(Work In Progress, help requested.)
(If somebody knows how, please put this article as a sub-entry of 4chan.)
General Information
“Erratas” (Sometimes spelled as “Eratas” to avoid detection) is the name of a supposed computer algorithm which is utilized by major corporations worldwide. This algorithm may be used to remove copyright infringement on websites such as Youtube, and can be seen as a form of mass surveillance. The mystery shrouding “Erratas” comes from how employees of certain companies are supposedly fired if the algorithm’s name shows up in their file search history, and how “Erratas” seems to target and delete any mention of it’s name online. The word “Erratas” (Plural) or “Errata” means “Error” or “Printing mistake” in Latin.
An anonymous post on 4chan was the first lead, and investigation conducted by a group of anons has turned up many other bizarre leads, including an obscure Bandcamp page, a Hawaiian serial rapist and Jurassic Park. Some anons suggest that the “Erratas” mystery is just an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) or random coincidences.
First Mentions Of “Erratas” On 4chan
On November 26, 2015, an anonymous user on 4chan posted a summary of their conversation with a girl about how she was given a “shady” factory job by their temporary agency. The post goes on to say that she picked up a tape gun with the word “Erratas” (Misspelled as “Eratas”) written on it instead of a normal factory department’s name, and they were told by a co-worker to get rid of it, and to never mention the odd name to any supervisors. The co-worker explains that anybody who searched on their computers for the name was “flagged” and fired immediately.
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A month later, on December 19, 2015, another anon posted a question that asked if anyone worked in IT from 2000 to 2010 to find out about some “sketchy program” they’ve heard of from locals, and mentions the name “Erratas” again. A few companies were named that may use the program, such as UPS.
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Discovery of ChronosForLife
A post was made in /mu/ on January 25, 2016 from a user who wanted to create a new genre of music called “Deep Internet”. Music in this genre would be comprised of snippets and noise from very obscure Youtube videos. A set of links accompanied the description, and one of them led to a Youtube video titled “Youtube is MONITORING and controlling my life”. The video was uploaded on January 23, 2016 by a channel named “ChronosForLife JurassicPark”. In it, the distressed uploader talks about how Youtube and it’s “algorithms” are targeting him and his deceased mother’s tribute videos to the Jurassic Park movies.
This channel uploaded another video titled “Here goes nothing…”, which claims to be bait for the “Er****s” (Erratas) algorithm to flag and delete. The description reads: “If it flags this one, that’s some spooky shit.”
A strange discovery was soon made about this video. If one were to turn on Automatic Captions, which are known to create silly sentences out of normal speech and cannot be altered by the uploader or Youtube, an address that reads: “200 Corbin KY 40219” is written in the captions at one point in the video. This is the address listed on the Bandcamp page of “KFC Murder Chicks”, which was recently taken down.
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Another discovery in one of his other videos came in a morse code message near the end of his “Jurassic Park 3 Tribute Re-Upload”. When translated, the message reads: “Hollywood Astral Projection Clinic”. No explanation has been found for this message.
ChronosForLife uploaded a Q&A video where they answered questions in the comments sections of his other videos(?), but it has since been taken down. However, an anon managed to write a transcript of the video:
Same Anon here, I just finished typing out a transcript of the video as best I could, and I have to say, things are getting weird. A lot of what he says matches up perfectly with the little that’s mentioned about Erratas in the archived /x/ threads.
If anyone is able to figure out what the the text said at parts where I wasn’t able to, that’d be great.
Notes about the transcript: Anything in square brackets are my own notes; " ] " means I couldn’t read multiple words, or that I couldn’t tell if it was multiple words or not and I couldn’t read them; " [?] " means I couldn’t read what I’m pretty sure is just one word; [?] attatched to the end of a word means I’m not completely sure that that’s what that word says; [ attatched to other letters means I could figure out part of the word but part of I couldn’t figure out.
TRANSCRIPT:
[start of video]
I’ve been fairly reluctant to really ask anyone for help since the nature of ] like pre[ classic paranoid nutjob ramblings -
algorithms controlling things behind the scenes, weird stuff in that vein.
But I would never waste anyone’s time with stuff like that. In the past couple of years I’ve asked for help from friends in programming and business circles.
but over time, friendships fade, people move, people stop talking to you. You know the drill.
As such, I’m very grateful for the help people are giving and I’ll try and answer as many questions as I can here.
Cork Top writes:
Q: "So with this video, are you essentially trying to see if this system called “Erratas” or “Eratas” will attempt to take down the video because it’s some system/algorithm that takes down videos that… I don’t know, include the term “Eratas”/“Erratas” in them? Which is why you used asterisks for letters in the word in the description, to see if the system could detect text on videos?"
[Cont…]
A: Thanks for writing, Cork. Yes. I don’t know much about programming or computer systems, so I’m not too savvy about how to trick them. All I really know about Erratas is that it’s used by dozens of companies.
(“recent”, as in, within the last 5 or 6 years)
they seem to use it as a copyright-enforcement tool which works as an excellent [?] if you want to take down other things as well.
But it has its limitations, and I’m fairly sure that my “test video” helped ferret those out. Maybe.
The original Jurassic Park trilogy is excellent, by the way, I highly recommend it.
The second film is my favorite, in spite of its flaws.
Frank Horrigan writes “what is the erratas system? any documentation?”
A: Thanks ]ing, Frank. “Erratas”[?] is something I [?(I’m not sure if there’s a word here or not)] crossed paths with over the years, and in[scope[?] disturb[??(this word MIGHT be “disturbance,” or it might be “disturbs me”)] …
The fact that it went after my mom in her twilight years is either evidence of its enormous and uncaring[?] reach in other words, a coincidence, or it means it’s
specifically still coming after me after all these years, and to be frank, both options freak me out equally.
3M and Unilever were early adopters, which shows the versatility of the system.
Too much faith is put into computers in general, and WAY too much faith was put in Erratas. Lots of people lost their jobs.
And Aaron4420 [referring to a YouTuber who posted on one of his videos], it’s easy to talk shit from behind a computer screen but takes a real man to back it up so suck my dick through a straw
[end]
“Tod Ellsworth”’s Youtube Channel & Twitter Posts
A channel by the name of Tod Ellsworth uploaded a video on November 21, 2015. Its content is a song by the real and existing band “KFC Murder Chicks”.
In it’s description, the phrase “Erratas or Rusts” is written at the end of the actual description. No explanation is given for this. It once read “Erratas or Bust”, but it has since been changed to the above wording.
Tod Ellsworth also has a Twitter page. On it, only three bizarre posts have been made by “him”. The first one is an image of a computer-generated police sketch:
The identity of this man is an unknown rapist last seen in Maui, Hawaii.
Connections with ChronosForLife have been suggested after discovering that “Tod Ellsworth” is an anagram for “The Lost World”, as in “Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World”.
“KFC Murder Chicks”’s Bandcamp Page
The Bandcamp page of “KFC Murder Chicks” has long since disappeared. On it, there were odd paragraphs of text and a reference to “Tod Ellsworth”’s name.
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When questioned about “Erratas” on their Tumblr, which is still up and running, they seemingly confused the name with a Yu-Gi-Oh spell card. However, when asked about their dislike for the post office, they say they’re against the post office due to them being tied to “spying and profiling”.
A post on “Tod Ellsworth”’s Twitter page describes something similar.
And lastly, when asked about their favorite movie, they answered with: “I’ve always been a fan of the carnosaur movies.”
This is speculated to be another link to ChronosForLife.
Takedown of Exer Erb’s Youtube Channel
“Exer Erb” was a fairly new channel with a video on “Erratas” that explained the mystery and it’s origins very well. However, their channel disappeared due to being taken down by Youtube and has not resurfaced.
An uploader named “Toxicologist” has a video which discusses “Exer Erb”’s sudden disappearance.
Anons Banned By 4chan For Discussing “Erratas”
The discoveries and clues listed throughout this article were found by a group of anons on 4chan who started a long investigation that spanned months to find information about the “Erratas” algorithm. Midway through April 2016, threads about “Erratas” were deleted one by one and anons who tried to discuss “Erratas” were banned, leading some to believe that “Erratas” was installed on 4chan, and is trying to delete threads mentioning it. One anon was banned for “Copyright Infringement” despite the fact that copyrighted material is posted all the time on 4chan.
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Since then, that group of anons has moved to a thread on 8chan.
The term “Errata’d” is an in-joke here that’s said whenever something is believed to be affected by "Erratas"’s work.
External References
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