Spamhuntress

I just noticed a new subscriber on my Youtube profile. So I checked it out, because I didn’t know the nick. I guess most that don’t have several hundred subscribers would do that, right?

This chick, that has a very sexy sounding nick, had 4,691 channel views and no videos. She joined February 22. So something’s up, right?

Right.

There’s a URL there. The only thing of interest on her profile. And this text:

yo ive got some pics on my profile at the link below
The link goes to xxfacebook.com, registered February 12, which is owned by

NA
Leah (support4242@yahoo.com)
+1.6502015463
Fax: +1.6502015466
3725 Blackburn st.
Dallas, P 75219
US

Sounds fake, right? Doesn’t even look like the e-mail address is legit. The phone number is apparently a cell phone number from California (Sprint PCS).
IP is: 209.200.16.122 (on webair)
But it just does a few 302 redirects, and ends up with an affiliate link to a classifieds site. Guess what kind..

When I search for the domain the spammer used, I find loads of profiles on Youtube, all with similar sounding names. This spammer has been very busy!

Most of the domains on the IP number are old (registered 2006)and don’t have many hits in search engines. But one has been used for similar looking spam on Myspace: matchmetonight.com. Check out the profile it’s used on: profile.myspace.com/35499848

It’s entered in the “Who I’d Like To Meet” field, and made invisible. The URL enters a loop of 302 redirects and goes nowhere.

provingsciencewrong.com is interesting. It’s a blog largely consisting of videos from Lonelygirl15. I’m sure you guys remember that whole thing, right? In other words: Stolen content, and unapologetically so.

webcamdaily.com is youtube and hi5 spam, but is also an old domain. webcamtag.com is used for hi5 spam. webcamwild.com is for myspace and regular forum spam.

All the old domains have whois protection, but I’m guessing there are lots of newer domains that don’t. The spammer probably figured out it’s too expensive, and fake info works just as well.

I came across this Youtube problem a few days ago. Videos embedded in a Norwegian online newspaper didn’t work. Although the preview photo was still there, when I clicked on the video to start it, I got the message:

We’re sorry, this video is no longer available

But when I clicked on “menu”, I got the URL for the Youtube page for that video, and when I went there, the video worked.

And today, the embedded video works again - in that same online page!

A video I found today on a Myspace profile didn’t work, yet when I found the link on the Youtube page for pages linking to the video, I found that it DID work when embedded - on Facebook!

This problem has been reported at least since late December. And some have correctly noted that there are Youtube users who elect to not allow embedding of their videos, or if the video is set to private. But none of these videos had those settings enabled.

So something’s wrong over at Youtube. And since I haven’t found any explanation for it, I’m opening up the floor for suggestions, speculation and maybe downright solving this?