I’ve used Youtube for almost as long as it’s been around, and I don’t recall EVER having to type anything in to prove I’m human, but this past week or two, that’s changed. Usually it’s when I first go to Youtube, either to the front page, or directly to a video. Tonight, I was already on the Youtube front page and clicked on a link there, and it asked me again.
Here’s what it looks like, in case I’m not being clear:
What’s up with this? Youtube has been annoying for the past year or so, always trying to get me to change my channel name to my gmail account name, forcing me to link both despite my utter disinterest in doing so, etc, but random bot checks are a new development, and I’m not enjoying that any more than the rest.
Is anyone else experiencing this? Is this a new thing, or just new to me?
I’ve seen that before and took it at face value - if they receive a large number of requests apparently from the same source, it could be an indication that someone is scraping their content, or that some kind of attack is happening (which in either case, would e automated) so they limit it by asking for proof that you’re human.
It means exactly what it says: YouTube is getting a ton of requests from your network (based on your public-facing IP) and so it’s assuming any requests coming from your network are automated spam messages, and giving you the chance to prove you’re human.
If you’re on a large network (say a corporation), this could be caused by anybody on it and tracking it down might be pretty hard. If you’re on a home network, one of the computers on your network connection probably has a virus which is attempting to post spam to YouTube.
Better not be! I just freaking formatted and reinstalled in July, with special attention to protecting myself. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (paid, with real-time scanning) and Microsoft Security Essentials were installed first, only trusted programs were installed, Noscript installed on Firefox. . .
I think some ISPs use Carrier Grade NAT (CGN), which means that you don’t get a public IP address (particularly in the budget service tiers). It could just be some other subscriber that’s causing this. Nothing to do with your network or equipment.
If you go to your router’s config page and look for the WAN IP address, that’s the address that you’re getting from your ISP.
Then, go to google and search “my public ip address”
Google should tell you what IP address it thinks you’re coming from. If they match, then your router is the only thing that’s using that public IP address. If they don’t match, then you are sharing your public IP address with some number of other subscribers.
I emailed a friend from Pennsylvania who works as a systems analyst, and this has been happening to him lately as well. He’s blaming Youtube. No one else here has seen it, just the guys from TN and PA? Weird. We do have fiber connections in common, though naturally they’re different companies.
We’re kind of spread out hereabouts, with the houses closest to me standing empty. There’s not a lot of potential candidates to be hacking my router.
I don’t know if the sample you gave is dynamic, and won’t be the same for you and me, but I don’t know what that 2nd character is. It doesn’t look like anything in my English alphabet. So I guess I’d come off as a robot?
Something did seem to change recently–I started getting the prompts a few weeks ago, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have any virus issues (or at least nothing both regular scanners and Malwarebytes can find). I do hit the site quite a lot, subscribed to several people that post multiple videos a day, along with checking several other channels for new content–I generally just have Let’s Play’s running as essentially background noise whenever I’m at the PC.
Obviously I’m well above the average, but I still wouldn’t think I’d be anywhere near a dedicated spammer level of hits. And I’m on a static IP, so no chance of me getting caught in other people’s NAT (which actually shouldn’t matter much anyway, Google has caching servers in pretty much every ISP at this point, so your request shouldn’t even be going out to the public internet anyway).
Frankly I thought it took too long for them starting this. Youtube comments are the filth of the internet, what with all the anti-Obama and get-rich-quick and secrets-so-and-so-doesn’t-want-you-to-know-about…
Yeah, that “capcha” is one of my least favorites. They do change every time, and I always have to hit the “try another” button several times before I find one I can read well enough to pass the check.
RRRRRRRREALLY hate those frickin’ things.
dzeiger, I’m glad to see it’s not just me. Not, you know, a LOT, but at least I’m not screwing up somehow.
I would not assume that was legit, because that’s not what YouTube captchas look like. Why would YouTube switch to a different captcha system for this use case? It’s fishy that this is the exact same captcha you see on many sites.
And how do you know it is a Google service? Because it uses a Google logo? Similar page layout?
BigT has a legitimate concern. If you see something new that you don’t recognize and didn’t request, it’s a good idea to pause and investigate. Replacing one valid login window with a bogus one that looks the same but steals your password is an old hacker trick.
I agree with your filth assessment, but the owner of the YouTube page can turn comments off or censor them at will. I have to do that occasionally with mine.
In my case, at least, I get it on both my desktop and my tablet, and they started about the same time. It seems rather unlikely that my Windows desktop and Android tablet got the same type of malware infection at the same time. Hacking the router is theoretically possible, I guess, but it seems a little odd that someone would hack that in order to stick up Youtube captchas.
If dzeiger, my systems analyst buddy, and myself all see it, I’m not going to worry about it. I’ll be ANNOYED by it, but that’s another subject. Barring any other odd occurrences, I’m done worrying.
Did you follow my link? It’s hosted on google.com.
It’s not a login window; it’s a captcha. The worst an attacker can do is find out what a hard-to-read passage in some book says. Second, BigTdidn’t pause and investigate. I did and provided the correction.
BigT was right to be suspicious. He was not right to spread that suspicion on this message board without confirming it. That’s not fighting ignorance; it’s spreading unwarranted fear.
