Itunes Music

[Mid]

Information hidden in iTunes music files sparks privacy fears

Rhys Blakely

Fresh privacy fears have been sparked after it emerged that Apple has embedded personal details into music files bought from its iTunes music store.

From The Times

June 2, 2007

[cdnvic]

The people arguing in favour of removing DRM (me included) so that we could easily move the tracks around to all our different devices should have no trouble with this. The only worry I have is how easy is it to spoof the information contained inside the file?

[tjo o tjim]

The information is hidden with stenography. Apparently if you transcode to MP3 you will get rid of the information, as MP3s from two different files are identical. Watermarking is a little bit more of an issue, as it is supposed to survive transcoding.

Ultimately, it's the price you pay for DRM free music. It is ultimately a pretty good compromise. This also only applies to the tracks you buy without the fairplay DRM.

[solent01]

I don't shop at Itoons, everything I need is available through P2P, I only use Itoons to update my Ipod, and burn playlists for the car.