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YouTube video has its own URL in it

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Re: YouTube video has its own URL in it

#32

Definitely not the same technique, but at one point I watched a Mario Maker puzzle level someone had uploaded that used part of its own level code as a clue. The trick was that only two characters of the level code were used, which is hexadecimal, so there are 256 combinations of those two characters, allowing the level creator to brute force re-uploading the level until getting the desired combination.

Reminds me of the brilliant New York Times crossword which "predicted" the winner of the US election in 1996:

http://www.alaricstephen.com/main-featured/2017/7/3/the-clin...

Re: YouTube video has its own URL in it

#33
post #21

Can't you just upload a video, get the url. Make a new video and upload it as an edit?

No, you can edit a video in YT but you can't reupload a new video with the same URL.

I am very sure that high profile users can do that.

edit: Yes, sorry for the crappy source though -> https://www.reviewjournal.com/insidetech/youtube-lets-some-u...

Re: YouTube video has its own URL in it

#34
post #26

I think it's most likely done with the API. From what I remember from looking at it a while ago you can create the entry before, then it'll give you the right endpoint where you post your actual file to later on in the process. You just have to do that quickly enough so the endpoint doesn't expire.

It's apparently even been done before, see here at around the three minute mark: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UMYTSJTU0Vk

Re: YouTube video has its own URL in it

#36
post #25
post #3

This looks really interesting. Has YouTube ever published their URL generation technique? Any one has a guess how this was done? If they use a one way hash over metadata and content if video does this not mean that someone has figured out their secret key.

I'm wondering how this could actually be exploited. Is there any value in knowing your URL ahead of time besides impressing the HN crowd?

you can post links all around the web and do some kind of SEO-bomb for the video if you can guess the URL before hand, but that quickly happens organically for popular/viral stuff anyway

Re: YouTube video has its own URL in it

#40

Definitely not the same technique, but at one point I watched a Mario Maker puzzle level someone had uploaded that used part of its own level code as a clue. The trick was that only two characters of the level code were used, which is hexadecimal, so there are 256 combinations of those two characters, allowing the level creator to brute force re-uploading the level until getting the desired combination.

Reminds me of the brilliant New York Times crossword which "predicted" the winner of the US election in 1996: http://www.alaricstephen.com/main-featured/2017/7/3/the-clin...

This page seems to have zero text or image content unless I let SquareSpace run Javascript (and ostensibly track me).
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