YouTube Vids Get Porn Hacked for the Holidays

LOS ANGELES—The hack has been corrected, but it seems as if the usual 4chan suspects are indeed the likely band behind this weekend’s YouTube takeover, such as it was. Taking advantage of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities while the nation was embroiled in a heat wave or a big birthday party, the cyberspace miscreants held a sort of Independence Day of their own by, among other things, redirecting viewers of Justin Bieber videos to a porn site.  

No word here yet as to whether 4chan is indeed responsible, but based on several conversations with one of the group’s leaders late last year, it is certainly possible and perhaps probable that the redirects to porn were their doing. They are, after all, great defenders of porn.

But such is the wondrous nature of the internet that 4chan was also at one point held responsible for the bomb scare at JFK airport this weekend. That rumor seems to have been debunked, but is it any wonder that such a thing happened? Or that someone also played with the Justin Bieber My World Contest, sending the singer to North Korea. (It might have been a hack, but it was a pretty funny hack, you have to admit.)

At any rate, we’ve got an email into our 4chan contact, and will report back if s/he decides to honor us with a response.