Leaking YouTube creators' private videos • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#261

Post by tryagainian » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

youarenaive343 wrote: post #232

tryagainian wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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You’re responding to an argument I didn’t make.

And looks like you agree that coding isn’t engineering.

The first high-level programming language was Plankalkül, created by Konrad Zuse between 1942 and 1945.[2] The first high-level language to have an associated compiler was created by Corrado Böhm in 1951, for his PhD thesis.

How long are you going to keep claiming programming is a brand new discipline?

Okay, engineering proper has thousands of years of history. But it’s not like coding came down in the last shower.

Fair enough that any random app probably doesn’t need to be probably correct. And that’s why it’s not engineering.

The practice of coding is a science and an art.

I guess we should make a distinction between Engineering and engineering.

Lower case e engineering is the design and manufacture of complex product - in which case, sure coding is engineering, and coders are engineers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag...

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#262

Post by SoftTalker » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

jareklupinski wrote: post #81

ShrootBuck wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who in the company do you propose should fix it

someone hired by the company to understand the application and fix the bug ive inherited a lot of code

Fixing bugs is a great activity for new hires. Gets them familiar with the codebase.

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#263

Post by dietr1ch » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:45 PM UTC

NamTaf wrote: post #149

Mg6yDfjp5U wrote: post #10

I recently left Google having worked on a number of projects with various YouTube teams. I think I can explain why it's being handled this way by YouTube. This is a fairly nuanced/involved issue, so the task of classifying the bug likely made it's way to one of the engineers responsible for the implementation of this feature. That engineer has already launched this project, and filed it away under their GRAD (perform…

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> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.

Yup, most don't have the spine to stand up for their moral as they grew up creating low-stake toys. On top of that we have been unable to establish the rigour (proofs, automated-verification, proper design thinking beyond the next 2 quarters) and doing so is really hard and often doesn't have drawbacks comparable to losing speed against teams that just keep throwing stuff at the wall.

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#264

Post by 8organicbits » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:48 PM UTC

ryankrage77 wrote: post #155

This can give the attacker the URL of a private video, but they won't be able to access it. It could let them access unlisted videos, but I don't think that's as big a deal.

This is an important point, private videos should not be impacted by this as knowing the URL isn't enough to access the video. Unlisted videos are indirect-object reference by design. It's poor security, but the user is expected to understand the tradeoff (if they actually do is questionable).

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#265

Post by 8organicbits » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:50 PM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #41

Flashbacks to when I uploaded a private video, and on a first date a person googled me and said "Oh is this you, ". Apparently at some point private videos were indexed in google.

The unlisted video indexes still exist. https://unlistedvideos.com is one example.

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#266

Post by bentcorner » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:52 PM UTC

YorickPeterse wrote: post #245

jp_sc wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year alone, 40 people died in Spain in a train derailment. In total, how many people have died over the last 100 years because of something a software engineer did?

Probably more than we'd like to admit. This isn't new either ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 for example). Thinking software developers have done no wrong (deliberately or not) ever is just borderline naive.

Not just accidental, there are many tools/processes/weapons that are powered by software written by engineers who knowingly write their code to do harm.

But people gotta eat and all so who am I to blame.

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#267

Post by marking-time » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:53 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #250

marking-time wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a sysadmin at hospitals. There is software in everything like biomed devices, imaging machines and even the humble email system that I maintained. Other examples of critical software systems include banking and voting. I have never _ever_ called myself an engineer even when I was encouraged to. It is foolish to leave this field unregulated.

Medical device software is very strictly regulated.

Yes, of course you are correct. I should have been more specific in my response. I can print("Hello World") and I am not an engineer. I have a BS in accounting but am not a CPA, and that is also highly regulated.

The point I am trying to make is that we are building a society on software that has no legally binding standards but has serious impacts to all of us.

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#268

Post by magicalist » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:56 PM UTC

lesuorac wrote: post #182

wahnfrieden wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google leadership has been from research/engineering and product backgrounds. This is how hierarchical businesses operate

Except leadership is largely not from employees moving up the rank Sundar (CEO) is from Mcksinsley. Ruth (President) is from Morgan Stanley. TK (Cloud CEO) is from Oracle. Mohan (YouTube CEO) is from DoubleClick which is Google at this point (~15 years). --- Largely the story of the past several decades is that "doing your time" is a bad strategy. Always move to another company to go upwards.

Wait, but Sundar Pichai was there pre google IPO as a Chrome PM, and Neal Mohan was there for 18 years. How are they examples of "doing your time" being a bad strategy?

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#269

Post by deathanatos » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 12:04 AM UTC

nomel wrote: post #146

tredre3 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's reasonable to have a culture where you're encouraged to consult the IC who wrote the code even after they've moved on to other projects. But I don't think they should be responsible for fixing the bugs. And I don't mean this to excuse the bad code written by ICs. I just think it's not sustainable from the POV of the org itself to depend so heavily on individuals, especially ones who aren't familiar with…

That works as long as there's a finish line. If you make a framework, or a set of libraries, it's easy to get pigeon holed into all new features/tangential work around those.

I'd go more with their last statement of,

> The team currently in charge needs to have full ownership and be responsible for the code, even if they didn't write it.

That's honestly a high enough bar — many orgs I've worked in do what I call "zero-staffing", which is where an in-use / deployed-to-production project has no team, no engineers (or so few engineers, such as one, as to be a pittance). That one eng, if they even exist, is often just trying to hold everything together.

There's a middle ground, of course: an engineer who has accomplished too much might be underwater with questions, but at the same time, they need to pass the torch to the next team that is maintaining it.

… but too often, there just isn't a next team. People get burnt out, leave for greener pastures, and stuff gets decommed (maybe) because people are like "what even is this?" b/c the knowledge has walked.

The industry is not rewarding experience or knowledge at the moment, so that trend will continue.

Re: Leaking YouTube creators' private videos

#270

Post by deathanatos » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 12:06 AM UTC

ZiiS wrote: post #123

dfxm12 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People eventually stop using, and paying for, buggy code.

ROFL this has not been my experience. Many more people stop paying because of some featuritis request you snubed to keep the bugs under control.

Because big tech companies are oligopolies, and there isn't enough competition in the market. If you're dissatisfied with the 2 choices out there, you cannot vote with your wallet.