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iTunes DRM Hole Closed

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the closeahole-whacamole dept.

FrYGuY101 writes "As recently covered on Slashdot, there was a hole in iTunes which allowed music to be acquired from the iTunes Music Store without Apple's DRM applied. Well, Apple has just released an update which closes this exploit."

15 of 594 comments (clear)

  1. Impressive by Quasar1999 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I like how they handled that... no horrible punishments, no wagging their finger at the community... just fix the hole, force the update (for obvious legal reasons), and carry on loving your customers... I like...

    Too bad napster to go couldn't be so accomodating... :P

    --

    ---
    Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
    1. Re:Impressive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Only because it was pretty damn embarrassing and very difficult to pursue legally.

    2. Re:Impressive by GigsVT · · Score: 5, Insightful

      loving your customers

      By forcing DRM onto them?

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    3. Re:Impressive by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think they've realized that DVD Jon is pretty much untouchable. He walks a fine line, but hasn't yet crossed it.

      It's not out of the goodness of their heart, but more because lawsuits are pretty damn expensive.

    4. Re:Impressive by ElleyKitten · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except, everyone already can do anything with music. Almost every song you could want you can find through pirating, and when you pirate you don't have to deal with DRM, you can get the music in any format you want and it will play in any player you want. The goal when selling music digitally is not to attempt to make sure your customers don't pirate, but to make sure that what they're paying for is better than what they don't pay for.

      --
      "What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
    5. Re:Impressive by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You sir, are a very reasonable fellow.
      "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
      the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
      Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
      -- George Bernard Shaw
      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    6. Re:Impressive by Sanity · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I love getting my music digitally, so I would prefer that a few bad DVD John-like people not ruin it for me.
      Yeah, those evil programmers hurting those poor multinational record labels by writing software that allows us to exercise our fair use rights under copyright law.

      Your bend over and take it attitude makes me sick.

  2. Believe it or not, Apple's DRM doesn't bother me by Anita+Coney · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Considering you can burn Apple's song on CD and get rid of the DRM, who cares.

    What I'd love is a way to download songs from Apple in a non-lossy format! If DVD Jon could do that, I'd give him a lifetime of gratitude!

    --
    If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
  3. So then.. by TheVampire · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ..someone just releases a patch to PyMusique so that it looks like version 4.7 of ITunes to Apple's servers...
    and the endless game continues....

  4. Not really closed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course the only change that Apple has made is to require iTunes 4.7 as the client. How long before someone figures out how to make PyMusique look like iTunes 4.7?

    And as long as they are sending un-DRMd songs down to the client they are suceptible to man in the middle attacks (a proxy server which watches for iTMS traffic and saves the song streams to another file), or to someone directly pulling data out of the iTunes app (though the second would arguably violate the DMCA).

  5. Re:No surprise by Zeneris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Only trouble is the label is only giving an advance (i.e. a loan) so in reality you will probably only see a tiny return or even be in debt, even after any nominal royalies, because so much gets sucked up as "expenses"! Wise up, even top 10 artists can be poor!

  6. Re:Wouldn't that be crossing the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Misrepresenting software to get around the DRM could be interesting legally. (Yes, I know browsers can do this -- but not to avoid DRM.)

  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  8. Re:Imagine.. by sh00z · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sort of. He could only have violated the TOS if he had agreed to them through the iTunes EULA. Since this program wasn't using iTunes, the Terms of Service weren't invoked.

  9. Parent is insightful? The mods are on crack! by Frodo+Crockett · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I would prefer that a few bad DVD John-like people not ruin it for me.

    WTF? Last time I checked, all Jon (there's no 'h' in his name) wants to do is watch dvds and listen to music purchased via iTunes on his Linux box. What Jon has done is indeed illegal in some countries (more extreme /. members would call them corporate states), but I don't think that any honest person can say it's unethical.

    It's really quite simple. If you buy something, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, so long as your actions don't harm anyone. Don't give me that "indirect harm" bullshit, either. I'd give you ground if we were talking about releasing the plans for building an antimatter bomb, but not for something so inconsequential as circumventing DRM and copy protection.

    --
    "The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network