So I was using a website that randomly selects a video with zero views on YouTube to play ([url]http://www.petittube.com/[/url]) and I found something quite unsettling.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRlgLKR0FB0[/media]
Every single one of this channel's 77,389 videos are like this. Nine slides that contain two rectangles, with "aqua.flv" in the corner, and 10-11 tones playing. Almost all of these videos have zero views - every video combined has 8,744 views, compared to 77k+ videos. The video titles appear to be either a random alphanumeric string or simply the word "aqua" from the earlier videos. What would possess someone to create a channel like this? What is its purpose? What does "Webdriver Torso" mean? Do the rectangles/tones have any significance? What is aqua.flv?
I did some googling and found a Daily Dot article ([url]http://www.dailydot.com/geek/youtube-webdriver-torso/[/url]) that discusses it, just published today. They follow a lead that turns out to be [probably] false, and we're left back where we've started. Facepunch tends to be good at solving ARGs and the like, or at least leading fruitful discussion on them, so I thought some of you may have some insight on exactly what the fuck is going on here.
Trying to make some viral challenge type thing (decypher the code) then raking in money from the advertising?
Maybe its issuing commands to a botnet? Twitter has been used in a similar way with accounts just posting gibberish.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5jmvmVC.jpg[/IMG]
aliums
I kind of doubt it's meant to be read automatically by a remote bot; First of all the squares sometimes obscure each other, which would make it impossible to determine their height or width. Secondly having the little aqua.flv text in the corner would screw up less sophisticated attempts at decoding information from the squares. This means that it's only the origo position and tones that determine how to decode any "messages".
I'm more interested in the petittube thing where you found this. It's like I'm discovering all the untold gems of the internet.
Except I'm not, really. I'm just wading through piles of real estate and baby videos.
This one is my favorite so far
[video=youtube;T7ZFn4TByqM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ZFn4TByqM[/video]
Edit: Why do my embeds never work?
Edit 2: Yay. Thanks, WastedJamacan. (I know it's 3 weeks old, shut up.)
[QUOTE=RubberNinja;44655405]I'm more interested in the petittube thing where you found this. It's like I'm discovering all the untold gems of the internet.
Except I'm not, really. I'm just wading through piles of real estate and baby videos.
This one is my favorite so far
[video=youtube;T7ZFn4TByqM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ZFn4TByqM[/video]
Edit: Why do my embeds never work?[/QUOTE]
You need to remove the s from https://
[video=youtube;XTCRaVI3vSo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTCRaVI3vSo[/video]
I found this weird channel with RAPHAEËL ZACHARIE DE IZARRA in every single one of the thousand videos, any french here mind checking in?
[QUOTE=Wasaur;44657908][video=youtube;XTCRaVI3vSo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTCRaVI3vSo[/video]
I found this weird channel with RAPHAEËL ZACHARIE DE IZARRA in every single one of the thousand videos, any french here mind checking in?[/QUOTE]
I found this gem on his channel:
[video=youtube;7rAP78jblOA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rAP78jblOA[/video]
I have absolutely no idea what is going on. The way it started off made me think it was going to be a porno.
I'd be scared of getting a screamer using this.
[QUOTE=Wasaur;44657908]I found this weird channel with RAPHAEËL ZACHARIE DE IZARRA in every single one of the thousand videos, any french here mind checking in?[/QUOTE]
I can tell you that all these titles doesn't mean anything, it's like someone took some random words from an old novel and put Raphaël Zacharie de IZARRA in the sentence. He must be really high too.
I know what is going on this is aliens trying to communicate with earth by uploading tons of videos in their way of communicating.
[video=youtube;BCzW0_k3paI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCzW0_k3paI[/video]
[editline]28th April 2014[/editline]
[video=youtube;g2McoCz8ucY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2McoCz8ucY[/video]
I doubt that aliens would communicate by such primitive messages, while there's so little information told in them with way too long delays. It must be just a random troll or some programmer doing it on purpose, in my opinion...
[QUOTE=M2k3;44633541]Maybe its issuing commands to a botnet? Twitter has been used in a similar way with accounts just posting gibberish.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5jmvmVC.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
They are encrypted messages that take you to [url]http://paste.debian.net/44059/download/44059[/url]
meaning that the bots scan twitter and download whatever the account posts. If you know the account and convert the posts from base64, you will download a file with the next target on it.
:)
Tadah [url]http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2014/may/01/truth-youtube-mysterious-videos-webdriver-torso[/url]
[QUOTE]Isaul Vargas, a New York-based software tester, spotted the videos in a post on BoingBoing and recognised them from an automation conference he had been at a year ago. They were being shown by a European firm that made streaming software for set-top boxes, the kit that sits under a TV and connects to services such as Sky or Netflix.
The company needed to be able to quickly and reliably upload digital video, a capability which it tested by uploading short, randomly generated snippets to its YouTube channel and running image-recognition software on it. "Considering the volume of videos and the fact they use YouTube, it tells me that this is a large company testing their video encoding software and measuring how Youtube compresses the videos," says Vargas.
So there's the answer. What looked like an insight into the murky world of espionage, or maybe even something otherworldly, turns out to be a little bit of a quality-control system leaking into the outside world.
Perhaps some puzzles are better left unsolved.
UPDATE: But there's another twist. Isaul has tracked down the presentation he saw, which was given by the British company YouView. While it features similar videos, it is not identical: so although the general principle of using WebDriver, YouTube and automatic image recognition to test software stands, the culprit has slipped off into the night.
When one door closes, another opens. A thousand videos into the series is one six-second clip that breaks the mould. A short video of the Eiffel Tower, it features a comment from the uploader: "Matei is highly intelligent." Already, readers have been hard at work trying to find someone who fits the bill, but it's tricky. Matei is a common Romanian name, and even assuming that Matei is the uploader, is based in France, and has a public profile, there are at least two possibilities: Basarab Matei, who works on image recognition at the University of Paris North (suggested by @DAddYE), and Matei Mancas, who works on attention modelling at the University of Mons in Belgium (suggested by @marquis).
[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/OZaooxY.png[/IMG]
if videos of colored rectangles are that popular why don't they show them on the tv
[QUOTE=gooooooooooogle;44753280][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/OZaooxY.png[/IMG]
if videos of colored rectangles are that popular why don't they show them on the tv[/QUOTE]
I think it only got like that because of the news story posted about it.
Before then I'm pretty sure those numbers were close to none.
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