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Just who is the "Unfavorable Semicircle"?

Started by 23 Daves, February 29, 2016, 02:03:00 PM

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23 Daves

Last week, this got a ton of press from a variety of sources, including the BBC.

It would seem that for the past year, a mysterious YouTube video channel has been uploading films to the Internet at a startling rate, frequently as many as one every three seconds. The films are all abstract and vary from being silent five second clips of a blurry black dot against a brown background, to distorted ragtime music with a dispassionate male voice reading numbers and letters over the top.

Theories came in thick and fast - it's a YouTube test channel for their Artificial Intelligence department. It's an online "spy" numbers station. It's computer code for a specific program being stored on YouTube. It's aliens. Or terrorists. Or an attention-seeking idiot getting a bot to upload a lot of junk to YouTube to see what would happen.

Then, just a few days ago, YouTube pulled all the videos for "violation of their terms" (presumably deeming the thousands of simple clips to be some kind of peculiar spam - or were they just covering their research up?) and it was the end of the story.

Some users of Reddit managed to pull most of the videos from the archive before they went down, and they're still discussing the contents - which remain an utter mystery - here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnfavorableSemicircle/

It's an absurd thing to be fascinated by, but nonetheless I'd love to draw a line under all this. What do you think was going on here, readers? I think it's probably something to do with code which is supposed to be used in relation to a computer program of some kind, but obviously I'm no expert.

doppelkorn

Quote from: 23 Daves on February 29, 2016, 02:03:00 PM
an attention-seeking idiot getting a bot to upload a lot of junk to YouTube to see what would happen.

I'm not sure they're an idiot or attention seeking, but yeah.

Icehaven

#2
I read something about this a while ago which strongly suggested the very creation of a whole 'cult' of enthusiasts talking and theorising about it is probably the point, maybe some artistic endeavour or just kids trying to see how many people they can bemuse. If that's the case, there's almost certainly going to be no pattern/message etc. to be found, and any that is will just be a natural result of the fact that the sheer volume of material is bound to throw up some internal connections, or even chuck a few deliberate things in to keep people looking for something that isn't there.

Steven

What does the name mean? Unfavourable = always negative. Semicircle = arc.

No-ers Arc?

touchingcloth


touchingcloth

Quote from: 23 Daves on February 29, 2016, 02:03:00 PM
What do you think was going on here, readers?

I don't have a clue, but the psychology of it all is fascinating. At a minimum - and by definition - all but one of the theories advanced thus far are incorrect, and perhaps literally all of them are. You wouldn't think that to read the proponents on Reddit, though - it's a lot like the frenzied cults of armchair experts that grew, peaked and waned in the wake of the MH370 disappearance; nature and, it seems, Reddit, abhor a vacuum.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

This is a Blac Chyna's anus situation

End of conversation

Benjaminos

Some kind of automated test framework, innit. The fact that they were being uploaded so quickly and frequently suggest that it's a machine at work, not someone sat there 24/7. They're all pretty similar (except for a couple of outliers, which I would assume were test uploads), so my guess is that they're the output of something like a Jenkins/Selenium/Webdriver job, much like the last "mystery" was.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Benjaminos on February 29, 2016, 03:51:19 PM
Some kind of automated test framework, innit. The fact that they were being uploaded so quickly and frequently suggest that it's a machine at work, not someone sat there 24/7. They're all pretty similar (except for a couple of outliers, which I would assume were test uploads), so my guess is that they're the output of something like a Jenkins/Selenium/Webdriver job, much like the last "mystery" was.
Seems most sensible to me, and I remember when I read about it first I was surprised so many people were making a fuss, after the last big one.


23 Daves

Quote from: Benjaminos on February 29, 2016, 03:51:19 PM
Some kind of automated test framework, innit. The fact that they were being uploaded so quickly and frequently suggest that it's a machine at work, not someone sat there 24/7. They're all pretty similar (except for a couple of outliers, which I would assume were test uploads), so my guess is that they're the output of something like a Jenkins/Selenium/Webdriver job, much like the last "mystery" was.

Yes, but for what? And why? YouTube have blocked it, so it's clearly not one of theirs (unless they did an about-turn and decided not to make this one public for some unspecified reason).

There's a curious theory on Reddit which suggests that it's the work of somebody trying to find their way around YouTube's copyright detection system and expose holes. That's the one I'm favouring at the moment - it would explain the degree of silence and secrecy. But really, I don't know.

doppelkorn


colacentral

It's a teenager who's into creepy numbers stations and intermission signals and trying to mimic them and get the same reaction.

Can't someone just find out where the videos are being uploaded from? Seems like it would be pretty easy. The spelling of 'unfavorable' suggests an american.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

Mark Fisher doing the latest load of hauntological old shit.

Guy

A few years ago, people noticed hundreds of mystery videos featuring shapes were being uploaded to YT, which turned out to be YT testing video compression algorithms or something. So my guess would be this is either testing or some group's attempt to garner attention using a similar method.

23 Daves

This theory does actually hold some water for me though:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnfavorableSemicircle/comments/47z68w/content_id_penetration_testing/

QuoteI'm a software developer of 16 years, and I know pentesting when I see it. Take the testing tech behind Deep Dream and apply it to audio & video and this is what you'd get. The videos must have been uploaded in order to test the boundaries and limits of the fingerprinting algorithms which run when one uploads a video. LOCK and DELOCK likely work like this:
Upload LOCK
Upload Video which violates.
Upload DELOCK
Upload Violating video again (or check it), see if restriction is removed.
Upload tests to refine
Alter DELOCK or include new test in copyright claims list
Repeat
Any file uploaded after DELOCK is probably small tests to refine the video creation. Has this been considered and/or proven incorrect?

Here's the original DELOCK video somebody has reuploaded, if anyone's interested. Mmm, soothing.

https://youtu.be/0lRiP02CbAE

Phil_A

It is a very weird feeling when you stumble across one of these automated channels. I found one spambot inexplicably uploading hundreds of near identical photo montages from the TV show "Crossing Jordan", page after page after them. It was at one point the only thing that came up when you searched for that particular programme. To what end, I've no idea. I checked again a little while later and they'd all vanished.

I don't blame people for getting over-excited by things like this, though. It's just little bit of harmless intrigue amongst the general mundanity of day-to-day life, isn't it? Everyone needs a little bit of mystery now and then.

Depressed Beyond Tables

Quote from: biggytitbo on February 29, 2016, 04:50:23 PM
They're the youtube version of this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1502310228/cab-21/

I could take your critique of my work more seriously if you had even bothered to read it.