Linus Tech Tips, Tech Quickie, Tech Linked channels hacked

[Uttamattamakin]

1 minute ago, Drazil100 said:

I doubt they are gone forever. The hack was stopped relatively quickly and YouTube would be foolish to delete video files, descriptions, and comments immediately from their records. I am sure if the channels are public again that everything will be back by tomorrow.

Yeah it looks like they are just appended to the top.  So instead of a destructive disaster it's just a pain to go in and manually remove all of that or create a script to do it. 

[Waynhim]

5 minutes ago, lowstrife said:

Thankfully they are all from a million years ago. God forbid something more recent becomes available. 

 

 

Apparently some genius got flags mixed up and all the private videos are public... 

 

 

Can't believe this is what the recovery process is. I've seen it happen before on other channels, still can't believe it is this much of a clusterfuck. And why the channel is public during this. 

Linus talked about this recovery process during "We've made some AWFUL videos... - Reacting to our WORST". Apparently, the only way YouTube has to recover a channel where a hacker gained access and then privated/unlisted/deleted videos. Is to make EVERY video, including deleted ones, normal viewable content. Then the channel has to review every video and mark them appropriately.

[WeeemRCB]

5 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

I doubt they are gone forever. The hack was stopped relatively quickly and YouTube would be foolish to delete video files, descriptions, and comments immediately from their records. I am sure if the channels are public again that everything will be back by tomorrow.

Yea, it'll al be in a database.

Just needs to be restored to x point in time for his channels to recover them all 

[Drazil100]

1 minute ago, TylerD321 said:

So the posting of videos that were never meant to be posted… for example the one of his kid as a baby or the ones that say do not post. Is this YouTube’s fault or the hackers fault? I would sue the hell out of YouTube if it’s their fault honestly. 

The hackers did that not YouTube. I was awake this morning while the hackers still had control of the accounts and this was available back then. That said even if it was an error on YouTube's part I think it would be in very bad taste to sue after YouTube went to the trouble of helping them get their channel back so quickly. Less than a day is a very fast turnaround.

[Evident]

Ngl, while this sucks as a whole for everyone over at LMG, the social team on Twitter is killing it rn with the memes about it

[lowstrife]

9 minutes ago, Waynhim said:

Linus talked about this recovery process during "We've made some AWFUL videos... - Reacting to our WORST". Apparently, the only way YouTube has to recover a channel where a hacker gained access and then privated/unlisted/deleted videos. Is to make EVERY video, including deleted ones, normal viewable content. Then the channel has to review every video and mark them appropriately.

Like I said, unbelievable this is the process for a problem which has been ongoing for years. I first started seeing this scam in 2019. The Youtuber Marcostyle got his channel hijacked in exactly this same way.

 

 

I can only imagine the stress the team is under right now seeing this back catalogue exposed to the public, with apparently, no ability on their end to fix it (because they would have started privating things again). What a disaster. 

[parex11]

Ut OH the Algorithm is recommending me the do not upload videos 

 

[MartyS]

Looks like all they need is some automated way of removing the crypto scam line from all the video descriptions, the original descriptions are all there, the crypto scam link was just added to the top of each one.

 

Hope they don't have to manually make all the private videos private again, that will take so many hour of work.

[Endrocryne]

Looks like  the videos that were supposed to be private are going private again. Everyone hurry and download them!

[KunLibertad]

Not all video description got modified.

 

[09Creeperboy]

1 minute ago, Endrocryne said:

Looks like  the videos that were supposed to be private are going private again. Everyone hurry and download them!

if they were meant to be private, they should stay private. dont dowload them.

[M13]

Quite a few videos that look like they aren't supposed to publicized or personal. Guess best bet is to always keep those local and not hidden. The sub feed is horrendous now.

[Snipe440]

1 minute ago, KunLibertad said:

Not all video description got modified.

 

 

[Drazil100]

To all the people suggesting people download these privated or deleted videos just stop. It's not some fun game to collect these videos. LMG is a victim of hacking and it's in incredibly poor taste for everyone to be like "Quick download the videos," ESPECIALLY on their own forums and discord.

[Waynhim]

2 minutes ago, lowstrife said:

Like I said, unbelievable this is the process for a problem which has been ongoing for years. I first started seeing this scam in 2019, maybe even 2018. 

Well, even as much of a data hoarder as YouTube is I don't think they have enough capacity to back up the state of every channel more than once or twice, and what would be the process?

 

Would the channel set a backup point? If so the hacker could set it in the middle of the hack and effectively destroy the backup.

 

If it's time based, a less careful content creator could lose more recent uploads. Or, a single reset point and bad timing could still end up with a backup mid-hack.

 

This isn't an easily solvable problem on a platform like YouTube, so they just push the problem onto the creators.

[Uttamattamakin]

10 minutes ago, parex11 said:

Ut OH the Algorithm is recommending me the do not upload videos 

 

I've also noticed so call RC's so I guess that means Release Candidate.  

[ricey123]

4 minutes ago, 09Creeperboy said:

if they were meant to be private, they should stay private. dont dowload them.

 

[lowstrife]

3 minutes ago, Waynhim said:

Well, even as much of a data hoarder as YouTube is I don't think they have enough capacity to back up the state of every channel more than once or twice, and what would be the process?

 

Would the channel set a backup point? If so the hacker could set it in the middle of the hack and effectively destroy the backup.

 

If it's time based, a less careful content creator could lose more recent uploads. Or, a single reset point and bad timing could still end up with a backup mid-hack.

 

This isn't an easily solvable problem on a platform like YouTube, so they just push the problem onto the creators.

The backup itself is super easy. The video files themselves never actually get deleted. "deleting" things just edits the database and various flags around the videos, which is more or less just a line of text in some arbitrary file aka metadata. The entire LTT empire is a million video files, organized by maybe a few megabytes of text including all the descriptions, stats, flags, etc. The vast majority of the data is within these video files, not the metadata, so backups of the metadata is super easy. 

 

"backups" are done by saving snapshots of these database files. The videos themselves never get modified or copied. They probably have a seperate redundancy process within the CDN system of Youtube itself.

 

Which is why this is so shocking to me that the recovery process is this FUBAR. It's unbelievable. 

[Uttamattamakin]

Awww man.  This should not be funny.  This should not be funny.  Yeah it's kinda funny. 

Not his sister being in the video but it being about security.   Its just ironic in a way you have to laugh at so as to not cry a little. 

[Drazil100]

Just now, Waynhim said:

Well, even as much of a data hoarder as YouTube is I don't think they have enough capacity to back up the state of every channel more than once or twice, and what would be the process?

 

Would the channel set a backup point? If so the hacker could set it in the middle of the hack and effectively destroy the backup.

 

If it's time based, a less careful content creator could lose more recent uploads. Or, a single reset point and bad timing could still end up with a backup mid-hack.

 

This isn't an easily solvable problem on a platform like YouTube, so they just push the problem onto the creators.

The videos only need their usual level of backup necessary to prevent data loss. The text data such as comments, descriptions, and information telling youtube which videos belong to which channels is much easier to back up. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if YouTube doesn't delete any videos. 

[Kazlehoff]

This happened the last time something happened to their channel too if i recall. Im not going to watch them. it DOES, however, give an interesting view into the workings of the company.

 

[Shonk]

36 minutes ago, Waynhim said:

I thought it worth chiming in because this isn't an "agree to disagree" topic. I have a degree in computer science. My network security class covered this exact case, as you described, as a type of hacking. This is taught at Universities as hacking, it IS the correct term.

My 26 Year old son has a degree in computer game development and is a programmer for a living and he doesnt know squat

guess who he comes running to when he needs to know something

 

as i said man i dont want to be sitting here duking it out with the grandma's all day

 

Lets agree to disagree

[Uttamattamakin]

2 minutes ago, lowstrife said:

 

Which is why this is so shocking to me that the recovery process is this FUBAR. It's unbelievable. 

True.  One would think it's just a matter of restoring from a versioned backup of some kind.  Odds are it's not that simple.  The infrastructure was built up layer by layer over decades.  I think LTT might even predate Google buying youtube, 2006 so no, but pretty close.  Who knows how many systems on top of systems host various parts of this. 

[ServerSide_Drew]

TechQuickie and TechLinked are back, but still have the Tesla logo  

[ZombieMan762]

42 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

2 Things:
First, they wouldn't be the size they are or be able to ask sponsors for as much as they do if it wasn't for every single one of their viewers regardless of if they are subscribed on Floatplane or if they just happen to view a video every now and then. While I don't think they owe free viewers a lot I DO think they owe us at least a little

Second, I agree that we do not need an explanation. Taking action and trying to get the channel back is top priority and I wouldn't blame them in the slightest if they had said nothing until everything is resolved. The thing is though they DID take the time to make a statement and I think it is fair to wonder why they didn't initially post it somewhere more public.

To be clear. I am not personally mad nor do I hold this against them in anyway. I just think it's fair to feel owed an explanation when the time was taken to give one but only to paying viewers.

 

Linus posted in this thread and on Twitter. Calm down.