Webdriver Torso: what is it?

I really don't know which forum is most appropriate for this topic and the search turned up nothing. So apologies if this has been brought up before.

What is Webdriver Torso?

Webdriver Torso YT channel

I just came across this channel and I have no clue what it is. Some kind of YouTube numbers station for super secret spies?

This channel has some 77,000 videos uploaded.
The guardian asks the question:

Are they connected to espionage or even aliens?

The BBC seems to connect it to French spies (not to be confused with French fries).

this website seems to connect the channel to aliens and seems to suugest the uploader(s) may be in contact with the same...

Have you heard of webdriver torso? Do you know what it is? Is it just BS or what?

Whatever it is 77,000 videos is a lot of uploading for a troll channel.

But what do I know?

Kallisti

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

From the article you linked ....

Source

But the truth is, as ever, more mundane.

Isaul Vargas, a New York-based software tester, spotted the videos in a post on BoingBoing and recognised them from an automation conference he had been at a year ago. They were being shown by a European firm that made streaming software for set-top boxes, the kit that sits under a TV and connects to services such as Sky or Netflix.

The company needed to be able to quickly and reliably upload digital video, a capability which it tested by uploading short, randomly generated snippets to its YouTube channel and running image-recognition software on it. "Considering the volume of videos and the fact they use YouTube, it tells me that this is a large company testing their video encoding software and measuring how Youtube compresses the videos," says Vargas.

So there's the answer. What looked like an insight into the murky world of espionage, or maybe even something otherworldly, turns out to be a little bit of a quality-control system leaking into the outside world.

Perhaps some puzzles are better left unsolved.

a reply to: MagicWand67

Hm.

Sounds like the perfect cover for an alien super-spy covert communications network to me.

Really though, if it was something like a spy number station (well, YouTube channel) I don't think they would come right out and say it.

I guess calibrating video streaming is as good an explanation as any though. Sorry folks no French fries... I mean spies... here.

Or are there?

actually i counted the videos and they turned out to be only 1050 vids , i dont know where did they get the 77000+ , why does you tube tell us that there are 77,395 videos when there are only 1050

a reply to: Dr UAE

Wow, you counted to 1,050! Man that's dedication. I don't know why there would be such a discrepancy though. Curiouser and curiouser, eh?

originally posted by: CagliostroTheGreat
a reply to: Dr UAE

Wow, you counted to 1,050! Man that's dedication. I don't know why there would be such a discrepancy though. Curiouser and curiouser, eh?

actually it was easy , 6 videos in each row and 175 in each column , you do the math