I'm always happy to see that none of you guys participated in this whole fake views fiasco but there are a few things that need to be mentioned about this.
-Earlier this year a flaw was discovered in the mobile section of the site which provided videos through rtsp. Unlike the main desktop version of the site, the mobile section did not record individual IP addresses per view. For example someone could rent a VPS (gigabit connection) and keep hitting the url for the rtsp stream and +1 the view every time. You didn't even have to download/stream the video fully, just send it a GET request.
-Upon discovering this various services such as ViewTornado popped up, the "hack" was only shared by a few people at the time who dominated the "most viewed" section of Youtube for a few week and gained a lot of subscribers, which was the only way to make money [1].
-After the glitch was released on various public blackhat forums everybody had access to it, for a few days there was a lot of disruption with the mobile section of youtube (indirect ddos).
To combat this Youtube has added additional protection. There were also other glitches that affected the desktop version of the website which have now also been patched. Furthermore, if you analyse Youtube http packets you will see that every few seconds it makes a request to the youtube servers while you watch a video. This is done to prevent "botting" and to better evaluate viewer engagement (eg how long the viewer watched the video before closing). Apparently, this statistic now also a vital component in the ranking of the videos.
[1] Contrary to popular HN belief, fake views did not directly generate revenue for the culprits. However, the popularity gained from the fake views (front page features, most viewed today etc) did generate a fair amount of revenue and exposure for the culprits.
Can you please explain how fake views did not generate revenue? I thought that Youtube Partners got paid some CPM for every 1,000 views their video had?
-Earlier this year a flaw was discovered in the mobile section of the site which provided videos through rtsp. Unlike the main desktop version of the site, the mobile section did not record individual IP addresses per view. For example someone could rent a VPS (gigabit connection) and keep hitting the url for the rtsp stream and +1 the view every time. You didn't even have to download/stream the video fully, just send it a GET request.
-Upon discovering this various services such as ViewTornado popped up, the "hack" was only shared by a few people at the time who dominated the "most viewed" section of Youtube for a few week and gained a lot of subscribers, which was the only way to make money [1].
-After the glitch was released on various public blackhat forums everybody had access to it, for a few days there was a lot of disruption with the mobile section of youtube (indirect ddos).
To combat this Youtube has added additional protection. There were also other glitches that affected the desktop version of the website which have now also been patched. Furthermore, if you analyse Youtube http packets you will see that every few seconds it makes a request to the youtube servers while you watch a video. This is done to prevent "botting" and to better evaluate viewer engagement (eg how long the viewer watched the video before closing). Apparently, this statistic now also a vital component in the ranking of the videos.
[1] Contrary to popular HN belief, fake views did not directly generate revenue for the culprits. However, the popularity gained from the fake views (front page features, most viewed today etc) did generate a fair amount of revenue and exposure for the culprits.