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Apple DMCAs iPodHash Project
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Nov 20, 2008 03:18 PM
from the if-google-is-a-verb dept.
from the if-google-is-a-verb dept.
TRS-80 writes "Apple has sent a DMCA takedown notice to the IpodHash project, claiming it circumvents their FairPlay DRM scheme. Some background: Apple first added a hash to the iTunesDB file in 6th-gen iPods, but it was quickly reverse-engineered. They changed it with the release of iPhone 2.0 and a project was started to reverse the new hash, but wasn't successful yet. My guess is Apple used the same algorithm as FairPlay for the new hash, so Apple could use the DMCA to prevent competing apps like Songbird and Banshee from talking to iPods/iPhones. BTW, don't tell Apple, but the project uses a wiki, so the old page versions from before the takedown are still there."
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Apple: Apple Cuts Off Linux iPod Users 854 comments
Will Fisher writes "New iPods will no longer be able to work with Linux. iTunes now writes some kind of hash (SHA1, md5?) to the iPod database which new iPods check against. If this check fails then the iPod reports that it contains 0 songs. This appears to be protection against 3rd party applications writing out their own databases. We haven't found out how to generate our own valid hashes (but we do know the hash includes the database itself, and possibly the iPod serial number), and are looking for help."
[+]
Hardware: New iPod Checksum Cracked, Linux Supported 422 comments
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.
[+]
News: iTunes On OS X Finally Has Competition 668 comments
mallumax writes "The truth is, iTunes is an average music player. Though the UI is simple and good like most Apple products, it has lagged in features compared to music players available on Linux and Windows. A feature as basic as monitoring a folder and adding the latest music files to the library is unavailable in iTunes. There are no plugins or themes. Despite the many faults, many of us continued to use iTunes because of the lack of options available. But today the wait is finally over. Not one, but two music players have become credible contenders.
Songbird: An open source music player which has been in the works for more than 2 years has finally released its 1.0 Release Candidate builds. The team behind Songbird has members who previously developed for both Winamp and the Yahoo Music Engine. It has support for extensions and themes ('feathers' in Songbird parlance).
Amarok: The undisputed champion among Linux music players is finally coming to OS X, thanks to KDE 4 being ported there. Amarok developer Leo Franchi has been able to run a Amarok on OS X natively. So we can expect a reasonably stable Amarok to hit OS X in a few months' time.
Hopefully these players will gain traction among OS X users, which will finally force Apple to either step up in terms of features or open up iTunes for extensions."
[+]
BluWiki Seeks iPodHash Author, Hopes for Help From EFF 77 comments
Sam Odio, who runs the BluWiki mentioned the other day as host of the iPodHash project, has posted a followup on the legal tussle in which Apple has engaged the iPodHash project for attempting to reverse-engineer the hash used to encrypt the iTunesDB in recent iPods. He writes in that post:
"I've received a flood of emails from interested individuals who want to help. Most importantly, I was contacted by Fred von Lohmann from the EFF. They're currently evaluating whether they will represent us against any potential Apple litigation. This would be great, because it will enable BluWiki to continue to host the project while working with EFF to address Apple's concerns.
However, before the EFF commits to representing us against Apple, they want to speak to the author of the [iPodHash] project. I'm posting this public plea hoping that the author, or someone who knows the author, might read it." Update: 11/23 04:25 GMT by T : Due to a shortage of brain cells, I flipped the actors here as this post was originally rendered: To be clear, Sam Odio of BluWiki is seeking the person behind the iPodHash project, not the other way around. Mea culpa.
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All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:5, Insightful)
Just another reason not to buy the ipod/phone. Double if you are not using a mac.
Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there may be a more general rule for these situations. If you have an established proprietary leader, the only way to dislodge is for the competitors to come together create an open standard. I'm not sure if that's always the case, maybe its just my rose colored vision at work again, but its sometimes true. Feel free to discuss.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...just sit down and devise... an apple killer.
Seems to me that although the technical details got them started, Apple's continued dominance has more to do with sexy industrial design and slick marketing aimed at nontechnical consumers. One thing that can be killed is the iPod trademark. Every time you use the word "iPod" as a common noun, you dilute the trademark a little more: I don't own an iPod.
Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:4, Insightful)
aimed at nontechnical consumers
For god's sake, please stop associating good interface design with nontechnical users. There are plenty of very competent technical users out there that prefer a well designed interface because it makes things easier.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, that was what he was referring to. It's called drag and drop. It's been around since windows XP and works on linux as well. It's also called "anything other than an ipod".
Convert her discs to mp3, drag and drop.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And don't start the 'do you really need that?' talk. No, I only really need food. Offer me a player like that for good money (got my 160GB iPod for 250 euro) and you have a deal.
Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:4, Insightful)
'Problem is, no other manufacturer offered me a 160GB drive with good battery life (40hrs+). Apple used to.'
Fixed that for you.
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:5, Informative)
And, yes, a connector can be patented without any problem. After all it is a physical device, where you can give schematics etc....
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple was very smart in creating their specific dock connector and then upselling it to other companies.
There's no reason a standard USB interface couldn't have been decided upon by various media players that allowed digital playback and user interface to be exposed in both directions, but instead we have the iPhone dock connector in cars and on stereos.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
pin density is one factor that certainly weighed on that decision.
how would you create video out from a USB port? the radio/headphone adapter? artist/song/albumart along with audio out for the dock devices?
in the early days, firewire+usb?
face it, without a specialized connector, none of that is possible. unless you make the ipod a host, in which case your battery life will suck and syncing with a computer will be an adventure.
USB is a *fucking standard* (Score:5, Informative)
pin density is one factor that certainly weighed on that decision.
We are in 2008. Why would you even need to have a separate pin for everything ?!?
We have very nice, completely standardized connection such as :
- USB (specially since the On-The-Go and Pict-Bridge standards where the same physical connector can switch between master and slave depending on needs).
- FireWire (which has the advantage of allowing several masters on the same bus and device sharing both master and slave role - just like SCSI. And has overall much better latency and bandwidth once you factor all possible overhead)
They are almost ubiquitous. Today it's hard to find a device which is NOT USB-enabled. (although not all FireWire connectors you may encounter are 6pins with power. 4pins data-only are popular on some portable device).
And they can easily do pretty much everything you cited and much-much more.
Audio/Video (+controls for it) over FireWire is just a piece of cake, the standard was created with that purpose in mind.
how would you create video out from a USB port?
- If the device is a master and is PUSHing video OUT, video-over USB was among the first standardized stuff, with USB-to-VGA dongle being very popular. It's already a very popular method to get 2ndary output from device which lack a VGA or DVI out. Or get a 3rd output.
- If the device is a slave and you are PULLing video FROM device, then a USB video device is perfect for it, just like thousands of Webcams, video receiver, etc. There's even an emerging standard called UVC - USB Video Class [berlios.de] (Before UVC, every webcam USB chip used a different protocol requiring several different procols).
Given the sensitiveness of analog to electronic noise, digital video out makes A LOT of sense. And given that hosting the electronics for a DVI/HDMI/miniDisplay port would unnecessarily increase the costs of the device, the USB-to-VGA or UVC is the best compromise.
the radio
You must be joking. Just look at the crazy amount of USB FM+TV+DVB+DAB receiver dongles.
There's a custom version of the OpenMoko sold with such an USB receiver contained in a spacer between the battery and the original cover.
If you want a radio *emitter*, see next question about audio.
headphone adapter?
Still keeping with the everything over USB :
- USB audio is an absolutely standard protocol.
In fact dozens of headphone made for laptop/skype don't plug into the audio in/out ports, but instead plug into an USB port.
As USB Audio does both input and output, it doesn't matter which is master which is slave, you can establish an audio link over USB.
Now, plain analog audio has had a standard for many years : the simple 3mm Jack. For a quick and easy analog access you should leave an audio jack on the machine.
For even more practical solution, you could go for a 3 or 4 ring jack instead of a classical stereo one, and carry video, s-video and/or mic.
Put a LED on the bottom of the connector and it can also work as a nice digital out (Sony's MiniDisc already used hybrid optical+analog contacts for quite some time).
Put them in line with the usb at very specific distance one from each other and you have a perfect connector with both analog and digital.
The only reason not to do this is because by letting normal audio connection (jack), the constructor lose the incentive for users to buy the more expensive USB-based peripherals.
artist/song/albumart along with audio out for the dock devices?
That is just plain stupid.
All this meta-data you cite is never going to be transmitted by lots of dedicated pins.
Normally such kind of data is just emitted over a serial connection. (Even before the age of USB, Sony MiniDisc already used a serial link to transmit this. Audio goes through analog+optical jack, meta-data
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:5, Informative)
Buy a used iPod (not refurbished and not from Apple), run Rockbox [rockbox.org] on it, and don't purchase anything else from the iTunes Music Store. Apple doesn't make any money from you on that. That's how I've acquired 3 out of my 4 Apple products (the other was a gift).
If you want to avoid it on principle, I don't know of any competing player that uses the same dock standard, but even so, if you are rejecting on principle, do you want to encourage others to accept Apple's dock connector? As I recall, it is patented and has to be licensed from Apple - you don't want to encourage more people to pay licensing fees to Apple, do you?
3.5mm stereo minijack or stereo RCA all the way. No encryption, no DRM, just analog goodness. Sure you need an additional wire for power, but that's rarely a problem.
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:4, Informative)
3.5mm stereo minijack or stereo RCA all the way. No encryption, no DRM, just analog goodness. Sure you need an additional wire for power, but that's rarely a problem.
I use my old gen-4 iPod in my car exclusively. The funny part is that nowadays, it does not act as a player at all, only as a USB hard drive. My radio is the player, has a USB port, and read off the iPod. It's digital, it recharges the device, and completely bypasses the iTuneDB.
Of course I might as well use a USB key (and that's what I'll do when the iPod stops working), and I'm aware of the fact that this works as long as I don't need the player itself. However this shows that there often are alternatives to using analog signals or proprietary connectors.
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:4, Informative)
It is the same plug, but the pinout is different. It was a few years ago when my wife wanted a music player, and someone had plugged in a Sansa to an iPod accessory on the demo table at Best Buy. Fried the screen on the Sansa if I remember right.
My memory is a bit fuzzy. Can someone else verify this?
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:4, Informative)
Yes the connector is exactly the same, but pinout is different. The connector is not patented by Apple, you can order them direct from Mouser (I forget the part number, but I have ordered one in the past). I found which one to order off of the Anything but iPod Forums. Besides, if they were patented by Apple, how would Sandisk be able to use it on their Sansa players without some exorbitant licensing fee? And you'd think for that price, iPod accessories would be compatible with Sansa players too.
DO NOT EVER plug iPod-branded/compatible anything into anything except an iPod. Worst case scenario, it will fry the other thing beyond repair.
Sandisk had/has a line of products specifically for Sansa players called "Made for Sansa" or something similar. I know that Futureshop (Canada) carries a small selection of stuff, but you can generally find extra cables or whatever on Amazon for next to nothing.
They are great players, especially with Rockbox (if you're lucky enough to have a v1 (doesn't work on v2's yet).
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:5, Funny)
It is the same plug, but the pinout is different. It was a few years ago when my wife wanted a music player, and someone had plugged in a Sansa to an iPod accessory on the demo table at Best Buy. Fried the screen on the Sansa if I remember right.
My memory is a bit fuzzy. Can someone else verify this?
Yes, ... my name is Chuck... I work at Best Buy. One hot summer day in 2005, some dufus walked in to my store and plugged in a Sansa to an iPod accessory on MY demo table. It fried the screen.
I remember it well. In fact, it came out of MY pay... I'm getting closer to tracking you down now that you've posted on Slashdot!
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
iPod + Rockbox can play vorbis/flac.
Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:5, Informative)
The 6th gen iPod hasn't been properly cracked so there's no rockbox for it.
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah but does it have a shiny cover and is Steve Jobs going to tell me how badly I need one?
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Re:All the more reason not to buy an ipod/phone (Score:4, Informative)
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Not for long (Score:4, Insightful)
Good job, timothy.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
By pointing out the older versions on Slashdot, odds are good that Apple will demand they purge the pages from the database.
www.archive.org [archive.org] is your friend. As of now the alternate pages are still up.
Re:Not for long (Score:5, Insightful)
By pointing out the older versions on Slashdot, enough geeks will duplicate those pages before Apple has a chance to take action. Remember the Streisand effect [wikipedia.org]?
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EU legislation in favour? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe the EU legislation that's closest to the DMCA explicitly allows reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability. Perhaps someone should just make a Swedish mirror? :)
Microsoft and Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
And how are Microsoft and Apple different again? Oh, one screws a larger group of people than the other? And that makes it okay why?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And how are Microsoft and Apple different again?
Here'e a list:
Apple's products are vastly superior to Microsoft's.
Microsoft has been convicted of anti-trust violations in federal court. Apple has not.
Apple's monopoly power is in the portable music market. Microsoft's is in the desktop operating system market.
How's that for starters?
And that makes it okay why?
Did anybody say it did?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple's products are vastly superior to Microsoft's.
How so? I have run windows xp and several different linuxes on my laptops and desktops, as well as having used Mac OS pretty extensively. Windows XP wins hands down every single time. What are you using your Mac for that makes it so superior to a windows machine?
Microsoft has been convicted of anti-trust violations in federal court. Apple has not.
Courts are now the deciders for quality of tech?
Apple's monopoly power is in the portable music market. Microsoft's is in the desktop operating system market.
Apple's monopoly power is also in the hardware-that-is-allowed-to-run-Mac-OSX department.
Microsofts policy is "Here, do whatever you want with this so long as you buy it".
Apple's policy is "We are l
Re:Microsoft and Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's products are vastly superior to Microsoft's.
Value judgment. I think that the Mac OS is much more secure and stable than Windows, but how do you judge the Zune against the iPod? There's no objective criterion there.
Microsoft has been convicted of anti-trust violations in federal court. Apple has not.
True, but irrelevant. They both engage in business tactics that screw their customers. If Apple were bigger, they'd probably get slapped around the same way Microsoft did.
Apple's monopoly power is in the portable music market. Microsoft's is in the desktop operating system market.
Again, true but irrelevant. They both engage in business tactics that screw their customers.
My argument is that they both smack around their customers. I'm wondering why geeks give one a pass while they rabidly fight the other.
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Re:Microsoft and Apple (Score:5, Funny)
We give Apple a pass because where Microsoft just screws us, Apple cuddles with us before it leaves.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple's products are vastly superior to Microsoft's.
Microsoft's PC peripheals are second to none but IBM, and that includes the poor excuse of a keyboard that comes with my Powerbook. And Apple may not make products in that area, but Visual Studio and Flight Simulator are also definitely at the top of their respective markets, so they do produce excellent products from time to time. I don't see how that excuses anything, though.
Microsoft has been convicted of anti-trust violations in federal court. Apple has not.
Legal, not moral difference. Unless you base your morality on law, which has some nasty (IMHO) consequences.
Apple's monopoly power is in the portable music market. Microsoft's is in the desktop operating system market.
And this is an action do
Re:Microsoft and Apple (Score:4, Funny)
There is a subtle difference between the approach taken by Apple as compared to Microsoft. Sort of like the difference between a womanizer and a rapist.
When Apple's customers get used, they are at least convinced it's what they wanted.
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Re:Microsoft and Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft's lawyers are way lazier, that's the difference.
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Which leads to a question (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Which leads to a question (Score:5, Insightful)
One reason is because Apple does not have a monopoly. It's ok to mildly abuse your customers if they can go to one of your competitors.
ITMS is far from the sole provider of online music, and Apple is far from the sole provider of "mp3" players.
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Re:Which leads to a question (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe it is because people actually like the iTunes -> iPod setup.
Meaning, you are not required to buy an iPod or iPhone. Also, you are not required to buy iTunes. There are plenty of other options to choose from. In MS Windows case, all of the vendor applications were written for Windows, so you really had no choice...
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why can't I use my hardware? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are companies so intent on trying to lock people out of their hardware? I have stayed out of the portable MP3 market for years, but recently got a used 5th gen IPOD off of craigslist. Luckily it works fine with Amarok, and other Linux apps.
I just don't understand what they gain by locking out a certain group of users from their Ipods.
The main reason I got an iPod was because I knew I could use it in linux.
Re:Why can't I use my hardware? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh look. (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple are exploiting a monopoly in one market (iPhone/iPod) to establish a monopoly in another (iTunes).
Hopefully the EU will commence some asskicking.
Why do people still deal with Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it about Apple products that make people willing to put up with all the crap they do to lock customers into everything. They do more bullying and steering of their customers through proprietary formats and schemes than any other company I know of.
Is having the newest Shiny Thing(tm) really worth putting up with Apple?
Re:Why do people still deal with Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just by the CD...
At a minimum of 10 songs average on a CD, I can usually get it for the equivalent of $9.99 myself. It's uncompressed and doesn't need to go through a second lossy conversion to get it back onto CD...
I can rip it to what devices I like at whatever bit-rate I like to as many devices I like...
My friends and family can borrow it and listen to it...
If I get bored with it, I can sell it and with the money I make put it towards the cost of another CD...
I can sit and read the sleeve notes while sitting on the toilet... ...and having saved money by buying a reasonably priced phone and music player, I can put the money towards a nice shiny hifi on which I can enjoy my nice shiny CD in all it's full uncompressed beauty...
So stick your iPhone and DRM where you think the sun shines out of...
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The new version of iTunes sucks too (Score:4, Informative)
I was unimpressed with the new version of iTunes, too. Turning off links to the Music Store no longer works either, unless you use this hack [macosxhints.com].
Mirrored! (Score:5, Informative)
It's not that hard to mirror said content outside the US.. [tucuxi.org]
The web site was not about breaking Fairplay. (Score:3, Interesting)
It is worth pointing out that the letter that the lawyers sent claimed that the web site contained information about breaking the DRM found in iTunes, but that is not the case.
The web site contained information on how to be able to *read and write* the iTunes database, to allow you for example to use your iPod from Linux and update the song list.
What happened is that recent versions of the firmware and iTunes now use a secret hash that they compute over the *directory listing*. If the hash does not match, then the iPod/iPhone refuses to load the database. So this is effectively a mechanism to prevent third-parties to upload un-DRMed songs to the iPhone/iPod and had nothing to do --as the lawyer claimed-- with breaking the DRM in the files themselves.
You have to wonder if these lawyers or Apple are not in overstepping some legal boundaries, they could be liable for lying.
Not a DMCA takedown notice (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, that's not a DMCA takedown notice. It's just a threat dressed up to look like a takedown notice. You can tell because it doesn't allege copyright infringement.
Notice, for instance, that the "DMCA Certification" part at the bottom says "I hereby state, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that the activities identified above are not authorized by Apple, that the information in this notification is accurate, and that I am authorized to act on behalf of Apple in this regard."
What it doesn't say is that the works in question are owned by Apple or anything else which in anyway makes a copyright claim.
What it does allege is that they're violating the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA. There is no takedown procedure for violating the anti-circumvention provision because there is no safe-harbor. If you create an circumventing device, you have violated the DMCA and you can't escape liability by following takedown notices.
The further reason that it isn't a DMCA takedown notice is that what they ask to remove is not something that the receivers have a legal obligation to take down. Information about the workings of Apple's cryptographic schemes, whether or not they comprise an means which effectively controls access to a work, are not unto itself a device which circumvents their schemes, and, as such, is not in violation of the DMCA.
Although Mr. Ramage writes "The DMCA explicitly prohibits the dissemination of information that can be used to circumvent such technology." that's very simply not true. The DMCA outlaws the creation of circumventing devices, but it does not outlaw exchanging information about how to create one. This, along with the research exception, is why DRM and other security research can still happen and has only rarely been hindered by the DMCA, and even then only by the specter of lawsuits.
Beyond that, Apple's hash scheme quite certainly doesn't apply for DMCA protection for one simple reason: it isn't a scheme which, under the definitions of the DMCA, "effectively protects a copyrighted work." There are two distinct reasons why it doesn't qualify. First, it doesn't protect copyrighted files. It only protects the database which is not copyrighted and not eligible for copyright since it is not a creative work. Second, the hash protects it against modification, not reading. As such, it does not "effectively protect a copyrighted work" because the legal definition refers only to protecting something from being read in an unauthorized manner, not from being written.
So, this might have been a valid takedown notice if:
1) The hash in question were an effective measure under the legal definition
2) It were protecting copyrighted information
3) The DMCA outlawed the dissemination of information which could lead to creating circumvention devices
4) There were a safe-harbor provision allowing service providers to avoid liability
Except that the actions so far also all fall under the interoperability exception. Given that their only goal is to allow other programs to work with the iPod, this falls very, very squarely under interoperability exception.
So, there would also have to be a fifth condition;
5) There were no interoperability exception.
As it stands, this notice has no legal standing, and if it were sent to me, I would ignore it. Hopefully the lawyers with whom this project consults will come to the same conclusion.
Now, what Apple could do instead would be to assert copyright over the disassembled/decompiled versions of the source code which appeared on the web page. I would argue that that approach would also be legally invalid, but at least it wouldn't be so obviously so. It could at least lead to some fairly subtle legal arguments.
This notice, on the other hand, is just factually and legally incorrect.
wow, and check this out (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, no, actually it explicitly prohibits trafficking in "technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof," not necessarily all information. You can persuade a judge that Congress meant to restrict speech in addition to those other things, but don't say it "explicitly prohibits" speech, because it obviously doesn't.
Re:Nissan (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Nissan (Score:4, Insightful)
That Nissan of yours has just a *few* more proprietary parts than your iPod... just sayin'. iPods play unlocked content just fine, you know.
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