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?

[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?

[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?

[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: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.

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!

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.