[Solar-general] hackean itunes para escucharlas verlas en GNU/linux

[Diego Saravia]

iTunes DRM cracked wide open for GNU/Linux. Seriously.
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 05/01/2004 at 20:25 GMT
Get The Reg wherever you are, with The Mobile Register

otra de las predicciones del manifiesto sigue vigente:
No es posible aramar sistemas de bloqueo que superen el ingenio hacker.

------------------------


Exclusive Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen, who broke the DVD encryption
scheme, has opened iTunes locked music a tad further, by allowing people to
play songs they've purchased on iTunes Music Store on their GNU/Linux computers.

"We're about to find out what Apple really thinks about Fair Use," Johansen
told The Register via email.

Johansen cracked iTunes DRM scheme in November by releasing code for a small
Windows program that dumps the stream to disk in raw AAC format. This raw
format required some trivial additions to convert it to an MP4 file that could
be played on any capable computer.

But in the best Apple ease-of-use tradition, Johansen has now made this
completely seamless, integrating it with the VideoLAN streaming free software
project.

How it works
Johansen deduced that the system key that locks the locked music to a single
Windows computer is derived from four factors: the serial number of the C:
drive, the system BIOS version, the CPU name and the Windows Product ID.

"When you run the VideoLAN Client under Windows it will write the user key to
a file. The user key is system independent and can thus be used by the
GNU/Linux version of VLC," he explains.

While Apple's iTunes Music Store is restricted to Windows and Apple computers,
and Apple only supports its own iPod player as a playback device, VideoLAN is
GPL software that runs on a wide variety of computers including Linux, the
BSDs, Solaris and even QNX. Although users are at present permitted to burn a
CD with music they've purchased, only three Apple or Windows computers are
"authorized" at any time. These terms may be tightened at any time, Johansen
himself noted recently.

"The RIAA can at any time change the DRM rules," he wrote in November, "and
considering their history, it's likely that they will when the majority of
consumers have embraced DRM and non-DRM products have been phased out. Some
DVDs today include commercials which can't be skipped using 'sanctioned'
players. If the RIAA forces Apple to include commercials, what excuses will
the Mac zealots come up with? 'It's a good compromise'?"

Reaction
"The restrictions are very frustrating for consumers, and frankly, are
unnecessary," Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Fred Von Lohmann told
The Register.

"Every song on iTunes Music Store has been available on the Peer to Peer
networks within four hours. All the DRM does is frustrate legitimate
consumers; it doesn't stop file sharing," he says. "The real innovation of the
last several years was Kazaa and the other file sharing applications. These
are leaps and bounds more relevant than iTunes Music Store."

Although the number of downloaders has diminished in the face of lawsuits by
the RIAA, tens of millions of Internet users continue to share music on the
P2P networks, dwarfing the number of locked-music downloads from DRM stores
such as Apple's iTMS.

Apple is widely expected to announce more locked music playback hardware at
the MacWorld show in San Francisco this week. But with support growing for
flat fee licensing models even amongst record industry executives, today's DRM
Goldrush (and the ensuing iTunes vs Windows Media war) could be a very short
lived skirmish.

Johansen broke the CSS encryption scheme on DVDs - a case the Norwegian
government finally let go - so he could watch a movie that he'd legitimately
purchased on his Linux PC. Now millions of Linux users can do the same with
iTunes locked music. You can download the code here. ®

Related Stories
Music biz should shift to flat-fee, P2P model - exec
There's a noose in the hoose - iTunes shoppers discover DRM
DVD Jon unlocks iTunes locked music
Lock Up DVD Jon - or we all lose our jobs
Lock up the copyright cartel - not Johansen
DRM music goldrush is a race for losers - mp3.com founder
Hungover CNET wakes up next to MP3.com 

-- 
Diego Saravia 
dsa en unsa.edu.ar