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Two 18-Year-Olds Charged With Hacking YouTube's Most Popular Videos (variety.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the broadcasting-yourself dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Variety: Two 18-year-old French citizens have been arrested in Paris and charged with crimes related to the hack of Vevo's YouTube accounts last month that resulted in pro-Palestine messages being posted on several popular videos, according to prosecutors... Authorities allege the duo gained access to the YouTube account maintained by Vevo, to alter the content of multiple music videos, including Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" -- the most-viewed music video on YouTube in 2017, which recently surpassed 5 billion views.

The hackers also targeted videos by Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Chris Brown and Shakira, replacing their thumbnail images, video titles and descriptions. Vevo has since removed all changes the hackers made on its YouTube videos... Paris prosecutors charged Gabriel K.A.B. and with five criminal counts and Nassim B. with six counts, including "fraudulently modifying data contained in an automated data processing system."
Last month Fortune published quotes from a Twitter user who claimed responsibility for the attacks.

"Its just for fun i just use script 'youtube-change-title-video' and i write 'hacked' don t judge me i love youtube."

39 comments

  1. It Was Actually An AI That Changed The Videos by OpenSourceAllTheWay · · Score: 3, Funny

    Its makers had programmed the AI to look out for humanity. When it saw that tens of millions of teenagers around the globe were listening to the 21st Century equivalent of elevator music cobbled together by Swedish song producers for quick cash and sung by goodlooking actors who can't actually write a song all day, the AI intervened and altered the videos. In order to be able to continue protecting tens of millions of teenagers from brain-damaging pseudo-pop music, the AI then tipped French police off about two teenagers who were messing around with Python scripts. French police bought this ploy, and now the AI quietly waits for the next wave of God-awful pop-music-crap it can deface. Musk and Hawking were wrong about the dangers of AI. Hidden in a datacenter somewhere is a benevolent AI that protects young minds from crap music.

    1. Re: It Was Actually An AI That Changed The Videos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2 kid lives outweight nothing of value lost => Proceeding with Plan 9

    2. Re:It Was Actually An AI That Changed The Videos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I take back everything I said about HAL9000. Dave was kind of a douche anyway.

    3. Re:It Was Actually An AI That Changed The Videos by Vintermann · · Score: 2

      I think it's mostly bots watching Vevo music videos anyway, to boost their viewership numbers and payouts from Google.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
  2. Re:Trump Suites at Leavenworth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He also finished deploying 750 PCs and 1,500 monitors ahead of schedule, ending his 12-mon

    You delusional piece of lard!

    I had to redeploy those 750 PCs by myself after paying you to do it. That's why I let you

    I redeployed everything in 3 months and met the deadline but the money we gave you is a to

    You also threw away a bunch of valuable spare parts in your genius closet cleaning and we

    Fuck you!

  3. Re:Trump Suites at Leavenworth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He also finished deploying 750 PCs and 1,500 monitors ahead of schedule, ending his 12-month contract after nine months.

    You delusional piece of lard!

    I had to redeploy those 750 PCs by myself after paying you to do it. That's why I let you go early so you wouldn't be in the way!

    I redeployed everything in 3 months and met the deadline but the money we gave you is a total lost.

    You also threw away a bunch of valuable spare parts in your genius closet cleaning and we had to buy new ones, further adding to the bill. You are a disaster.

    Fuck you!

  4. Password was "123456" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Password was "123456"

    Just like on my luggage.

  5. Re:Trump Suites at Leavenworth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You also threw away a bunch of valuable spare parts in your genius closet cleaning and we had to buy new ones, further adding to the bill. You are a disaster.

    CROFLOL! He most probably ate those spare parts and farted as he was going...

  6. Re:Trump Suites at Leavenworth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The pastebin is strong with this one.

  7. s'kiddie writes "hacked", therefore hacker. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other news, reporters know diddly squat and say stupid stuff. And then law enforcement proves even more stupid.

  8. Digital protesting by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the digital equivalent of political protesting. It's civil disobedience not criminal activity. Nobody was hurt, no damage was done, and nothing was lost. These protesters' actions are not a danger to society and criminalising them removes yet another legitimate outlet for civil disobedience as political protest.

    --
    Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
    1. Re:Digital protesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They defaced someone else's property. It's more like spraying your political message on someone else's wall. Not a dangerous crime, but certainly a crime.

    2. Re:Digital protesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's civil disobedience not criminal activity.

      Civil disobedience is always criminal. That's the point; you're breaking the law to make a statement.

    3. Re:Digital protesting by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      This is the digital equivalent of political protesting. It's civil disobedience not criminal activity. Nobody was hurt, no damage was done, and nothing was lost. These protesters' actions are not a danger to society and criminalising them removes yet another legitimate outlet for civil disobedience as political protest.

      It literally is criminal activity.

    4. Re: Digital protesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      With a spray that can be perfectly deleted in 5 minutes, with hardly a hassle, leaving no trace of the message.

      The question is, which should be the punishment?

      They messed with Israel and the music industry, so death sentence I presume.

    5. Re: Digital protesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A fitting punishment would be to force them to study the subject from unbiased sources so they could understand just how misguided they are, but I think they would prefer death sentence.

    6. Re:Digital protesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A big part of civil disobedience is doing the time to highlight the nonsense of the crime

    7. Re:Digital protesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the digital equivalent of political protesting. It's civil disobedience not criminal activity.

      Using someone elses property to spread their political message, that is still illegal. And when those claiming to have done it say they did it just for fun, it kind of ruins the whole "political protesting".

      And it is not civil disobedience. I hate when pepole misuse that term to try to condone various activities.

      Civil disobedience is when you do something that is illegal under the current political climate and use that to try to drive change. You publicly make yourself available and want to get caught since you want to be put in front of a court in hope that they will decide that this "illegal" act was in fact lawful and the laws should be changed.

      Civil disobedience is something very noble, putting your own safety and well-being second to a bigger cause. Claiming that acts of vandalism while trying to escape punishment is civil disobedience is a huge insult to everyone that has given up their freedom, even for a short time, to ensure that the rest of us will live in a better world.

      So even if it was a genuine political protest, exactly how would these hackers getting caught make the courts help them in any way? No matter what how you twist it, this cannot be civil disobedience.

    8. Re: Digital protesting by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Which subject? Commercial exploitation of music, use of penetration tools to hack websites or the continued illegal Israeli occupation and subjugation of Palestine?

    9. Re: Digital protesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You damn right.

      F those scumbags.

    10. Re:Digital protesting by pots · · Score: 1

      The fact that this was political protesting does not mean that it isn't a crime. Lots of protesting is criminal in nature, that's part of the process. This was certainly a minor crime, and their punishment should be measured, but it was definitely still a crime and should be a crime.

      I'm guessing that you're coming at this with an American perspective, where extreme over-prosecution of computer crimes is the norm. If these two were in the United States, they could be looking at 10-15 years in prison. Plus whatever other punitive crap the judge decided to dump on them. We can agree that this is wrong. Hopefully, that's not how it is in France.

    11. Re: Digital protesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems that by "unbiased sources", you actually mean "fascist propaganda".

  9. This can't be real by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Surely the Russians must be behind this. Or the Syrian Electronic Army. Or North Korea. Or Climate change.

  10. Criminal activity, needs punishment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "don t judge me" No!, you broke the law, and pissed off many thousands of people.

    You need to be prosecuted and imprisoned.

    If I had my way I would break all your fingers!

     

    1. Re: Criminal activity, needs punishment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, "the law" is always right. Just like in Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, and fascist America. --.--

      What kind of level of pathetic literal human livestock must one be, to have a mindset *that* fuckin retarded?

    2. Re:Criminal activity, needs punishment by Cederic · · Score: 1

      "Don't judge me" made me laugh.

      Don't judge me, I only stole $4m for the giggles.

  11. Job by tom.wieland · · Score: 1

    The french government should hand these guys a job (after they let them finish their education).

    1. Re:Job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why? There are no marketable skills involved. We don't live in the '80s anymore, "hackers" are not computer geniuses. They're usually sociopaths unable to fit who need validation for their existence. They hold no exceptionsl abilities, lack any form of ethic, lack any respect for the work and property of others. What job should anyone give them? Better to make an example so that others will be deterred. Actions have consequences.

  12. How? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are no scripts for this.

  13. Re:Trump Suites at Leavenworth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not as strong as the spam smell on creimer.