David Brooks wrote:
Did ANYONE watch this?
Please advise.
I didn't. I saw it was a mp4. That's a vid.
On 09/09/2022 11:41, Mike Easter wrote:
David Brooks wrote:
Did ANYONE watch this?
https://photos.smugmug.com/Air-2-Work-2021/i-NvqWJth/0/58fae328/1920/Morro_Bay_Feb_2_mp4-1920.mp4
Please advise.
I didn't. I saw it was a mp4. That's a vid.
So?
*Are you concerned about malware therein*?
https://recoverit.wondershare.com/repair-video-file/how-to-repair-damaged-video-file-due-to-virus-attack.html
//MP4 files usually store Videos and music files. This video format is considered to be of high quality and it’s compatible with most devices. Besides, the format is convenient for sharing videos on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. MP4 videos have file extension like .m4a, .mp4, .m4p, and .m4r. so, can mp4s have viruses? Simply put, yes because these extensions are vulnerable to virus infection. You might be wondering how this can happen. You see, it’s likely that malware can disguise
itself as a video file, making the video files favorite for malware writers.//
David Brooks formulated the question :
On 09/09/2022 11:41, Mike Easter wrote:
David Brooks wrote:
Did ANYONE watch this?
https://photos.smugmug.com/Air-2-Work-2021/i-NvqWJth/0/58fae328/1920/Morro_Bay_Feb_2_mp4-1920.mp4
Please advise.
I didn't. I saw it was a mp4. That's a vid.
So?
*Are you concerned about malware therein*?
https://recoverit.wondershare.com/repair-video-file/how-to-repair-damaged-video-file-due-to-virus-attack.html
//MP4 files usually store Videos and music files. This video format is
considered to be of high quality and it’s compatible with most
devices. Besides, the format is convenient for sharing videos on
social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. MP4 videos have
file extension like .m4a, .mp4, .m4p, and .m4r. so, can mp4s have
viruses? Simply put, yes because these extensions are vulnerable to
virus infection. You might be wondering how this can happen. You see,
it’s likely that malware can disguise itself as a video file, making
the video files favorite for malware writers.//
I don't like that article. It can't seem to differentiate corruption
from infection. Last I knew, they were two separate things.
On 09/09/2022 19:41, FromTheRafters wrote:
David Brooks formulated the question :
[...] can mp4s have viruses? Simply put, yes because these extensions
are vulnerable to virus infection. You might be wondering how this can
happen. You see, it's likely that malware can disguise itself as a video >>> file, making the video files favorite for malware writers.//
I don't like that article. It can't seem to differentiate corruption from
infection. Last I knew, they were two separate things.
Do you have any understanding of why the link won't 'work' at all in
Safari, Google Chrome or Brave yet it DOES play in Firefox? (albeit in a small size).
"David Brooks" wrote:
On 09/09/2022 19:41, FromTheRafters wrote:
David Brooks formulated the question :
[...] can mp4s have viruses? Simply put, yes because these extensions are >>>> vulnerable to virus infection. You might be wondering how this can
happen. You see, it's likely that malware can disguise itself as a video >>>> file, making the video files favorite for malware writers.//
I don't like that article. It can't seem to differentiate corruption from >>> infection. Last I knew, they were two separate things.
I agree. It's simplistic hogwash. An exe pretending to be an mp4 isn't
an mp4. An mp4 isn't executable and can't be infected. It is possible
that if a media player had a vulnerability, an mp4 could be crafted to exploit that.
Do you have any understanding of why the link won't 'work' at all in
Safari, Google Chrome or Brave yet it DOES play in Firefox? (albeit in a
small size).
I wouldn't know about browsers, but both links work and the videos are
fine. They are quite large, the first (Morro Bay) being 124 MiB with a
screen size of 1920x1080 pixels, and the second (Cayucos Point) being
616 MiB with the same screen size.
"HunterBD" wrote:
On 13/09/2022 12:51, Apd wrote:
"HunterBD" wrote:
You DID say that you weren't going to spend any more time
investigating!!!
I changed my mind. When SC mentioned you can use '+' for spaces and
FTR posted a link about it, I thought I'd better check if there's a
special case for underscores. There isn't, so it must be something
Smugmug or their hosting service offer. All the SD links with spaces
replaced with '_' or '%20' or '+' (I've not seen any of the latter)
should be treated as the same link (the same file) and they are except
for the one I noted. The one with underscores that doesn't work
(treated as a jpeg) indicates a fault at their end. There's nothing
about the file that should cause it to happen - it's the same type of
MP4 as the others.
In such a situation, do you ever contact the folk at "their end" with a
view to solving the puzzle?
Not in this case because it ain't much of a puzzle.
Depending on the format, anything can be hidden in a file or appended
to it. However, it needs an executable to make use of that. It can't
be used by the file itself when it's non-executable, or a legitimate
player or viewer (aside from any vulnerabilities, as I mentioned).
Hmmm!
So now you DO agree that 'malware' CAN be hidden within a video file!
I just said it depends. Read up about MP4 file format. If it contains
chunks that are informative rather than playable it could be hidden
there. Otherwise it must be appended.
Do you ALSO agree that 'someone' could TAMPER with a video file and
insert malicious code where none had been in the link originally?
It wouldn't matter because no legitimate player will run it.
How can you and/or I inspect the one you believe has a fault?
It doesn't have a fault. The fault is at the server where it resides.
For the particular file in question (Morro Bay Feb 2 mp4-1920.mp4),
there are two versions. One is 1920x1080 and there's a smaller version
of 640x360 which appears to be incorecctly marked (on the server) as
being "image/jpeg". For some unknown reason, that's the one you get if
you use Firefox to request that filename where underscores are used
instead of spaces. It doesn't happen if I download with curl or wget.
Regarding underscores, I've discovered that there's no special
handling. You can remove just one from the problematic file and it
works correctly. In fact, it doesn't matter what filename you give,
the file identification is in the string of random-looking characters
before. For example, this:
photos.smugmug.com/Air-2-Work-2021/i-NvqWJth/0/58fae328/1920/mb-feb2.mp4
will get the large "Morro Bay Feb 2 mp4-1920.mp4" file. Removing the
"/1920" part of the path will get the smaller version:
photos.smugmug.com/Air-2-Work-2021/i-NvqWJth/0/58fae328/mb-feb2small.mp4
Same for the other files you've shown; you can refer to them by any
filename you like, as I did here, but there are no smaller versions of
those.
On 15/09/2022 14:47, Apd wrote:
"HunterBD" wrote:
On 14/09/2022 22:55, Apd wrote:
Perhaps I'm being too helpful.
Absolutely not! I'm not here to learn things (although I do) but to
'look
under the stones' like kids do on the beach.
That's the problem - you rarely learn anything. This is why you keep
asking about the same things over and over. No doubt you've heard this
proverb:
"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you
feed him for a lifetime".
Of course. :-D
You are so forgetful.
I was a professional Training Officer. A TEACHER!
My most notable student was Prince Andrew, duke of York, during his
flying training in the Royal Navy. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrew-duke-of-York
An interpretation is that if someone is taught how to do something,
it's of more benefit in the long run than doing it for them. For you,
that means if you made an effort to understand some of the
technicalities about aspects of computing that are confusing, you
could move out of Punxsutawney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GncQtURdcE4&t=0s
I can confirm that I have done some things the same way over and over
and expected to get the same answer - but just occasionally the answer
WAS different! Crazy, eh?!!
Tell me YOUR claim to fame, Ant. What was the high point of YOUR career?
You have found an odd-ball video amongst the others. There MUST be a
reason for that. I'd like to be sure that it's innocent.
There's nothing odd about the video(s). As I said earlier, it's the
way the server is reporting them, usually to the browser but in one
case to other utilities.
You said. But you do not know why.
You have, I'm sure, checked that there aren't hidden messages inside.
Don't be ridiculous. I'm not going through hundreds of megabytes of
data when it's obvious nothing will be found. Naturally, I've looked
at the headers to see if there's any noteworthy differences (there
aren't).
I once opened just about every file on a Windows XP machine using
Notepad ...... and discovered that Hewlett Packard was sending messages 'home' to disclose the usage of my printer.
It's still a bit of a puzzle!
The only puzzle to me is the behaviour of the Smugmug server when
following differently-named links to the same file, both from Google
Groups and from entering the URL directly. It's not any indication
of maliciousness. Unless anyone has any better ideas, it has to be a
server configuration issue at their end.
There must be a reason for that.
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