New iPod Checksum Cracked, Linux Supported

An anonymous reader writes "After 36 hours of reverse engineering, the method for producing the checksum on new iPods has been discovered." You can also get linux support working if that's what you crave for your shiny new toy.

Comments

What's the draw?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Is it the iTunes store? Is it the sound quality? Is it the looks of the device?

What makes Apple's offering any better than anyone else's?

I don't get it at all.

What I don't get more than that is the people who buy the iPod just to put Linux on it. That actually causes negative understanding.

Re:What's the draw?

[Poromenos1]

It's the scrollwheel.

Re:What's the draw?

[mrchaotica]

What makes Apple's offering any better than anyone else's?

Integration with iTunes (not necessarily the store), such as syncing Smart Playlists, and 3rd-party accessory support that's an order of magnitude greater than for any other music player.

Re:What's the draw?

[Andy Dodd]

It has a more polished user interface and more third-party accessory support than any other player.

When shopping for an MP3 player, I considered alternatives (and in fact looked at alternatives first), and in the end went with iPod because:
1) Most of the alternatives I looked at weren't any cheaper than the iPod
2) Most of them got slammed in reviews for bad user interfaces
3) Most of them were not available in B&M stores allowing me to return it easily if I hated the UI.

In short, in the end the iPod wound up being the "safe bet", and unlike most Apple products, wasn't grossly overpriced compared to the competition. (Disclaimer: This was over a year ago, things may have changed since then.)

Re:What's the draw?

[Poromenos1]

It's not actually integration with iTunes (it's the most bloated piece of crap I've seen since RealPlayer), but the fact that there is any integration at all, i.e. a database of songs you can search and sort any way you want. Plus there's a really intuitive interface to control it. If there was another company that had that I'd buy its offer, I don't like Apple's overpriced hardware.

Re:What's the draw?

[Lumpy]

It's compatability with 3rd party devices.

I can take an iPod plug it into a connector in my car and completely control it from my steering wheel and see the info on the stereo's display. works perfectly. I can do the same with my Crestron Whole house audio system, my alarm clock, etc...

No other mp3 player on the market can do that. NONE. Apple opened up the connector interface and had a rs232 control interface down in that connector so other devices can control it, All other mp3 makers sit in the corner curled up screaming "MINE MINE!" or are not smart enough to think about 3rd party control like that.

That is why I use it, my daughter uses it, and I reccomend the iPod to all my clients what are doing whole house automation and audio integration. Only the ipod can do advanced integration that is seamless from the car to the home to the bedroom. (even the wife if you buy a iGazim attachment)

That is why.

Re:What's the draw?

[leuk_he]

I think you do not actually want to put linux on it, i think that the issue here is that the iPod is linux supported, meaning that you can transfer music from and to your linux desktop.

Linux support is so obvious for 99 out of 100 usb mp3 player out there it is not even worth mentioning. These mp3 players just behave like a generic USB pen disk. That you need a special (circumvention?) program for a iPod is the strange issue here.

Re:What's the draw?

[tgd]

Here's a few reasons that are valid to those who don't have Macs anyway (and its a no brainer if you use other Apple products):

1) Easy connection to cars. My iPod plugs into my truck's (factory) radio, and I get all the music info on there as well as easy browsing of the music. All the factory controls work, and its hidden in the glove box.
2) Lots of 3rd party speaker/dock solutions.
3) The iPod camera adapter.

The iPod camera adapter is really a very under-reported item, I think. I recently was in Alaska and didn't want to bring my laptop with me. My iPod has about 25g of free space on it, and I burned through 2/3 of that pulling pictures each day off my two digital cameras, and was able to use it to show pictures to my family (although it'd be nice if they added RAW viewing to it).

If you use it as a stand alone player in your pocket, then you're absolutely right.

Re:What's the draw?

[nsanders]

Never looked at the Sansa's huh? $50-$100 cheaper, they have a voice recorder, SD expansion (extra 2gb of space!), great accessory choices and a great product. The thing I like most is that there's no "disconnecting" with the Sansa. Just unplug it and go.

When my iPod died I got a Sansa and I love it. My 10gb Sansa (8gb + 2gb SD) cost $100 cheaper than a 4GB Nano.

Re:What's the draw?

[walt-sjc]

4) Availability of accessories.

That's huge. You can get iPod interfaces for most higher-end car stereos for example, not to mention the plethora of docks, cases, etc.

Re:What's the draw?

[Sciros]

Only the ipod can do advanced integration that is seamless from the car to the home to the bedroom. (even the wife if you buy a iGazim attachment) WHAT THE... seamless integration with the wife?... Just what exactly is an iGazim attachment and would one have to take his daughter to the doctor if she asks about getting one...

Re:What's the draw?

[Doc Ruby]

The white earbud wires signal to people (especially the cuter ones who can't think so good) that they can have sex with you before they notice that you're a geek with a "LiPod".

Re:What's the draw?

[Constantine XVI]

Sansa View.
Launches October, roughly the size/shape of old Nano, 3:4 screen taking most of the face, plays most sane video formats, retains muSD slot, gains SDHC support
8GB for 150, 16GB for 200

Re:What's the draw?

[pthor1231]

Both you are your parent are wrong. Neither one is definitively better than the other, for simple fact that people like different interfaces. A lot of people I work with seems to like the nub mouse on ibm laptops. I personally can't stand using it. Does this make the touchpad style of laptop control better or worse? No, it just means they are two effective methods of input that people can use, similar to the Rio / Apple issue.

Re:What's the draw?

[cromar]

I think the poster was referring to the iGasm.

Re:What's the draw?

[letxa2000]

The scroll wheel actually tends to piss me off. Especially if you're doing something like exercise, it's all too easy to overshoot with the dang scroll wheel.

Re:What's the draw?

[timster]

I propose Timster's Law: in every argument about the iPod, someone will eventually resort to bringing up a product that is not available, either because it was discontinued or hasn't been released.

I also suggest that once this has occurred, the discussion should cease (much like a Godwin). My hope is that such a rule would put an end to the pointless arguments over the device. People buy the iPod because they like it, and they pay for it themselves; why is this a problem?

Re:What's the draw?

[NiceGeek]

"It's not actually integration with iTunes (it's the most bloated piece of crap I've seen since RealPlayer)"

Only on Windows. It runs very, very nicely in OS X.

Re:What's the draw?

[EggyToast]

iTunes on a mac isn't the "bloated," error-prone kludge it is on Windows. I'm not sure why that is, especially since it's supposed to be some sort of trojan horse for the Mac lifestyle or some other marketing thing, but iTunes on OS X is nice 'n speedy.

It also comes pre-installed on all Macs, so there's that going for it.

Re:What's the draw?

[xENoLocO]

I swear to god i'm the only person on this website who sees a flaw with the "it's not X, its you!" argument.

Same thing with linux. It's not linux, it's you! You're the problem!

No, guys. Things should be usable in a natural state. You should be comfortable with something as soon as you start using it. If you're not, then the products usability has failed you. If someone thinks the scrollwheel is better, that's a perfectly valid opinion. You can't tell them their opinion is wrong because YOUR mp3 player works just by holding down a button instead of the scroll wheel. Guess what... that's not natural to this person.

And no, I don't own an ipod. Yes, I've tried linux. No, I don't use a mac. I'm just a usability guy who builds websites.

And sorry if this seems like a rant. :)

Re:What's the draw?

[Tacvek]

There are some other reasons too. First of all, take iTunes. iTunes may not a real windows-like interface, and some apparently consider the Windows version to be bloated, but it does organize music well, and is easy enough to teach to people who are not computer literate. Some other players have good software, but others have software that is terrible.

iPod is easy to use. There is no denying that the scroll wheel interface is highly intuitive, and accessing features is fairly easy. Some other player do have interfaces that are just as good.

The iPod does not have feature bloat. Many other mp3 players have many extra features, but most of the times those features are very poorly implemented, and has the effect of just wasting menu space. These poorly implemented features also tend to drag the perception of the whole player down.

The headphones. For low to low mid-end earbuds, the ones that come with the iPod are some of the best. Of course, many headphones, or high-end earbuds are better.

The iPod has many accessories. It is one of the few players to support near full integration with some car head units (receivers).

It's name. Tell somebody you want an "iPod Nano" and they will be able to remember the name. There is no part of the name that looks like "z647", which people are quite likely to forget. Even if you wanted to specify the capacity it is still easier to remember. Many of the generations have distinct names like iPod Color, and iPod Video, which are easy to remember.

It has Apple's reputation for ease of use and reliability behind it. Most of the other closest competitors are marketed under brands with well known poor models, which can really hurt

The simple fact is that while many players are as good or better in some of those categories, they are lacking in one or more of the others. The combination of these atributes is why the iPod is the leading mp3 player.

Just a side note: people who are mentioning gap-less playback, please realize that many people have no such albums, and have no interest in this feature, so it should not be surprising that apple waited for so long before implementing.

Re:What's the draw?

[Kohath]

People buy the iPod because they like it, and they pay for it themselves; why is this a problem?

Hey! It's a problem because we are the experts, ok? People should ask us what to buy. And we'll suggest some sort of unheard-of niche device, because that's why you asked an expert. Do you need an expert to suggest the most popular device? No. Do you need an expert to configure something that's easy to use? No. We're important. Don't you know that? We know better. We can't look down on the ignorant masses when we acknowledge they made the right choice. So they didn't, no matter how happy they are.

I can't believe you even asked.

Re:What's the draw?

[JazzLad]

Exercise? You must be new here.

Re:What's the draw?

[Kohath]

It works fine out of the box. It works exactly the way Apple intended it to work.

If you want to use it in a way it's not designed to be used, then don't be surprised if it doesn't "work out of the box" for that.

My efforts to use my iPod as a waffle-iron have met with little success so far.

Re:What's the draw?

[somersault]

Sure you can make something natural to use, but that doesn't mean the end result will be useful. A tricycle is easier to ride than a bicycle because you don't really need to balance it manually, but in some situations a 2 wheeled bike will be much more useful, which makes it more flexible. Sometimes people have to do this thing called 'learning' before they can get the best out of a device.

Of course for a device that plays MP3s it should be simple to make one that people will just understand because most people already know how to operate a computer, but someone that has never used a computer isn't just going to be able to pick up an iPod and say "I know this! This is a scroll-wheel!" etc. A combination of a touchscreen with a slider bar at the side (like any OS window) to go quickly to a vague area, then a more precise area to scroll around locally would be an ideal option probably. Maybe 2 fingers for fast scrolling, and 1 for more fine control

Re:What's the draw?

[letxa2000]

Actually, yes, you can say with certainty that the scroll wheel is better.

No, actually you can't.

Why? Because the operator can move her finger slower when she approaches the song she wants.

Oftentimes after the thing has overshot the target. And then you get back into a zone where it can be hard as heck to target a single entry--I can't say how many times I've seen what I want on the screen, I scroll up only to end up a song above it, then scroll down only to end up a song below it. And that's when I'm not moving. Doing any of this when you're running or on a bumpy road is simply frustrating.

Perhaps you can make the claim that the scrollwheel is better for quickly getting into the general area of a song, but it's certainly less precise when you're in the general area of the song and you want to select it. The claim has been made that it's more precise than buttons. No, it's definitely not. It may be faster at general navigation, but it's not more precise.

There's a reason the steering wheel in a car hasn't been replaced with two buttons, and the gas and brake with two more each.

Yeah, because you don't need to navigate your car to a millimeter accuracy nor adjust your gas to within a milliliter/minute accuracy. Like the scrollwheel, the car controls are great for general navigation but not for precise control.

Re:It makes me wonder

[falcon5768]

because then you run into issues with the RIAA and MPAA who want the iPod locked down even harder than it is. At least by having it somewhat locked Apple can reasonably say that they tried to prevent users from hacking it so its not their fault if people do.

Apple rarely fights hard when it comes to hacking of their products. Often any "fix" they give out is easily removed by people in such a way that it is obvious Apple wasn't even trying.

You have little far to look at the "please dont pirate this software" code in OS X intel.

DMCA violation?

[mi]

I doubt, Apple will tarnish its image by pressing it, but DMCA seems to apply. In fact, it may be out of Apple's hands. IANAL, but they may need to clarify, that they added the new checksum/whatever not to limit whatever it is, DMCA will try to help them uphold, but for some other, non-DMCA protected reason.

Otherwise, the prosecutors may have to enforce the Act whether Apple wants them to or not...

Re:DMCA violation?

[Arabani]

I bet that the only reason the hash is created is for some database integrity verification the ipod does.....just making sure everything is ok before writing data (play counts) to the database. If it really were just about data integrity, they wouldn't need to include the iPod's serial number hash; furthermore, a perfectly good database would work on every iPod, not just the one it came from. Since that is clearly not the case, the logical conclusion is that the hash was added for the sole purpose of locking out 3rd party software.

It's nice to see Apple's "hard work" broken in such a short period of time, though.

Good because linux support is better

[Tweekster]

iTunes doenst even come close to the power of gtkpod

I hate poorly named mp3s, gtkpod can get my entire ipod properly organized in a matter of minutes because of the nifty variety of views.

Erm... Quarts-wm?

[asphaltjesus]

It's an explitive laced how-to, but installing Amarok not hard to do. http://www.junkthatrocks.com/archives/000294.php

Re:usable?

[ls -la]

The "Linux support" mentioned in the summary is so that you can use/sync/update the iPod while running linux on your computer, not so that you can run linux on your iPod.
Although it would be interesting to have an open-source iPod OS...

Re:usable?

[morgan_greywolf]

Although it would be interesting to have an open-source iPod OS... Ask and ye shall receive!

Unimpressive

[packetmon]

36 hours... Well after years and years most still have not cracked the method for avoiding the Slashdot effect

Re:Half way there

[kebes]

Cracking the stupidity was half the battle, making it easy to use is the other half.

Seriously! And at this pathetically slow rate, we won't have that functionality until Wednesday!

Re:Good because linux support is more better

[morgan_greywolf]

The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis There. Fixed the subject line for you.

A integrity checksum or a crypto checksum?

[victim]

The news around the web is all about this being an evil DRM checksum, but given how quickly the generation algorithm was found, isn't it possible that it is an integrity checksum?

A user can unplug a device at any time, even in the middle of a catalog write. It only seems prudent to checksum the data to make sure you don't have a corrupt file.

I'd be interested to hear if this is a tricky crypto algorithm, or the sort of simple MD5 or CRC of data that a programmer would whip out for integrity. This is important because if the intent was integrity we can expect it to not change. The problem is solved. If it was intended to detect reverse engineered and possibly incorrect files then we can look forward to more algorithms in the future.

TFA was silent on the matter. <wtbw> can i hear a fuck yeah? didn't really tell me much.

Re:A integrity checksum or a crypto checksum?

[squiggleslash]

It only seems prudent to checksum the data to make sure you don't have a corrupt file.

Well, yeah, but why would you want to actively disable access to the parts of the music library that aren't corrupt simply because some of it might be? It's not as if the iPod will explode (or become more corrupt) because of a bad read.

I'm having a hard time understanding the justification for this change, both the "It's just to prevent corruption" explanation, and the "It's a conspiracy by Apple against GNOME users" one. In the absence of anything concrete from Apple, it seems all we can do is speculate.

Just like Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a quick howto on using wtbw's code in linux to use a new generation iPod. I was answering this question repeatedly in IRC, so i decided to post this up:

1. Download the code.

2. Plug your ipod in and make sure it is mounted and run:

sudo lsusb -v | grep -i Serial

Look for your iPod device, and the firewireID should be the 16 character long hex string shown.

It should look something like this: 00A1234567891231

3. Edit main.cpp in the hash_crack directory and read the commetns at the top. You should insert your firewire ID where the comments specify, then run make to compile the hash program.

4. Next, sync your ipod with gtkpod, rhythmbox, banshee or Amarok, or whatever ur used to just like normal. Once this is complete, you should have an ipod with songs on it, that refuses to view the songs. To make it "see" the songs, u need to run the hash program we just compiled on the iTunesDB file. This should happen something like this: ./gethash /path/to/iPod/iPod_Control/iTunes/iTunesDB

This should output the proper hash for the current state of the iTunesDB, as well as the old hash for the previous state of the iTunesDB. We just need the first value.
5. Write this new hash value to the proper location in the iTunesDB where the hash is stored at address 0×58 of the iTunesDB file. This can be done with a program such as bvi.
Note: You will need to do the process of getting the hash on your iTunesDB every time you even so much as change a song name, or upload new music or video files.

Re:usable?

[dionoea]

Rockbox (or iPodlinux) unfortunately don't support the newer iPods (nano 2G and up, ipod classic and ipod touch) since Apple changed most of the hardware and added heavy encryption on the bootloader/firmware update mechanism.

Maybe it's for a faster sync

[ishmalius]

A third possibility is that it is for a faster sync with the host. If you maintain hash digests on the ipod and the host, then you can test for equality by just comparing the hashes. If they are identical, then there is no need to sync. You can skip comparing everything else bit-by-bit.

Re:Not a good article

[gnasher719]

>> I didn't really understand what the problem was to begin with--that is, exactly what Apple did that was locking Linux et al out of iPod.

iTunes copies two things onto an iPod when you sync: The files containing music, and a database of those files, so that the iPod can find the music quicker.

With the new iPods, the database has a checksum, which is based on the contents of the database and the serial number of the iPod. If that checksum is not correct, the iPod will refuse to play any music. Obviously iTunes knows how to calculate the checksum and stores it on the iPod.

Linux applications that could download music files + database onto an iPod didn't have the code to calculate the checksum, so after using a Linux application to fill a new iPod with music, the iPod wouldn't work. The hack that has been developed within 36 hours is really a hack: First you have to run a program that reads the serial number. Then you modify the hack program by typing in that serial number into the source code. Then you run whatever software you used to copy music onto the iPod. Then compile and run the "hack" program: It will read the database, calculate the checksum and add the checksum to the database, and everything works.

That is of course a horrible complicated way (for the end user) to do it. Expect all the Linux music players to be updated soon so that all this will happen automatically.