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Thursday, May 31, 2007

iTunes Plus - really a better deal?

The new iTunes thing is out, and in return for paying more money, you get "DRM free" music. However, according to this writeup, Apple sticks your name and email address into the songs you download. This obviously has two implications:

1) It's a lot easier to find out who sticks their music on P2P networks.
2) It's a lot easier to screw up royally, as the information could easily be faked leading to the wrong people being hit with lots of legal jibber-jabber.

I'm especially interested in the more oddball situations that could arise from this. Remember the BitTorrent installs from the Middle-East hacking group?
It's not a stretch of the imagination to wonder what would happen if someone hacked your computer then started whizzing DRM free music with your name all over it. Previously there'd have been no point as the music wouldn't play, but now? Ka-ching, computers will suddenly be filling up with a free lunch. I'd find that pretty tempting as a hacker and / or music pirate - it's one more source of free stuff to exploit at someone else's expense, right?

Honestly, in it's current form, music is the tool of Satan. Even when you think you're thrown a bone, it comes with a free punch in the face. Anybody paying the extra cash to be rid of "wonderful" DRM technology is simply exchanging one insidious form of obsessive monitoring for another. Watch the humorous comments fill up on Slashdot.

All Content © Vitalsecurity.org 2006. The content of this site is entirely the opinion of Paperghost, and is in no way endorsed by FaceTime Communications. In other words - have a problem, come see me.