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MySpace Music Player Hacked
Roy van Rijn writes to tell us about a little program called MySpace MP3 Gopher, with which you can download any song from MySpace as an MP3 even if it is marked to disable downloading. MySpace MP3 Gopher is a Windows program requiring no installation, and for those not on a Windows box the author offers an online version that anyone can run. It is hosted on his home computer so it is bound to get slashdotted rather quickly. All you need to grab a MySpace song is its "friendID," which is in every URL as a parameter. Tech-recipes has step-by-step instructions.
You've been able to do something similar to this for months. Thinking Universal wrote this on purpose to force MySpace into doing what they want isn't only naive, it's an indication that your tin foil hat is on far too tight.
This is just another example of Web 2.0 security, or the lack thereof.
I disagree. They are letting people download this music, but they are supposed to prevent them from saving the file.
This is just an attempt at DRM, which really has little to do with our traditional notion of "computer security".
"Security" usually means preventing unauthorized access of your computers... not preventing unauthorized access to data after you give it to someone.
Saying "You put it online, so you shouldn't mind people ripping it" is like telling a car dealership that they should accept that their cars are being stolen because they put them on display in their lot.
um...no. it's like a car "dealership" saying "i know we put these cars in the lot, with the keys in them, for people to use for free, but stealing them is wrong." the songs aren't there to be looked at and not used. as far as i know, there's no limit to how many times you can listen to a song on someone's profile. just keep hitting play, and it starts over.