unforum

[Dave22156]

Thanks ommmm--it does help a lot to read the dialogue.

[Dave22156]

Okay here's a question: Is there any way to check to see if the hacked video is from a film? Maybe an indie or something? It almost seems to have that quality. The set reminds me of the inside of a livestock barn lit by bright lights from outside. This would give the stark dark and light lines across the background. I also noticed that the third guy in the back has either a rifle or shotgun. This might help date the setting to recent times. In other words, it is not set in the future. Any Sci-fi or horror buffs out there that might have a an idea on this?

[Sephyroth]

Even if this is not an ARG, the mystery behind this strange 30-second plea for help is extremely intriguing in and of itself. I believe the first step to solving this mystery is to discover all the other videos which were 'infected' with The Message at that time period; just because there have only been two found does not mean that these are the only two in existence.

Both infected videos and their respective originals were uploaded in December, the Jodie Foster video being uploaded only two days after the less-viewed original (here). However, the infected Speed Racer trailer was uploaded on December 30th, while the real devildodo's original, which garnered almost 2 million views, was on December 6th, more than three weeks beforehand.

This may signify a change in strategy on the part of the Uploader. He/She seems to have at first picked an obscure yet perhaps controversial video which had the potential for racking up views, then uploaded the infected version within 48 hours under an account which was different in name from the original uploader's, yet still had a plausible real-life identity who would be interested in the subject matter (the real Dorothy Snarker). Ten days later he/she chose an 'easy' one, a movie preview which had already attracted hundreds of thousands of eyeballs, then uploaded the infected version under an account specifically designed to piggyback off the original uploader's.

The best way to find any other infected videos is by examining these two strategies: For mid-to-late December 2007, identify: a) any duplicated but perhaps obscure videos uploaded within days of each other (12-48 hrs may be the minimum time needed to do the necessary editing), or b) which videos were most popular at that time and search for seemingly-identical videos using the same keywords and similar profile names. The latter strategy may be the easier to implement. Either way, other infected videos should be uncovered by either method.

Unless the Uploader chose to infect two and only two videos... but that seems very unlikely.

[molecularr]

[ommmm]

I have to agree with Sephyroth that there must be other infected videos besides these two. When I was searching the other night I couldn't figure out how to filter the advanced youtube search by date.

Does anyone else have experience with that?

[Sephyroth]

There seems to be no way to filter search results by date, apart from sorting by date added. You, molecularr, Dave, dumdum and the rest of us who have been drawn into this strange case probably already noticed that another stratagem would have been to exploit the fact that both profiles found so far share similar characteristics: Age - 28, Country - United States, join dates on the 19th and 23rd, last login nine months ago, few or no videos watched (although inexplicably dorothysnarker1 has four favourites despite purportedly never having watched any videos); unfortunately, there seems to be no way to search user profiles either.

Previously, I mistakenly observed that the original Jodie Foster video was uploaded by a user called wowone. I now have reason to believe that the original was in fact uploaded by the real Ms. Snarker herself. This Google cache shows that a DorothySnarker (whose account has since been suspended) uploaded this video of Jodie Foster thanking "her beautiful Cydney" (removed for Terms of Use violation), before December 15, 2007, 3:02 PM. What this shows is that our mysterious Uploader did not change tactics as I had suggested, but from the start was uploading infected versions of popular videos under account names almost identical to the original uploaders (DorothySnarker/dorothysnarker1, devildodo/devildodos).

This makes it a little easier to track the Uploader, knowing that all of his/her accounts may likely differ from the real ones by only an additional letter or number.

If only there were such a thing as an audio search engine; an application called Podzinger was working on this a few years back.

Also of interest is the single frame below inserted into the infected videos:
It may only be an artifact of the video editing software used.

[KLind]

Got a reply from Ms. Snarker confirming our theory:

[molecularr]

I don't know have any new information -- just wanted to say this is still bugging me. I've been trying to work my way backwards by looking into things which this could have been a promotion for.

I know this requires making a lot of assumptions, but I don't see much else to go on. So far, I've been trying to look into English-language science fiction movies and TV series that debuted in early 2008. No luck yet.

[Dave22156]

molecularr--you're not alone. I've been searching myself off and on. Just thought I'd let you know there are others wondering about it too.

[FacianeA]

This is weird! I wonder if there was a PM. I wonder if they read this. If this is a failed ARG or something, it'd be super cool if they came forward. If it's still on, good job on being alluring, but for goodness' sake!

[Sephyroth]

THIRD INFECTED VIDEO FOUND!

[KLind]

Re: THIRD INFECTED VIDEO FOUND!

[Boomer52]

None of the comments make referance to the hacked portion. So either they're fake, or the hacked part was added after some length of time, during which the video ran normally.

[Sephyroth]

Re: THIRD INFECTED VIDEO FOUND!

[Sephyroth]

I'VE SOLVED IT.

Brilliant.