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Monday Releases Cause Crashes
The two big releases yesterday, Apple's Security Update and the DRM-canceling PlayFair, are causing problems. The Security Update appears to break cvs over pserver under some conditions (hangs for a long time, then quits with a malloc error), and ryanw writes, "according to the SF.net forum for playfair, the 'iTMS DRM stripping tool' destroys your purchased songs: the resulting files crash iTunes, the iPod, and QuickTime." Those who follow the rules -- wait a few days to install Apple's updates, and make backups of your iTMS files -- will be unaffected.
I really need to learn to wait a few days before installing things. I'm so impatient.
Even worse, I check a dozen or so Mac sites several times daily, (yes I need a life) so I probably get every update within 8 hours or so of release, if that.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
...to install version 0.2 of some guy's software
I check everyday for updates as a matter of course and installed yesterday's security stuff. Luckily
being in the UK I _still_ can't buy music from iTunes, and I don't have an iPod so no problem really.
Annoying that they don't check these things more carefully.
The way PlayFair snags a decryption key doesn't always work, but it tries to decrypt the song anyway. If it finds a bad key and uses it, of course the files are going to come out as garbage! If you swap headers of an m4a file and an m4p file, QuickTime, iTunes and the iPod all crash while reading it also. It does not, as the post suggests, even touch your purchased songs. All decryption is made on a copy. Just more fear mongering.
I have, however, had no trouble decrypting my songs under Mac OS X. They work perfectly.
Brilliant move combining those two entirely seperate stories into one article.
/.ers are going to assume that the stories are related somehow, and that the Apple Security Update somehow sabotaged playfair. Sheesh.
You just know some ignorant tinfoil-hat wearing
The nerds behind PlayFair are doing nothing but harm the very thing they seek to protect: Fair Use. Apple *already* allows you to make an unlimited amount of regular Audio CDs from music you purchased on iTMS. Apple already allows you to listen to your music on any computer running their free iTunes software. THAT *is* fair use. Why go thru the trouble of breaking encryption? just so you could listen to your music on linux? if you're going thru all that trouble then why not create a few audio CDs from all your purchased music, so you could listen to it on your stereo and in your car, AND RIP UN-DRM'ed MP3s onto your linux box?.
This is all just silly. Why don't "freedom fanboys" either get a clue or stick to WMA, rather than bashing Apple on their attempt to make the RIAA play nice and bragging about circumventing a DRM scheme that has always been loose in the first place.
i still buy most my music off of amazon, i'm a big fan of physical goods in the mail.
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I did the update and then had spinning-wheel-of-death four times in a row while trying to run an unrelated program installer and simultaneously burn a DVD. Had to do these operations sequentially to get them to work. (why was I doing both: I was simply multi-tasking my monthly maintainence chores.)
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
1. Anyone who is good at reading the install scripts - How do we "remove" playfair? (especially since it doesn't seem to get a good decoding done - the resulting files all crash whatever app tries to play them. Maybe wait a version or two...)
2. Now this might be pretty basic, but does anyone have a favorite unix scripting tutorial so that I can learn how to script things like this to run on multiple files?
It really does work. The crashing is caused by it not acquiring the key and decrypting it incorrectly with no error checking. This is what you have to do(the only way I know how, because I don't know how to compile it on windows).
./configure, make, make install(if you're root).
./playfair whatever.m4p new.m4p.
Download it on *nix and do
On windows, download VLC. Run it and open your encrypted m4p file.
Now, in c:\documents and settings\username(whatever you're logged in as)\application data\drms, you have the key file. Copy that key file to your ~/.drms dir(create it) on the *nix box.
Then on the *nix box run
WHAM! It now works. It grabs the key from your ~/.drms and decrypts it to new.m4p. It works! I've tried it. This is great. Now I can actually buy music(Until apple "fixes" this).
If someone could compile this on windows it would cut down this process to 2 steps: 1. Run VLC with the file. 2. Run playfair.exe in.mp4 out.m4p
Thanks,
Chris Benard
Firstly, this tool never touches the original so unless you deleted the original before testing the new one, you are fine. For Example: /usr/local/bin/playfair
Secondly, the tool works fine most of the time. At least the mac version, but likely the pc one too. For me, its spits out 3/4 properly drm'd songs then spits out the rest garabage that crash iTunes/Quicktime. Try it yourself people, all you need is a mac with an ipod hooked up to it or just a windows pc.
Dont do school. Stay in milk. Drink your drugs.
Save everything after this (start at #!/bin/bash), and chmod +x it. ./saved-file m4p m4a /usr/local/bin in your path) to get your key.
.$SUFF1` /dev/null
Run with
This finds all m4p files in current dir (copy them first!) and saves the files in no-drm/.
Also, run playfair first (and have
#!/bin/bash
DIR=no-drm
usage () {
echo "Usage: $0 suffix newsuffix [converted-dir]"
exit
}
if [ "$1" == "-h" ] || [ "$1" == "--help" ]; then usage; fi
if [ -n "$1" ] && [ -n "$2" ]; then
SUFF1=$1
SUFF2=$2
else
usage
fi
if [ -n "$3" ]; then
DIR=$3
fi
mkdir -p $DIR
for FILE in *.$SUFF1; do
BASE=`basename "$FILE"
playfair "$FILE" "$DIR/$BASE.$SUFF2" 2>&1 >
done
I installed the security update this morning on my 15" AlPB and I use CVS over pserver at work and have seen no problems.
Just did a commit and an update for the hell of it, works fine...
I just bought a brand new PowerBook and got it yesterday. Being the good computer owner that I am, I of course ran the updates to get me up to speed. Damnit!
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How come everytime that Apple has an update people report that there have been crashes. I have updated Mac OS X since 10.2.2 when I bought the machine and never once had it...okay I lie it did crash - ONCE! - but that had nothing to do with any update file that I installed. I'm still not sure why it crashed considering it hasn't crashed since the ONE TIME CRASH!
I'm just emphazing that little fact because my Windows Box at work crashed two to three times a week...I mean 2 TO 3 TIMES A WEEK!!
Anyways, the DRM on the iTunes is really relaxed because I've never had a problem with converting the AAC files to MP3's (for those of my friends who don't use AAC files - since none of the MP3 players support them but iPod does.)
Later
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Its a little sad that a forum that generally celebrates Apples acheivements has a whole pile of posts on how to correctly configure the tool that will easily destroy them.
I can appreciate it from the technical point of view, but perhaps a post on what this is now going to do to Apples future fortune now that AAC is not secure is more appropriate, especially as Apples growth recently has been on the back of achievements in the audio area.
cant you just stream the music between all five macs. Saves disk space too.
1. People keep talking about "Fair use." It's a moot point. Fair use is what you can do with intellectual property that you posess (note I did not say "own") WHERE THERE IS NO OTHER GOVERNING AGREEMENT. When you started up iTunes, you clicked through a license that spells out what you may do with the songs you purchase. That is the difference between the iTMS and a CD - CDs don't have shrinkwrap licenses.
If you are in the United States, giving PlayFair to someone else or posting it on a web site probably violates the DMCA: It is not authorized by the rights holder, and it defeats an effective means of copy control.
Using PlayFair to decode your purchases to use on machines that don't have iTunes (such as Linux machines) probably is legal under the reverse engineering for compatibility sections of the DMCA, but that law is very full of contradictions and has not been fully tested in the courts.
I have a suggestion for the PlayFair authors: As you decrypt each song, put the account information in a hidden or comment section of the output file. Anyone using PlayFair to simply use their purchased content themselves would not be hurt by this, and it would provide an additional deterent against putting decoded content up on $P2P_NETWORK_DU_JOUR. It would bolster your eventual defense in court that you were not making a tool for piracy.
Uh, pserver is unencrypted, and using it is actually _more_ work than doing it the Right Way (over ssh). There's just no good reason for anyone anywhere to use it.
So, yeah, I'd consider breaking pserver to be a valid security enhancement.
I just installed the patch and I don't know what you're all whining about! Everything's working per
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
How come everytime that Apple has an update people report that there have been crashes.
Because, typically, Apple users expect things to Just Work(tm). So, when things don't Just Work(tm), most Apple users will complain loudly.
Conversely, most Windows users don't have such an expectation. So when an update comes along that does break something, I imagine not nearly as many Windows users are inclined to complain loudly about it.
Of course there will be a small number of users that are adversely affected by an update, whether it is for Windows or OS X. What really stands out sometimes is just who complains louder. And like I said, because of their high expectations, I think Apple users are far more inclined to complain about things breaking.
FWIW, I have never had a single problem with OS X updates, and I've installed every single one issued by Apple from 10.1.1 up to the current 10.3.3. And in 8 years of updating Windows, I've only had a single problem with an OS update (though it did require a complete reinstall).
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
And, more importantly, it's my right to listen to the music on any brand of device I want. If I can figure out a way to get NetBSD on RISC-Toaster to recognize a sound card, it's my right to use a tune I bought as the "toast is ready" theme song.
As for contract law vs. copyright law - that may be the case, but (a) I can't sign away rights. No matter how many slavery contracts you sign, you can't sell yourself into slavery. (b) It's up to Apple to verify their contract, or to designate someone to verify it. (c) The issue of whether clicking "I Agree" confers a contractual obligation is currently very unclear indeed.
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