A heavily produced YouTube video from Mark Erickson at “Infinite Solutions” shows users how to get in on the super-secret (and non existent) Google TV beta. It involves sending yourself an email and then logging in and out of Gmail multiple times until a tv icon appears in the Gmail logo. In the comments to the video, some users have tried logging in and out of Gmail hundreds of times without it working.
This is almost certainly a fake, as Google Blogoscoped reports. Erickson then posted a second video to prove the authenticity and saying that Google had increased the login requirements “substantially”. A+ for effort and originality. Both videos are below.
Update: This just gets better and better. New video found via CenterNetworks “confirming” the accuracy of the hoax. This guy says he got it to work on his 114th login, after copying numerous links on the Gmail settings page.
It worked! After 1000 sign ins and outs, 300 browser restart, and 25 computer restart! OMG, Google TV is AWE-Some!
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yep, me too. that 1,000 logins is the magic number.
Whoa, for me it worked after 1243 logins, man, am I happy now.
1000+ logins???!!! I’ll just wait for it to come out for the public’s use.
You guys have a lot of time!!
*lol* =)
Very well done.
EDIT: Really worked after only 1001 logins and sending mail to support@google.com
What a waste of time…
How come so many people believe that this video is real and even though they obviously did NOT manage to use a nonexistent service they say it worked after 1,000,000 logins or something? Time wasters! Is it some kind of revenge against those who – wisely – didn’t believe to such a hoax?
What’s next?
“Just send your password to googletv@hotmail.com and we’ll hook you up”
“I’m with AOL, please send your username and password to aol_guide69@yahoo.com to continue your service”
Ah, the good ol’ days.
I was trying to do this but after 50 logins I gave up
How is this anything but a DoS attack?
goodluck trying a dos attack on google
I’m not even going to try this.
simple way to tell that this _is_ a fake:
in windows, push win+r to open a run dialog. Then, type cmd to open up a dos prompt. From here, type “ping tv.google.com”. This will take a minute and it should say “100% packet loss” towards the bottom.
in linux or on the mac os, open a terminal window and type “ping -c 3 tv.google.com”. This will take a minute and should say “100% packet loss” towards the bottom.
The reason this happens is because tv.google.com is not a valid subdomain of google.com, therefore, in the parts where it shows him going there, it must not be real.
I really wish this service was real, but alas it is not.
this was all over yesterday…. amazing that this made digg home page when it was already there 2x yesterday. gotta love digg!
From what it looks like, Google doesn’t even have an intranet subdomain named tv.corp.google.com… they do have video2.corp.google.com, though, so that leaves some place for rumors
Yeah, I think the guy tweaked his HOSTS file to link “tv.google.com” to a fake website he set up for this video. It’s an amazing work, but nonetheless a fake.
Did you really log in and log out 1000 times or did you write some program to do it for you repeatedly? If so, what did you use?
Very clever I have to say. The second video made me laugh for the analogyhe uses: “The Google TV easter egg has exploded like a Romulan warbird” – just genius
obviously a fake, but it’s pretty obvious that google would never get into that business.
Why wouldn’t they? Google’s entire fortune is from ad sells. GoogleTV would make perfect sense. As a matter of fact, they’re teaming up with cable tv providers to offer contextual ads customized for each household (which kinda pisses me off because I don’t want someone keeping a database of stuff I search for and selling it, but its coming so we can’t stop it). http://www.goog..._ads_trial.html
http://www.this...e_id=2&ct=5
why don’t google use the technology as TVkoo? This P2P live TV, no breaks, no buffering during playing, very good quality – 350k video, much stable than youtube.
Screams fake. No business sense for Google to get into this.
wow took me 1337 login attempts, it rocks,
this guy must have done an awful lot of work with DNS spoofing software
Oh good lord, people. The people who fell for it aren’t the stupid ones. It’s the people who actually have to POINT OUT that this is a fake, or that those who tried it are “stoopid” who are the morons. GET AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. PUT DOWN THE MOUNTAIN DEW. Take a walk, breathe in, breathe out.
i’ve tried this about 54 times now and its not working, as much as i wanted it to be real im starting to think its all bs.
Totallly awesome. That guy is funny as hell. Why doesn’t SNL get someone like him ?
This Video from Mark Erickson ist also hilarious:
http://www.yout...h?v=LY8Wi7XRXCA
Great stuff….now Google knows how to launch their next real product….this guy could be their mac vs. pc entrance into real TV ads. What would really be great is if some local TV station “tech expert” picked up the story and had 100,000 people from the middle of Iowa logging in and out of their accounts for hours on end.
Isaac
http://www.monomachines.com
This is very well done , especially the second video.
As an user said, it is surely an use of the HOSTS file . However , the quality of the fake is good
Notice how the Google Video page loads right when he clicks it but it took him awhile to load the Yahoo homepage. Defiantly a hoax.
Well that might be just a caching issue.
Yeah, I had logged out and then in over 628 times before realizing that I had forgotten to archive the message first. Boy did I feel silly. I back up to 593 times but need sleep before continuing. Wish me luck.
How can you guys say it does not work!!!! You haven’t tried it! It’s really there!
Right.
The video is stupid and so is everyone who tried this. Review the videos, note the URL he claims to be watching; http://tv.google.com/
And what do googles nameservers (ns3.google.com) have to say about this dns record?
No A records exist for tv.google.com, and tv.google.com does not exist.
He can publish tv.google.com all he wants. Doesn’t mean the domain isn’t masked or a forgery!
Man, they told me that beta was super hush-hush and now it’s been cracked? I know some Fox executives who are not gonna be happy, no siree bob!
Great parody of computer chronicles.
How can you believe a guy who uses MS Windows + MS iExplorer?
For all those claiming it works, prove it. Show us a screenshot.
http://www.televee.com/ works for most TV episodes… this is obviously a fake
If only people spent about 1/1000th of their time staying abreast of public policy as they do on this nonsense, maybe we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today.
zomg i have been trying since a while and i cant get it can someone help me step by step i think i got it wrong plz thnx
Who wastes all that time to make a fake. Do something productive with your time.
Google *will* be entering the TV business.
I didn’t try the login thing, but I did realize that the subdomain is non-existent. (tv.google.com)
HOWEVER: It is possible that the subdomain is “hiding”. It is possible that the server is instructed to drop all packets not coming from a specific domain, such as from within Gmail. I tried sending myself a link but It didn’t work.
The cool thing about computers is that you can fake a multitude of things. It would probably take me one hour of coding to be able to fake “Google TV”. A simple edit of the Hosts file, a nice Ajaxy/Googley site….. and we’re off. On the other side of the fence, there’s many difference ways I could hide my subdomain and make it look as dead from people that I don’t want to let in. Could have some sort of URL referrer block, even go as far as denying all but a certain IP or MAC address (from trusted beta users I suppose). There’s soo many different ways this can all be orchastrated.
I do not believe Google would go to those lengths to hide such a service (perhaps the major networks behind GoogleTV would though), so I am inclined to believe this is a linkbait scheme, and nothing else.
Time will Tell
–Jon Z
You fools, of course it’s real.
Not to mention the fact that it was inevitable anyway – Didn’t *you* see it coming??
Check the youtube.com responses to Mark Erickson’s videos. Other people have posted today with their proof as well.
Welcome to Web 2.0, Enjoy.
working on my end. must have been limited to the first 100 users.
I actually got it on the *first try*!
no way you lucky bastard
i didnt need 1000tries. i just went to youtube and wrote in google television.