YouTube investigating employees for accessing backend to leak games

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member


From what I can gather, YouTube has investigated employees breaching their contractual agreements on two different occasions in the past 18 months due to employees accessing content on the backend.
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Following today (and presumably SGF), we'll see a third investigation fairly soon.
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Excited John Cena GIF by WWE
 
abstract alien said:
By backend, do they mean drafted videos?
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It's likely this or unlisted and private videos.

I would be surprised if the average Google dev could query their production YouTube DB, but then again Google spends a lot of time making data easily accessible to promote data-driven decisions and AI projects.
 
Yeah, kinda no-brainer to see where these leaks are coming from. The SoP leaks were pretty much spot on. Clearly someone who has access to the unlisted/private content.
 
Can probably see who last accessed private client data (YT Studio) on their server from some workstation and/or employee ID.
 
I just came from another thread where I was accessing so many backends, cuff me officers, 20 years in the slammer
 
Guess Sony and other major publishers have started pressuring YouTube to take action once more. I wonder what that means for Pyoro since this account gets his Nintendo leaks from YouTube's backend.
 
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The real question is, why do these companies keep fussing about pre-loading the videos in the chase of this faux live nonsense? Complete with countdowns and all that.

Just say the SOP or conference will air on xx date. Then on that day upload it like everyone else. Everyone more or less watches it on the same day.

Problem solved, no more third-party leaks.
 
Good. The only thing youtube leaks ruin is shows that are coming out within a few days. No one needs these leaks.
 
DeaconOfTheDank said:
It's likely this or unlisted and private videos.

I would be surprised if the average Google dev could query their production YouTube DB, but then again Google spends a lot of time making data easily accessible to promote data-driven decisions and AI projects.
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I listen to Guts
You listen to Guts
We listen to Guts.
 
Mr.Phoenix said:
The real question is, why do these companies keep fussing about pre-loading the videos in the chase of this faux live nonsense? Complete with countdowns and all that.

Just say the SOP or conference will air on xx date. Then on that day upload it like everyone else. Everyone more or less watches it on the same day.

Problem solved, no more third-party leaks.
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What if the upload fails, or the video corrupts, or the stream cuts out mid-broadcast?

Most of those showcases, directs and state of plays have contractual duties to ensure the best presentation possible for 3P software.
 
It's crazy they haven't had tighter controls around this til recently.

All kinds of commercially sensitive info would be available in draft videos. There should have been internal access logging and user behaviour analytics all over this long ago.
 
I think the reason for uploading early is to prevent the quality from being garbage. I remember watching streams before thinking a game didn't look that great, then watching the 4k footage afterwards and it looking completely different.
 
Dazraell said:
You do know that showcase itself with all of these announcements is literally aired as a video on youtube, right?
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Yeah? But that's just one singular youtube video titled PS showcase. They don't have to put any mention of any of the actual announcements in the backend info
 
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NoobSmog said:
I think the reason for uploading early is to prevent the quality from being garbage. I remember watching streams before thinking a game didn't look that great, then watching the 4k footage afterwards and it looking completely different.
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Yeah they probably need to propagate the videos across the entire YouTube server network.
 
Knightsoftheround said:
Yeah? But that's just one singular youtube video titled PS showcase. They don't have to put any mention of any of the actual announcements in the backend info
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It's just an educated guess, but I think people who have admin access most likely are able to browse the frames of the video itself in certain capacity, see data like video's length, what yt algorithm marked about that video, etc. So if you hide the title, some things most likely can still be accessed

The issue here is not really Sony's fault, but people who work at YouTube and overuse their admin permissions and break the confidentiality agreements they signed by leaking sensitive data
 
Dazraell said:
It's just an educated guess, but I think people who have admin access most likely are able to browse the frames of the video itself in certain capacity, see data like video's length, what yt algorithm marked about that video, etc. So if you hide the title, some things most likely can still be accessed

The issue here is not really Sony's fault, but people who work at YouTube and overuse their admin permissions and break the confidentiality agreements they signed by leaking sensitive data
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Oh yeah don't get me wrong I agree.

Just if I were Sony and watching my last 3 state of plays being leaked (amongst other things) I'd probably take steps to mitigate it.
 
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Knightsoftheround said:
Oh yeah don't get me wrong I agree.

Just if I were Sony and watching my last 3 state of plays being leaked (amongst other things) I'd probably take steps to mitigate it.
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There's nothing they or anyone else can do in the instance where they are uploading pre-recorded videos to Youtube with the intention of them airing at a specific date & time.

Every company that uses Youtube for these purposes should be able to trust the platform to do whats necessary to maintain their end of the confidentiality agreement.
 
Astray said:
What if the upload fails, or the video corrupts, or the stream cuts out mid-broadcast?

Most of those showcases, directs and state of plays have contractual duties to ensure the best presentation possible for 3P software.
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You have 24 hours in that same day to upload the video. It doesn't take that long to upload a 30min or even 1hr video.

No such thing as stream cutting being that these are pre-recorded.

What they are currently doing, isn't even streaming the video per se, its a weird mix of pre-uploading it then letting it air/stream at a specific time on a specific day. The issue, is with the pre-uploading. That shit can be sitting on youtube servers for 24-48+ hours before the stream is even due to start... and that's how the leaks happen.

If they were to just upload the video on the day its supposed to air, then everyone would see it for the first time at the same time..... including YouTube servers.
 
Don't worry Sony...leaks are not the reason Concord is failing with the public... it's because it just looks like a hot turd!
 
Ive worked in the Online Video space before. They just access the account and see all the content from their own backoffice tool. It allows them to see without it being published. Had this issue where our customer service reps were stealing videos from playboy which was our customer for a few years and posting them on the internet for free. Its easy to track who did it.
 
  • A Google employee accessed private videos in Nintendo's YouTube account, and leaked information ahead of Ninendo's planned announcements. An internal interview concluded the activity was "non-intentional," the report says.


 
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Not surprised. I remember hearing people speculating about leaks originating from something like this previously. But now it's confirmed I guess.

This is probably the source to a lot more than just Nintendo related stuff.
 
Robb said:
Not surprised. I remember hearing people speculating about leaks originating from something like this previously. But now it's confirmed I guess.

This is probably the source to a lot more than just Nintendo related stuff.
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every showcase that isn't live can be leaked this way
 
Seems like all of the last-minute leaks and game lineups were part of this. On a side note, it's pretty impressive just how poorly it seems Google enforces some of its privacy related settings. Unlisted videos showing up publicly for a short duration, and "anyone with a link" being treated as a public link are big oversights.
 
Maybe Amazon Prime can start hosting these gaming events with a bit more security?

So how safe is my Google Email account? I kind of depend on it.
 
What leaks are they referring to? (Maybe add them via spoiler if they're not well known)
 
consoul said:
It's crazy they haven't had tighter controls around this til recently.

All kinds of commercially sensitive info would be available in draft videos. There should have been internal access logging and user behaviour analytics all over this long ago.
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Crazy to me there's enough spying on regular users their cookies can track who you are based on how you type but there has to be an investigation on their own employees. Really tells your their mindset.
 
Update on the 404 Report via Insider Gaming. Apparently the leaked PlayStation SoP list of titles was sold for money.
Sony's recent State of Play was a big eye-opener for me and the most recent example I can give about how widespread this new YouTube leak culture is. Within around 18 hours of the State of Play being scheduled on YouTube, I had four different individuals send me the complete game list. Some game names were slightly different from others, likely because of different regions and the rush to jot everything down to be the first, but they were all generally spot on. One such individual even told me that the information was sold to an undisclosed person for a small three-figure amount, who then told him to spread it to more people for validity.
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Thick Thighs Save Lives said:
Update on the 404 Report via Insider Gaming. Apparently the leaked PlayStation SoP list of titles was sold for money.
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Mr.Phoenix Mr.Phoenix this seems to me like a pretty valid reason for uploading in advance, from the piece linked above:
It is unclear how this will be resolved. Still, repeat investigations are clearly not working, and simply not uploading the content to YouTube before an announcement is a marketing nightmare for publishers. For instance, it's not ideal for your first glimpse of a game to be in 360p because of YouTube's shoddy processing times. Then, there are other marketing needs, such as sending the content to marketing partners, content creators, the media, and more.
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edit: already posted above.



Henderson claiming that the State of Play leak came from Youtube and the info was sold for $$$.

https://insider-gaming.com/how-youtube-leaks-work/

Of the two I'm aware of, YouTube's second investigation happened soon after the GTA 6 leak, which, admittingly, could have just been a wild coincidence. After all, it has now become common knowledge among those in the industry that many gaming leaks do come from unlisted, scheduled, or private YouTube videos – and maybe the investigation was already ongoing at this time. Nonetheless, the result probably resulted in disciplinary action for one or more people.
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Whatever the case, though, these investigations have seemingly done nothing to stop it from happening again.
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Sony's recent State of Play was a big eye-opener for me and the most recent example I can give about how widespread this new YouTube leak culture is. Within around 18 hours of the State of Play being scheduled on YouTube, I had four different individuals send me the complete game list. Some game names were slightly different from others, likely because of different regions and the rush to jot everything down to be the first, but they were all generally spot on. One such individual even told me that the information was sold to an undisclosed person for a small three-figure amount, who then told him to spread it to more people for validity.
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