at all.; 4/10/18, 6:46 PM
Anonymous said...: "Infinite Monkeys said...

"Who does the closed captioning for videos, the video creator or YouTube?"

Content creators can do their own. If they don't, though, YouTube provides "automatic captions" -- i.e., voice recognition captioning. You know, just like when you dictate an email or a text and "Please call me back" comes out "Fleas on my back."; 4/10/18, 9:56 PM