http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1509&ncid=738&e=12&u=/afp/20031124/tc_afp/norway_media_piracy - link fixed, and boy, is my face red.
If he keeps this up, he’s going to become a bigger celebrity than Kevin Mitnick.
“they hacked the bomb”
They hacked the bomb?
Edit: Link fixed!
If that’s an accurate description of what he’s up to (allowing you to download songs off iTunes for free), he’s being an incredible asshole.
Jesus, Apple must have fucked writing that thing though. You’d think they’d take their security more seriously.
Oh yeah, since I’m a Microsoft employee now, should probably point out those are my opinions only, blah blah blah.
He’s the bomb, yo???
Why is he a hero? Because he is distributing a tool that allows people to actually steal directly from Apple’s iTunes division? A division which, despite having a whopping 80% market share, is already operating at a loss? The success of alternative forms of media distribution is the only thing that is going to stop the RIAA’s stranglehold on artists and consumers - it pisses me off to see people actively trying to subvert that cause.
Hacker hero. Like, among the community. I don’t believe what he did to Apple is right, but I do favor his DeCSS b/c that’s busting a monopoly.
A little googling reveals the article as wildly inaccurate, of course. It’s simply a DRM removal tool; nothing I’ve seen elsewhere suggests that it’ll allow you to download the music from iTunes for free.
Ugh, fucking AP. Bad AP, bad! Wait, the AFP wrote the story. What the heck is that?
We’re sorry, Jon! We love you!
So he “hacked” the AAC format to remove its DRM? Kinda, sorta?
Giving him credit for “hacking” DeCSS is a bit weird, too, since wasn’t it Xing that left the DVD decryption code exposed in its DVD player software? No one “cracked” it, per se. It was a screw up.
The keys were exposed – he hunted through their software, found the key, and then wrote the decrypt. So yeah, he did crack it.