Agreed. People won't pitch tents in front of Best Buy for the iPhone. They won't need tents because the weather's warm, and the stores they'll be camped out in front of will be Apple stores
There'll probably be an intentional leak to Wall Street Journal about iPhone launch date, otherwise an all-out announcement a few days before the launch.
My impression was that Apple was embedding the purchaser's information somewhere hard to find *in addition* to the easily seen fields you are referring to.
Steve
So far nobody has found any purchaser information outside of the easily editable meta data field. The fact that the audio data itself is completely identical between songs purchased under different accounts is proof there is no steganography being used.
The account name is being stored in the files ever since day one of the iTMS. Nothing has changed, except they now come without DRM. This basically is no news whatsoever. It was news in 2003.
There'll probably be an intentional leak to Wall Street Journal about iPhone launch date, otherwise an all-out announcement a few days before the launch.
Expect the queues to be FRICKING MASSSIVE.
Oh course. Apple may do fairly well with keeping it's own Apple Store employees tight lipped but there is no way that AT&T will be able to keep its thousands of employees in its thousands of stores from not saying anything.
The only way Apple can get around that is to do an initial launch in the Apple Stores in the evening, as previously stated, and then overnight the iPhones to AT&T stores for sale the next day. But I don't see this happening.
There are also the new iPhone call center techs. I'm certain that these employees have no idea of the launch date but it will become obvious soon enough. I'm guessing it will be the day after they finish training, which I recall is on the 21st.
I still don't understand why PowerPC updates are always smaller in filesize than the Intel ones. Sometimes the intel updates are twice the size of the PowerPC ones.
I still don't understand why PowerPC updates are always smaller in filesize than the Intel ones. Sometimes the intel updates are twice the size of the PowerPC ones.
Intel updates are Universal Binaries contained both PPC and Intel code, while the PPC versions are strictly for PPCs. I have no idea why they do tis but I speculate that Apple keeps a separate PPC version is specifically to keep the file sizes down in older machines that came with much smaller capacity HDDS. And use UB for Intel so it will be backwards compatible with PPC versions if one should need to move a file or two to an older Mac.
First off, it really is a 'who cares' type of thing. It only matters to those limited individuals who must have the newest thing the very first day. Its amazing how little people value their time.
Second, I really can't imagine Apple starting this thing off on a Friday. It makes no sense from Apple's point of view. Apple lives by the free publicity they get from the news cycles they create from their big keynotes and special presentations. But if no one's watching (who's watching or reading the news on friday nighs except already die-hard mac heads?), then there is no benefit. (I don't think using two small products like the iPod shuffle v2 and the iPod Nano (Red) are signs that Apple's shifting to a weekend announcement - those aren't trailblazing products by any sense of imagination).
This is why their new products usually get announced Tuesdays (when most people are really starting the week).
As for the 29th, that idea sucks even more then doing it on a friday. The 29th leads into the July 4th week, which, will surely mean more people on vacation then not. Again, fewer heads seeing the news.
Finally, did you know that the music you have also, blatantly, reveals personal information about the artists as well? Its true. Right there, on a song I purchased from the store, has the name John Mayer right on it! And they don't even try to hide it. You can see it right in front of you in iTunes!
And the latest I hear is that, besides your email address, they've put your SSN in the files too! Its true, I checked. Now, they've broken it up into pieces, but its easy enough to spot. Just use a text editor and scan the entire file. You'll see every number of your SSN right there in plain text! Its amazing that no one has mentioned this yet!
The name is there in so called 'atoms'. These can exist at the beginning of the file or at the end. They are nothing special and are like the ID3 tags of MP4 files.
Moreover, tests have shown that the audio data is identical between files bought under different accounts so the only place where this is stored is in meta-data.
The reason they won't play is because you screwed up the file by writing a binary file with a text editor. This data exists only in meta-data. Get a decent meta-data editor and you can easily remove it. Try AtomicParsley for instance.
Agreed but using AtomicParsley is not exactly what I would call "trivial", at least for the average user. BTW, did you try to remove the purchaser's name from the metadata section and play it afterwards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Morris
The suggestion that all players have been changed to support 'Apple's watermarking' is ludicrous.
I never suggested that, only that removing the purchaser's name metadata was screwing up the file, no matter what audio player you were using.
I really, really doubt that there's any serious "watermarking" built into the new no-DRM files. I think that when hackers test these names, they'll see that there are text strings with name and Apple ID built into the files, but that's it. (From what I've understood, Apple's DRM is simply a hash of name and Apple ID. If it wasn't downloaded with the ID in the iTunes you're using, and it's not playing on an "authorized" machine. then it won't play.)
But when there's no more hashing or key, the name and ID remain. There's lots of possible, internal reasons. One, iTunes wants to keep track of your purchases. It wants to suggest, "you may want this." It wants to keep track of your iTunes plus versus normal DRM'ed tracks. If, someday, Sony/BMI offers non-DRMed 5.1 surround -- that'd be cool -- iTunes wants to keep track of what YOU purchased, to offer you, say, another .30 per track update. No? Should it offer to update tracks you ripped off a CD? Or, uh, stole? Apple doesn't think so, and neither do I.
Where it would get sinister would be a) if it acted like the Zune, and wouldn't authorize your friend's iTunes plus track being copied to your iTunes. It wouldn't be non-DRM, then, would it, or b) if just changing the ID strings stopped the tracks from playing. I think in a few days it will be clear: there will be an editor for changing the ownership strings -- for those of you who want to put your iTunes plus tracks on Pirate Bay, I suggest changing the strings to Bill Gates, [email protected], or Hillary Rosen, [email protected].
And if it can be changed easily, then the id's will be of no legal use whatsover.
And the latest I hear is that, besides your email address, they've put your SSN in the files too! Its true, I checked. Now, they've broken it up into pieces, but its easy enough to spot. Just use a text editor and scan the entire file. You'll see every number of your SSN right there in plain text! Its amazing that no one has mentioned this yet!
You are joking, right? Probably every possible alphanumeric character is in the file somewhere several times. Or is this your point?
And the latest I hear is that, besides your email address, they've put your SSN in the files too! Its true, I checked. Now, they've broken it up into pieces, but its easy enough to spot. Just use a text editor and scan the entire file. You'll see every number of your SSN right there in plain text! Its amazing that no one has mentioned this yet!
Apple should be embarrassed with these slipups!
You're right!
In the '60's I had a six head auto-reverse tape deck.
When the info came out about playing the Beatles albums backwards to hear "special messages" they put in them, such as "Paul is dead", I rewired my deck so that I could record them and play them backwards.
By damn! After you played those bits back fifteen or twenty times, you could hear it plain as day. A little weed helped too!
Ready to pony the cash? Looks like our source was right: the iPhone is yours come June 29th. The commercial just aired on 60 Minutes, and now you can finally mark your calendar and get on with your life -- for the next 25 days or so, until you get in line for your spankin' new $600 iPhone.
P.S. -Anyone have a copy of it on their DVR or something? Hook us up, we'll post it here.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
As Louzer mentions in a previous post, that seems to be a poor date to release the iPhone.
Oh course. Apple may do fairly well with keeping it's own Apple Store employees tight lipped but there is no way that AT&T will be able to keep its thousands of employees in its thousands of stores from not saying anything.
The only way Apple can get around that is to do an initial launch in the Apple Stores in the evening, as previously stated, and then overnight the iPhones to AT&T stores for sale the next day. But I don't see this happening.
There are also the new iPhone call center techs. I'm certain that these employees have no idea of the launch date but it will become obvious soon enough. I'm guessing it will be the day after they finish training, which I recall is on the 21st.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008
There'll probably be an intentional leak to Wall Street Journal about iPhone launch date, otherwise an all-out announcement a few days before the launch.
Expect the queues to be FRICKING MASSSIVE.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EmAn
There have been at least 2 commercials during the Yankees/Red Sox game tonight confirming the June 29 date also.
Well, full Apple announcement. Frack me. Countdown Time.....!! Get your DashCode fired up and let's see some widgetry.
Also, start getting your cholestomy bags/ cathethers and so on. You'll be waiting in line for several days for these babies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
Intel updates are Universal Binaries contained both PPC and Intel code, while the PPC versions are strictly for PPCs. I have no idea why they do tis but I speculate that Apple keeps a separate PPC version is specifically to keep the file sizes down in older machines that came with much smaller capacity HDDS. And use UB for Intel so it will be backwards compatible with PPC versions if one should need to move a file or two to an older Mac. Just my 02¢.
Comments
Agreed. People won't pitch tents in front of Best Buy for the iPhone. They won't need tents because the weather's warm, and the stores they'll be camped out in front of will be Apple stores
There'll probably be an intentional leak to Wall Street Journal about iPhone launch date, otherwise an all-out announcement a few days before the launch.
Expect the queues to be FRICKING MASSSIVE.
My impression was that Apple was embedding the purchaser's information somewhere hard to find *in addition* to the easily seen fields you are referring to.
Steve
So far nobody has found any purchaser information outside of the easily editable meta data field. The fact that the audio data itself is completely identical between songs purchased under different accounts is proof there is no steganography being used.
The account name is being stored in the files ever since day one of the iTMS. Nothing has changed, except they now come without DRM. This basically is no news whatsoever. It was news in 2003.
There'll probably be an intentional leak to Wall Street Journal about iPhone launch date, otherwise an all-out announcement a few days before the launch.
Expect the queues to be FRICKING MASSSIVE.
Oh course. Apple may do fairly well with keeping it's own Apple Store employees tight lipped but there is no way that AT&T will be able to keep its thousands of employees in its thousands of stores from not saying anything.
The only way Apple can get around that is to do an initial launch in the Apple Stores in the evening, as previously stated, and then overnight the iPhones to AT&T stores for sale the next day. But I don't see this happening.
There are also the new iPhone call center techs. I'm certain that these employees have no idea of the launch date but it will become obvious soon enough. I'm guessing it will be the day after they finish training, which I recall is on the 21st.
I still don't understand why PowerPC updates are always smaller in filesize than the Intel ones. Sometimes the intel updates are twice the size of the PowerPC ones.
Intel updates are Universal Binaries contained both PPC and Intel code, while the PPC versions are strictly for PPCs. I have no idea why they do tis but I speculate that Apple keeps a separate PPC version is specifically to keep the file sizes down in older machines that came with much smaller capacity HDDS. And use UB for Intel so it will be backwards compatible with PPC versions if one should need to move a file or two to an older Mac.
Just my 02¢.
I scheduled off that day, just for the heck of it.
But, whatever day it is, I'll go to the store and hopefully be able to buy one.
If not, I will be bummed, but it's not the end of the world.
Second, I really can't imagine Apple starting this thing off on a Friday. It makes no sense from Apple's point of view. Apple lives by the free publicity they get from the news cycles they create from their big keynotes and special presentations. But if no one's watching (who's watching or reading the news on friday nighs except already die-hard mac heads?), then there is no benefit. (I don't think using two small products like the iPod shuffle v2 and the iPod Nano (Red) are signs that Apple's shifting to a weekend announcement - those aren't trailblazing products by any sense of imagination).
This is why their new products usually get announced Tuesdays (when most people are really starting the week).
As for the 29th, that idea sucks even more then doing it on a friday. The 29th leads into the July 4th week, which, will surely mean more people on vacation then not. Again, fewer heads seeing the news.
Finally, did you know that the music you have also, blatantly, reveals personal information about the artists as well? Its true. Right there, on a song I purchased from the store, has the name John Mayer right on it! And they don't even try to hide it. You can see it right in front of you in iTunes!
And the latest I hear is that, besides your email address, they've put your SSN in the files too! Its true, I checked. Now, they've broken it up into pieces, but its easy enough to spot. Just use a text editor and scan the entire file. You'll see every number of your SSN right there in plain text! Its amazing that no one has mentioned this yet!
Apple should be embarrassed with these slipups!
The name is there in so called 'atoms'. These can exist at the beginning of the file or at the end. They are nothing special and are like the ID3 tags of MP4 files.
Moreover, tests have shown that the audio data is identical between files bought under different accounts so the only place where this is stored is in meta-data.
The reason they won't play is because you screwed up the file by writing a binary file with a text editor. This data exists only in meta-data. Get a decent meta-data editor and you can easily remove it. Try AtomicParsley for instance.
Agreed but using AtomicParsley is not exactly what I would call "trivial", at least for the average user. BTW, did you try to remove the purchaser's name from the metadata section and play it afterwards?
The suggestion that all players have been changed to support 'Apple's watermarking' is ludicrous.
I never suggested that, only that removing the purchaser's name metadata was screwing up the file, no matter what audio player you were using.
But when there's no more hashing or key, the name and ID remain. There's lots of possible, internal reasons. One, iTunes wants to keep track of your purchases. It wants to suggest, "you may want this." It wants to keep track of your iTunes plus versus normal DRM'ed tracks. If, someday, Sony/BMI offers non-DRMed 5.1 surround -- that'd be cool -- iTunes wants to keep track of what YOU purchased, to offer you, say, another .30 per track update. No? Should it offer to update tracks you ripped off a CD? Or, uh, stole? Apple doesn't think so, and neither do I.
Where it would get sinister would be a) if it acted like the Zune, and wouldn't authorize your friend's iTunes plus track being copied to your iTunes. It wouldn't be non-DRM, then, would it, or b) if just changing the ID strings stopped the tracks from playing. I think in a few days it will be clear: there will be an editor for changing the ownership strings -- for those of you who want to put your iTunes plus tracks on Pirate Bay, I suggest changing the strings to Bill Gates, [email protected], or Hillary Rosen, [email protected].
And if it can be changed easily, then the id's will be of no legal use whatsover.
And the latest I hear is that, besides your email address, they've put your SSN in the files too! Its true, I checked. Now, they've broken it up into pieces, but its easy enough to spot. Just use a text editor and scan the entire file. You'll see every number of your SSN right there in plain text! Its amazing that no one has mentioned this yet!
You are joking, right? Probably every possible alphanumeric character is in the file somewhere several times. Or is this your point?
You are joking, right? Probably every possible alphanumeric character is in the file somewhere several times. Or is this your point?
Yeah, he's joking. It's quite funny.
And the latest I hear is that, besides your email address, they've put your SSN in the files too! Its true, I checked. Now, they've broken it up into pieces, but its easy enough to spot. Just use a text editor and scan the entire file. You'll see every number of your SSN right there in plain text! Its amazing that no one has mentioned this yet!
Apple should be embarrassed with these slipups!
You're right!
In the '60's I had a six head auto-reverse tape deck.
When the info came out about playing the Beatles albums backwards to hear "special messages" they put in them, such as "Paul is dead", I rewired my deck so that I could record them and play them backwards.
By damn! After you played those bits back fifteen or twenty times, you could hear it plain as day. A little weed helped too!
Amazing, what?
Does anyone know if there is any account info embedded in WMA tracks purchased from Napster, Zune Market Place etc?
That is going to be hard as we'll have to find someone who has used those services.
That is going to be hard as we'll have to find someone who has used those services.
Yeh I know. I thought perhaps someone might have a "friend" who could help out.
Ready to pony the cash? Looks like our source was right: the iPhone is yours come June 29th. The commercial just aired on 60 Minutes, and now you can finally mark your calendar and get on with your life -- for the next 25 days or so, until you get in line for your spankin' new $600 iPhone.
P.S. -Anyone have a copy of it on their DVR or something? Hook us up, we'll post it here.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
As Louzer mentions in a previous post, that seems to be a poor date to release the iPhone.
Oh course. Apple may do fairly well with keeping it's own Apple Store employees tight lipped but there is no way that AT&T will be able to keep its thousands of employees in its thousands of stores from not saying anything.
The only way Apple can get around that is to do an initial launch in the Apple Stores in the evening, as previously stated, and then overnight the iPhones to AT&T stores for sale the next day. But I don't see this happening.
There are also the new iPhone call center techs. I'm certain that these employees have no idea of the launch date but it will become obvious soon enough. I'm guessing it will be the day after they finish training, which I recall is on the 21st.
There'll probably be an intentional leak to Wall Street Journal about iPhone launch date, otherwise an all-out announcement a few days before the launch.
Expect the queues to be FRICKING MASSSIVE.
There have been at least 2 commercials during the Yankees/Red Sox game tonight confirming the June 29 date also.
Well, full Apple announcement. Frack me. Countdown Time.....!! Get your DashCode fired up and let's see some widgetry.
Also, start getting your cholestomy bags/ cathethers and so on. You'll be waiting in line for several days for these babies.
Intel updates are Universal Binaries contained both PPC and Intel code, while the PPC versions are strictly for PPCs. I have no idea why they do tis but I speculate that Apple keeps a separate PPC version is specifically to keep the file sizes down in older machines that came with much smaller capacity HDDS. And use UB for Intel so it will be backwards compatible with PPC versions if one should need to move a file or two to an older Mac. Just my 02¢.
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