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A Call to Arms! Lets help out a well known community member


bytedeez

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Chris Haralson AKA Chriswhat, is a guy who has spent lots of time building his youtube channel, to provide us all with free educational videos surrounding IT security.

Now youtube has him in the back and suspended his account.

So this is a "Call to Arms", YouTube has degraded, mislabeled and cheated one of our mentors, friend and neighbor while also cheated and deprived us all of an education under false pretenses.

Contact YouTube through their feedback form and lets let them know we are outraged and demand the return of Chris's channel!

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And why exactly has his channel been closed?

This account has been suspended due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy against spam, gaming, misleading content, or other Terms of Service violations.

Most likely they banned the account because of "hacking" videos.

Edited by barry99705
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Still would've liked to see a bit of a write-up about what the guy's been doing that ticked off Youtube so much, and how he responded to those things. The best I can find is a post on a website from over a year ago where he compares posting hacking howto videos to owning a gun (it's only evil when you use the knowledge/tools for evil things). A valid point in my book. But I'd like to think youtube would see it that way aswell. They're chock-full of hacking videos but THIS GUY needs to be banned. Right.

There is no doubt in my mind that youtube can be a dick, but in the tsunami of videos flowing to and from there, you'd have to probably work kinda hard to get noticed....

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Is there someplace to get some more info on this? It would seem the guy dropped off the internet a year ago already.

https://plus.google.com/+ChrisHaralson/posts?hl=en He makes high quality tutorials on kali linux and the pineapple.

And why exactly has his channel been closed?

His google plus account says this also:

"WHAT HAPPENED

After receiving notice that my YouTube account has been suspended for violations pertaining to "spam, scams, or commercially deceptive content," I immediately sent an appeal to YouTube. However, as of today, my appeal has been rejected. This leaves me with no other conventional options other than simply accepting my channel's fate. Acceptance is NOT an option.

Anyone who knows me or my channel knows that I do not send out spam, scam my viewers, or mislead my subscribers. I teach legitimate penetration testing concepts and techniques that are relevant to information security. I've been a YouTube verified partner for nearly 2 years and have generated thousands of dollars in ad revenue for them. My reputation and the legitimacy of my channel is reflected in my 1:100 dislike:like ratio, 17,000+ subscribers, and 2,500+ daily views.

YouTube has stripped me of my identity, and left me in the cold. They've taken my livelihood, my resume, and my credibility. It is as if the last 2 years of my life never existed.

My channel was regarded by many to be the best of its kind. It was an invaluable resource to thousands of people, including students, teachers, and security professionals. Don't forget who taught you how to create an evil twin access point, capture login credentials on a WiFi Pineapple, crack WPS pins and WPA/WPA2 encryption, eavesdrop on VoIP phone calls, and so much more.

Thank you for your support,

Chris"

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Still would've liked to see a bit of a write-up about what the guy's been doing that ticked off Youtube so much, and how he responded to those things. The best I can find is a post on a website from over a year ago where he compares posting hacking howto videos to owning a gun (it's only evil when you use the knowledge/tools for evil things). A valid point in my book. But I'd like to think youtube would see it that way aswell. They're chock-full of hacking videos but THIS GUY needs to be banned. Right.

There is no doubt in my mind that youtube can be a dick, but in the tsunami of videos flowing to and from there, you'd have to probably work kinda hard to get noticed....

Shortly before his account was terminated he posted a video asking for our opinion on his videos, due to a few youtubers saying his contributing to the delinquency of minors and that they were reporting his videos.

His videos were of high quality and very professional.

He is a professional, he hasn't been posting alot because he has been busy creating a website were user have to defend their servers against attacks from other users while also attacking other servers and you are ranked depending on how well you do.

Basically he is creating a game out of hacking within a controllable environment.

http://www.CTF365.com <<Game site for those interested

https://hackthistutorials.wordpress.com/author/hackthis1/ <<<This site will tell you more about what was going on with him and youtube.

Edited by bytedeez
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https://hackthistutorials.wordpress.com/author/hackthis1/ <<<This site will tell you more about what was going on with him and youtube.

Yeah, that's the one I read. Note the timestamp - that was over a year ago.

He is a professional, he hasn't been posting alot because he has been busy creating a website were user have to defend their servers against attacks from other users while also attacking other servers and you are ranked depending on how well you do.

Basically he is creating a game out of hacking within a controllable environment.

http://www.CTF365.com <<Game site for those interested

Holy shit! I was in Cluj, Romania just over a week ago and walked up to within 2 blocks from their location. (I can understand them picking a night-time photo. During the day the city looks rather drab, and this is like the 3rd largest romanian city...)

The concept looks cool. Not too sure about the labels you can earn, but I guess that's more marketing.

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This is why you gotta back your videos up i've been preparing for the day Google try's this on my YouTube channel.

The problem is hes using misleading keywords and content... i got suspended for this myself before :B

It's a shame to cause all my traffic comes thru YouTube No one would even know how to find my site without YouTube.

I've seen his videos he has used misleading keywords and misleading discriptions in a few of his videos.

He was gonna start his own website to teach people anyways so he will be fine like their are not enough security schools online as it is i guess im the only one who isn't trying to make a living off the security world.

Do like Kevin Mitnick is doing make exploits and sell them $1,000 a pop isn't something to laugh about even if its $100 a pop.

I make less then $100 a month off youtube selling exploits at $100 a peice to script kiddies would be nice.

I always wanted to start a aimbot website sell aimbots for FPS games at $10.95 per month.

Edited by ZaraByte
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Eh, I really didn't think his videos were misleading or used misleading words. I thought they were pretty straightforward. Granted I haven't watched everyone of his videos either.

I'm gonna try to get a hold of him and see if he can provide us with the official documentation.

I believe this is more of a case of people falsely flagging his videos.

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Point is always should backup your videos YouTube is not the old YouTube its run by Google Humans i don't really believe check them videos that are flagged thus you end up suspended not to long ago this year someone elses channel was suspended lucky for him he got his back his name is Adrian Crenshaw from irongeek lucky for him alot of people supported him he got his channel back.

Some of us are not so lucky....

The good thing is alot of my newer videos i have saved on Google Drive my older videos are terrible anyways and i need to redo them over so them i wouldn't care much about.

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Point is always should backup your videos YouTube is not the old YouTube its run by Google Humans i don't really believe check them videos that are flagged thus you end up suspended not to long ago this year someone elses channel was suspended lucky for him he got his back his name is Adrian Crenshaw from irongeek lucky for him alot of people supported him he got his channel back.

Some of us are not so lucky....

The good thing is alot of my newer videos i have saved on Google Drive my older videos are terrible anyways and i need to redo them over so them i wouldn't care much about.

He has not confirmed rather his videos are backed up or not.

He is not dumb, I imagine he did back them up but thats not the point at all. (not to mention One can not back-up their following.)

The point is this time its him, next time it could be you or Hak5. He can't do this without the support of the people he has taught or helped over the years.

His videos were educational and well put together.

He has contributed to this community and Hak5, and my personal opinion is the community should now contribute to him.

I mean, honestly how hard and how much time would it take to send youtube some feedback expressing our concern on how his account termination was done under false pretense.

Edited by bytedeez
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I mean, honestly how hard and how much time would it take to send youtube some feedback expressing our concern on how his account termination was done under false pretense.

Well, the problem here is your target audience: security-minded people who are weary of being socially engineered into doing something they otherwise might not. Fact-checking is a bit of a biggy and I must admit thusfar you're doing admirably. The thing that irks me is that he is himself not particularly vocal about it. The only person to bring it up apparently is you.

Punch this into google: Chris Haralson youtube account terminated

The results I'm getting are, in order of appearance, this thread, 3 youtube links of which one is on generic account termination and the other two are youtube videos that apparently listed links to his videos on the same page during indexing (i.e. unrelated), then that wordpress site of his which was last updated more than a year ago and finally his page in the google app store. The remaining hits on the page are completely unrelated crap about terminations that hit the news apparently.

He's clearly making his videos for profit (or trying to, and rightfully so I might add). I don't know about you, but if some bureaucrat starts messing with my income, I get very vocal very, very fast. Even more so when I feel the actions performed were wholly uncalled for or unwarranted. All this guy did was put a message up on Google Plus (people look there??) effectively saying "Well, that part of my life is now gone. Thanks for nothing Youtube".

If I was put in his position, the very least I would do would be to rally the troops as it were, post on all outlets where I might find a friendly ear and call for help, including in that all communication with youtube on the matter to show that I did everything in my power to stop this from happening. There would be quite a bit of seething outrage in those messages, and while he may be a bit more controlled than I am in these matters, a bit more passionate fury would've been warranted.

Edited by Cooper
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EDIT: Even if he got his YouTube Channel but his videos have been terminated i believe at least all my videos were terminated when i got suspended a few years ago i had to redo it lol

---------

I honestly would careless if Google Terminated my account all my video links would rank #1 on Google for my videos when people search for them rather then linking to YouTube so thats the good thing i'd possibly get more traffic to my website in the long run i thought about that last night.

I hate making this all about me but im just using me as an example i don't make alot of money like pewdiepie who uses content he don't even own and that is copyrighted to game companies for my content most if not all my videos are all open source.

Just kinda lame people would rather watch a channel like pewdiepie rather then a educational video.

Edited by ZaraByte
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Can't argue with that, Cooper!

The reasons it irks me is not necessarily the fact that it was HIS account that was terminated, it's the fact that it could of been any and all accounts that provide security / pentest education. After watching his videos that were better put together than 75% of the crap that's still up and running on youtube, my opinion is this was a direct attack on the "hacker" community, either through neglect due to them not watching his videos or due to reports of him "contributing to the delinquency of minors" whatever the case maybe I have read the community guidelines and his videos did not violate them.

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Well my final comment on this is he said a while ago he was starting up a hacking or security training website so he can now make money off that. I make Ethical Hacking Videos my YouTube account has only been suspended once in the past and has had many copyright strikes im still doing fine. I think of it as a good thing if my channel got suspended since all youtube seems to want on there is like ice bucket challege videos and all this other none educational stuff.

We really need a company to start up like YouTube that will allow us to upload our ethical hacking videos shame securitytube only links to youtube videos rather then allowing people to upload them :B

This was my final comment best of luck to him getting his channel back myself i would not return to youtube because of that :D

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Lol ZaraByte,

Pewdiepie's game commentary videos are crap and I find him incredibly annoying!

Some people like him, to each is own, but if his account was terminated I would make an hour long video of me just pointing at his account and laughing.

I think my next post is going to be a "call to arms" to get rid of Pewdiepie trololol (jk)

Edited by bytedeez
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I feel sorry for this guy. I haven't seen his YT videos but it sounds like his vids are pretty similar to what we do. I hope he's able to resolve the issue with Youtube!

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I'll just chime in here for a brief moment.

Chris H; if you're reading this I want you to know that I personally found your videos and guides invaluable. More often than not we (all of us) search the internet for resources and assistance dealing with a wide variety of issues.
Your videos were clear, concise, to the point... I can personally say that as a small business in the Pen Testing game your videos were integral to some of our major wins...

On behalf of Digitally Evolved, we salute you.

Edited by Urieal
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I'm not really sure where to begin here. I guess I'll start by thanking bytedeez for starting this thread in an effort to support me. For me, information censorship is an underlaying issue. However, it's an issue that many are finding in my situation, and it's an issue that holds significance in our community. This is something that I'll touch on later.

To those of you who have an opinion but remain uninformed, the Hacker News is going to publish an article telling my story. When the article is available, I will post a link.

For now, I'd like to address some inaccurate statements and attempts to ignite unjust rumors.

1) I still have all of my videos. Did you really think I'd just rest 2 years of my hard work in the hands of YouTube/ Google? Come on now...

2) Zarabyte (Matthew H. Knight) - I'd be curious to know where you gathered information suggesting that I use "misleading keywords and content" and "misleading descriptions." YouTube embeds each video's keywords in the source; and the only way to see them is to inspect the source. Is this a hobby of yours? I'll get back to the importance of this question in a moment. Regardless, my content is specific, and therefore specialized. I don't want to attract cat video lovers, home improvement hobbyists, or beer lovers. I want viewers who are interested in InfoSec, penetration testing, ethical hacking, etc. My video titles and descriptions tell the viewer EXACTLY what they can expect to learn. My custom thumbnails possess my logo and a brief description (title) of the video. My keywords are based on three categories:

- Penetration testing distros (i.e. Kali Linux, BackTrack, etc.)

- The overlaying subject (security, infosec, penetration testing, hacking, ethical hacking, etc.)

- The video content/ sub-topic of the overlaying subject (i.e. fake ap, evil twin, word list, password cracking, MItM, packet sniffing, etc.)

If I mislead my viewers, I wouldn't have achieved a 1 to 100 dislike to like ratio. I wouldn't have been on Google's first page results for "how to hack" searches. My channel wouldn't have remained active for 2 years, and I wouldn't have been a YouTube verified partner for 16 months.

By involving yourself and by insulting the integrity of my work, you've left me no choice but to further translate this situation and state my defense. To be honest, I'm surprised at your audacity. I've had multiple viewers bring you to my attention. They pointed out that several of your videos share non-coincidental similarities with my videos as well as videos belonging to others. Prior to today, I tolerated you. How? I convinced myself to considered you a compliment to my work. Now, instead of thanking me, you make an attempt to tarnish my reputation and brand me as dishonest. That was a mistake; and it was a mistake that I won't tolerate.

One more thing that bothered me - You said, "He was gonna start his own website to teach people anyways so he will be fine like their are not enough security schools online as it is i guess im the only one who isn't trying to make a living off the security world." Really? Is this a joke? I can't stand how contradicting you are. Did you forget that you have a Paypal donation system set up? In case you did forget, you can find your donation link here: https://matthewhknight.com/about/

I almost gave you the courtesy of a private message instead of this post; but, as I watched you continue on with your uneducated opinions and insults, the thought of courtesy dissolved.

3) Cooper - you stated, "He's clearly making his videos for profit." Let me make this clear. I do what I do because I love doing it. When you calculate my ad revenue with the countless hours that I've spent creating videos, answering questions, providing remote assistance, etc... I don't even earn 20% of California's minimum hourly wage. Also, I've reinvested the majority of my ad revenue into improving my videos (i.e. upgrading recording equipment, educating myself, buying post production software, etc). I've turned down a number of job offers simply so I can preserve enough time to serve my subscribers. Unlike Matthew H. Knight (Zarabyte), I've never asked for a donation... and I never will. I stand by my values and my belief in free education. "Skippable" advertisements do not compromise those values.

Also, I am not saying "Well, that part of my life is now gone. Thanks for nothing Youtube". I have no intentions of quitting. Those who know me, know where to find me. They know who I am, what I do, and why I do it. YouTube was a big part of my life, and it was important to me for many reasons. I will reupload (why isn't "reupload" a word?) my videos elsewhere if this issue goes unresolved. However, I'm involved in other projects as well. For example, I'm part of CTF365 (http://ctf365.com), which is a security training platform. You can find my Metasploit tutorials on our YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/hackademyus. Microsoft's BizSpark has given us full support (including unlimited use of all Microsoft products). Metasploit has given us Metasploit Pro licenses ($20,000/ year licensing fee) to give away to users. We've been given recognition at security conferences and we've had articles written about us in tech and security magazines. Bottom line, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to continue on with or without YouTube.

4) I've never asked for anything in return from my viewers. I continue to educate myself simply so I can share my education with others... and I do it for free. I take complexities and minimize them to expedite the learning process for others... and, personally, I think I've done a good job doing it.

MOVING ON:

For those who are interested, here is a copy of the original email notification that I received from YouTube.

We'd like to inform you that due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines (http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines) your YouTube account Chris Haralson has been suspended. After review we determined that activity in your account violated our Community Guidelines, which prohibit spam, scams or commercially deceptive content (https://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=2801973&hl=en).

My account had no strikes and was in good standing with the community. After researching the guidelines that YouTube based the suspension on, I can argue that I did not commit any violations. The only logical explanation (aside from information censorship) that I could rationalize was:

My videos' comment sections were constantly being spammed with unwanted third-party advertisements and solicitations. My channel contained more than 50 videos and received an average of 3,000 unique daily views. With dozens of daily comments, messages, and emails, I couldn't possibly combat every spam comment that was posted. In addition, YouTube's spam filtering system was ineffective. Although I cannot be certain, I believe those spam comments may have justified YouTube's decision to suspend my account.

Ultimately, this is why I've asked for your support. Over the last 2 years, I've received thousands of comments and messages thanking me for my time and work. This was my motivation to keep making videos. This was my achievement. Now, your support is what I need to defeat an unjust action taken by YouTube and Google.

CONCLUSION:

To the Hak5 team, forum admins, and community members- I'm sorry if I expressed myself in a manner that offends the purpose of these forums. I consider the Hak5 forums to be an awesome resource. I've met a lot of really cool people here and have had a lot of fun working on projects with them. I have a lot of respect for all of you, including the huge number of beginners who are simply following their newfound passion in an effort to find their place in the community. It's just very difficult for me to sit back and watch people discuss me as if I'm a topic, and not a fellow community member.

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Posted using Google Feedback

Chris Haralson's channel:
I have slowly replaced my television watching with YouTube but this is the second time YouTube has blocked the channel of someone whose content I enjoy.
Blocking Chris's channel may give you a warm fuzzy, but it is censorship plain and simple. Our enemies know how to hack and so should Americans and Europeans who watch these channels.
You are going to introduce his 17,000 subscribers to Vimeo.
Google has been more and more evil of late, between the fake "skip to video" clock timer, and blocking useful channels, and forcing commercials every 7 minutes for evil movies that I do not want to see, not allowing Facebook share of YT videos directly from android phones, you all are going to drive away customers.

I can get my email anywhere, I can live without chrome, your authoritarianism is looking more and more apple like each day.
Why don't you guys just sit on your hands for a while - and let the internet be free!
Shame on Google,
J *** *** k

Name blocked here but full name signed in the feedback. I hope you have backups of those video's - if so please move to Chris Haralson's channel:
I have slowly replaced my television watching with YouTube but this is the second time YouTube has blocked the channel of someone whose content I enjoy.
Blocking Chris's channel may give you a warm fuzzy, but it is censorship plain and simple. Our enemies know how to hack and so should Americans and Europeans who watch these channels.
You are going to introduce his 17,000 subscribers to Vimeo.
Google has been more and more evil of late, between the fake "skip to video" clock timer, and blocking useful channels, and forcing commercials every 7 minutes for evil movies that I do not want to see, not allowing Facebook share of YT videos directly from android phones, you all are going to drive away customers. I can get my email anywhere, I can live without chrome, your authoritarianism is looking more and more apple like each day.
Why don't you guys just sit on your hands for a while - and let the internet be free!
Shame on Google,
J*** ***k -name blocked here but used full name in feedback

-I hope you have backups of those videos. If so, please post them on Vimeo and I will move over there and follow you. Youtube and Google are getting too power drunk for my liking.


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Yeah Chris its not over just move to a different plat form, Vimeo seems to be way more open to stuff like that. It still sucks that google did that they are supposed to be the good guys on the internet...

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JRedded -

I appreciate that you took the time to reach out. As I said earlier, it seems as though information censorship has become the core issue here. This is something that I'll discuss in my upcoming article for the Hacker News. For now, I'm collaborating with my teammates at CTF365 to make my videos available again. We'll get it figured out soon. Thanks again.

newbi3 -

Your contributions to this community are awesome. I've told you this in a past conversation but I'll say it again - the evil portal infusion is one of my favorite infusions. Your thoughts are shared by many others, and you're right when you say that YouTube isn't the only platform. As I said above, I'm working with some friends to get this situation resolved. It's looking like we may launch our own platform. In the meantime, we're working on a temporary solution. Thanks for your support.

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Anytime, Chris! Just know that for me, I am going to do whatever I can to help you get back to doing what you love and are good at.
This topic is the least I could have done for the time an effort you've put in to educating people like myself. For free!

Also not to call anyone out or suggest you should bite the hand that feeds, but i'd really like to see Darren and Hak5 or threat wire get involved in this, i mean TBH i seen Chris's wifi pineapple tutorials before i even bought a pineapple, His quality tutorials convinced me to actually buy a pineapple. So his videos are also good for business on the Hak5 side of spectrum.

Edited by bytedeez
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