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Youtube CAPTCHAs, aka Google thinks I'm a robot.

mikedt

mikedt

你好
VIP Member
Anyone seen this before? Youtube showing CAPTCHAs.
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...along with this message:
"This page appears when Google automatically detects requests coming from your computer network which appear to be in violation of the Terms of Service. The block will expire shortly after those requests stop. In the meantime, solving the above CAPTCHA will let you continue to use our services.

This traffic may have been sent by malicious software, a browser plug-in, or a script that sends automated requests. If you share your network connection, ask your administrator for help
 
A bit more digging about this problem, I just found this....
Why does Google think I'm a robot? - Yahoo Answers
Seems it's happening for many of Google's services when using a VPN, like Docs and Search, not just Youtube. Probably because of how VPNs work, there's many people coming through a few shared IP addresses and Google is objecting to it, "appear to be in violation of the Terms of Service". I'm thinking if one is "cloud computing" with a Google Chromebook via a VPN, maybe because they're on open insecure WiFi or censoring, this is going to cause problems, or users are going to get very cheesed off from repeatedly doing CAPTCHAs(that apparently don't work for me).
 
That is rather annoying of Google. I had run across something similar to that while using an app, for some reason Google thought I was an automated system trying to use their search engine. That was quite some time ago, and I haven't encountered it since.

What I have encountered that has annoyed me, is Google constantly wanting to associate my YouTube account with my Google+. I keep rejecting it, and it will ask me again sometime later.
 
If Google is objecting to high volumes of requests from an IP address and apparently treating it as abuse. I think this could cause problems at say large hotels or airports, where there might be several hundred people trying to watch Youtube or search or whatever from a single IP address.
 
mikedt said:
If Google is objecting to high volumes of requests from an IP address and apparently treating it as abuse. I think this could cause problems at say large hotels or airports, where there might be several hundred people trying to watch Youtube or search or whatever from a single IP address.
Click to expand...

I doubt it's the volume of traffic, but rather people using VPNs for nefarious reasons that have a detrimental impact on google's servers in some way. I have heard the explaination given from my VPN provider that it's due to large volumes of automated queries people try to submit to google over their vpn.
 
Xyro said:
I doubt it's the volume of traffic, but rather people using VPNs for nefarious reasons that have a detrimental impact on google's servers in some way. I have heard the explaination given from my VPN provider that it's due to large volumes of automated queries people try to submit to google over their vpn.
Click to expand...

Probably situation is, Google is having difficulty differentiating between what is abuse, i.e. bots, or a lot of human beings trying to watch Youtube from a single IP address. So that's why they're doing the CAPTCHAs? - to determine human from robot, except for me it doesn't seem to be working. :rolleyes:
 
mikedt said:
If Google is objecting to high volumes of requests from an IP address and apparently treating it as abuse. I think this could cause problems at say large hotels or airports, where there might be several hundred people trying to watch Youtube or search or whatever from a single IP address.
Click to expand...


I wonder if I could trigger it by having everyone in the house start watching YouTube videos and searching, while on the house wifi.
 
Codegerm said:
I wonder if I could trigger it by having everyone in the house start watching YouTube videos and searching, while on the house wifi.
Click to expand...

Invite all your friends around with all their laptops, tablets and cellphones on your WiFi, and get them all doing Youtube and Search. Be interesting to see what happens.
 
I think I might call my brother and sister over to help. I have like 9 different devices to do it with (counting PC's, android tablets and cellphones). If I can get my brother and sister over with their devices, we could possibly have 6 more devices. Woo Hoo!! Clog the WiFi router party!!! I'll have to order a pizza..
 
Like I say I don't think that volume of traffic alone is the only metric they're going to track - google know what they're doing when it comes to spam. They can track keywords for known spam-related terms, for example. Or they could tell when a certain IP is flooding the same input thousands of times, which could be a sign of someone trying to boost page/video views or alter google's rankings of search results.

Write a bot to search for "[Seo spamming tool name]" on google 10,000 times a minute and you'll get flagged. Load 9 videos on your home IP and they won't bat an eyelid. I'm pretty sure I've probably even done that before, by loading a folder of bookmarked youtube pages all at once. :)
 
Xyro said:
Like I say I don't think that volume of traffic alone is the only metric they're going to track - google know what they're doing when it comes to spam. They can track keywords for known spam-related terms, for example. Or they could tell when a certain IP is flooding the same input thousands of times, which could be a sign of someone trying to boost page/video views or alter google's rankings of search results.

Write a bot to search for "[Seo spamming tool name]" on google 10,000 times a minute and you'll get flagged. Load 9 videos on your home IP and they won't bat an eyelid. I'm pretty sure I've probably even done that before, by loading a folder of bookmarked youtube pages all at once. :)
Click to expand...

So there's likely this sort of stuff going through the same VPN and IP address that I happen to be on, and getting caught up in it, and so Google thinks I'm violating their ToS. I've even tried using a different VPN server in a different country, US or UK, same non-working CAPTCHA thing is happening. Problem is my home "China Unicom" IP address doesn't work for Youtube or many of Google's services, due to blocking and censoring. That's why I'm using a VPN. It's only started happening this morning, but has been like it all day now with Youtube. I can still get Gmail, G+ and search just fine.

From Google's Youtube CAPTCHA page "If you share your network connection, ask your administrator for help
 
Im not going to like back on my blackhat days I use to run a army of bots on a proxies and vpn to boost a video or takes videos down of those who paid me to. So one reason google does this is because of people like me :).
 
Facebook's worse. their captchas are completely unreadable, offer zero audio option, and then they make you pass through two more portals before you get in, all of them impossible to complete, which ends up in a 12-hour ban--all for what? logging in from my Galaxy Tab that's what. although i have used it two years ago to login to the app, Facebook still had the nerve to pull the ol'e 'you never logged in from this unknown device' mess.
 
Facebook always does their broken almost impossible CAPTCHA "unknown" crap with me as well, and it says "banned" yeh. Don't even get to the next screen where I'm supposed to put names to the faces or whatever. This is only when using the full site on a PC. I access FB from my phone using their mobile site and it's absolutely fine, I'm not using their app. I'm using a VPN on both phone and PC because of the censoring.

Didn't really bother me that much because I hardly ever use it, just look-in occasionally see if there's any messages of interest.

BTW I'm often using a VPN now, even if sites are not blocked and censored. Because so many websites these days take exception to Chinese IP addresses. Even when sometimes registering on sites and forums with an apparently Chinese email, like @QQ or @163 or anything .CN, they won't have it, likely because of spammers.
 
i had just successfully setup Facebook integration into my new Samsung Smart TV and just thought of checking in on the Tab 2 10.1, (not through the app, but the browser and the mobile site) and it tells me first, that i entered my password wrong (i didn't) then tells me 'you never logged into Facebook from this device before' (BS, i did two years ago when i bought it!) and i got past the first checkpoint (had to hit 'new image' a few dozen times though) then it wanted to offer a solution via text message (the photos were nothing i had seen before so i had to skip it) but my phone number set up was no longer valid so i was screwed, tried my hoof at the photo, BAM! banned. 12 hours later, ironically, it worked fine from the tablet....
 
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