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TO ME THIS IS A BIG BITCH,DRM FREE MY ARSE..
READ

[quote]Apple hides account info in DRM-free music, too

With great power comes great responsibility, and apparently with DRM-free music comes files embedded with identifying information. Such is the situation with Apple's new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them, which means that dropping that new DRM-free song on your favorite P2P network could come back to bite you.

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Originally posted by ireland:

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HI JAYBO,APPLE IS DOING THE SAME AS 321 STUFF,robert moore...AS ADDING USER INFO TO THE BURN DISK..

had to fight the key-board as the cap locked...

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Apple hides account info in DRM-free music, too

With great power comes great responsibility, and apparently with DRM-free music comes files embedded with identifying information. Such is the situation with Apple's new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them, which means that dropping that new DRM-free song on your favorite P2P network could come back to bite you.

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Trojan masquerades as I.R.S. e-mail
May 31, 2007 - 2:15 PM - by Digital Dave
I've seen a couple of these already.

Bastards!

Coming on the heels of a bogus Better Business Bureau e-mail last week, criminal hackers have now unleashed phony IRS e-mails. The new e-mails state that an IRS criminal investigation probe has been opened against the recipient, or that a customer has filed a complaint against a company and has asked the IRS to act as an arbitrator. In both cases, the information is false, but to learn more, the recipient must open the attached file. The attached file contains a Trojan that attempts to download and install a keylogger, which then uploads stolen data from the compromised PC.

The IRS requests that recipients of these e-mails forward them to phishing@irs.gov.

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Apple criticized for embedding names, e-mails in songs

By Greg Sandoval
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

update It used to be that music fans believed cryptic messages about Satan or the death of a band member were hidden within rock albums.

Nowadays, the secrets buried in digital music are way too easy to find, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The consumer watchdog group, which focuses on the Web, claims Apple has left information belonging to customers of the new iTunes Plus service exposed. Music purchased from iTunes Plus is embedded with unencrypted customer names and e-mail addresses.

Apple has for a long time included a customer's name and e-mail address within song files purchased from iTunes, according to Fred von Lohmann, an EFF attorney. But the personal information was encrypted, he said. On Wednesday, the company launched iTunes Plus, a service that features music without controversial copy-protection software.

In these songs, names and e-mail addresses were unencrypted, von Lohmann said. He pointed out that data could easily be compromised if an iPod is lost or stolen.

"It's not as bad as losing a credit card number," von Lohmann said, "but it's still information that people wouldn't want floating around out there--especially without them knowing about it."

On Saturday, an Apple spokesman disputed EFF's claim that the company has ever encrypted the personal information embedded into iTunes music. The spokesman said in an e-mail that with DRM tracks, personal information is written in clear text.

Apple hasn't said why the company would leave customer information exposed. But some observers have speculated that Apple is adding watermarks to music files. Watermarking describes the practice of inserting identifying information into digital files so they can be tracked. Privacy groups frown on such practices, but von Lohmann doubts that these were Apple's intentions.

"I think this is just classic carelessness," von Lohmann said. "They have been embedding information for some time. I think nobody went back and noticed this information on iTunes Plus was in the clear."

Mike Goodman, a Yankee Group Research analyst, argued that watermarking is "certainly better than digital rights management.

"Watermarking does not treat the consumer like a criminal," Goodman said. "DRM is also restrictive, telling you how many times you can play a song or which device it can be played on. Watermarking works on the assumption that a consumer is innocent but provides the industry an opportunity to catch someone that breaks the law."

Ars Technica and Tuaw earlier reported on the personal information within iTunes' music.

http://news.com.com/Apple%20criticized%2...bj=news[/quote]