For Debate: Is Apple Using Steganography In iTunes Plus Songs?

[crackpip]

Is the RIAA that strict though? Didn't someone win a case by saying it was someone else on his open wireless networks sharing music and not him?

There have been some who have defended themselves and won. The RIAA is not trying to punish the people who are committing copyright infringement. They are using fear and intimidation to make examples of people, guilty or not. In 2006 a ruling was issued for the defendant when a motion of summary judgement showed the RIAA had no evidence against the defendant. Luckily for her, attorneys fees were awarded. The cost of her defense was estimated at $50,000 US. Not all defendants, who have won, have had attorney fees awarded. More than fifteen thousand of these lawsuits have been filed by RIAA. What good is winning if it takes you a decade or longer to recover financially? Many have settled, while still claiming to be innocent, just for that reason.

crackpip

 

[gnasher729]

Just an update to the original article, a weblog by Ms. Sadun on O'Reilly network: Right now she is getting hammered in comments that her whole report had absolutely no justification whatsoever. However, several critical comments have apparently been censored by Ms. Sadun so that the public cannot read them. Very telling is her reply to one critic who complains "this is not journalism". Her telling answer: "First, this is not journalism. It's an informal web log."

However, she seems to find it very difficult to admit any mistakes. The fact that according to the EFF there is _no_ watermarking in the audio data is mentioned in one line after about 800 lines of hexadecimal dumps of files. Her completely unfounded accusation "Clearly some sort of fingerprinting/steganography is going on in the data itself" is still not retracted, just striked through.

 

[SPUY767]

774 Bytes with the line, ``Eat At Joe's!''

That's only 16 Bytes ASCII, 32 Bytes Unicode. Apple is probable using unicode, so where are the other 742 bytes? Formatting?

 

[localoid]

Just an update to the original article, a weblog by Ms. Sadun on O'Reilly network: Right now she is getting hammered in comments that her whole report had absolutely no justification whatsoever. However, several critical comments have apparently been censored by Ms. Sadun so that the public cannot read them. Very telling is her reply to one critic who complains "this is not journalism". Her telling answer: "First, this is not journalism. It's an informal web log."

However, she seems to find it very difficult to admit any mistakes. The fact that according to the EFF there is _no_ watermarking in the audio data is mentioned in one line after about 800 lines of hexadecimal dumps of files. Her completely unfounded accusation "Clearly some sort of fingerprinting/steganography is going on in the data itself" is still not retracted, just striked through.

An "informal web log" or Yellow Journalism? Or simply the result of Parachute Journalism?

Film at 11...

 

[johnee]

yes


The data is the "Purchased Date", "Purchased by" and "Account Name" as you would see in Get Info from iTunes - I don't want to provide that all here. They are different like "John Doe" and "Joe Public". Similarly the Account Names are like "user13@mac.com" and "grouchy".


Correct. And I replaced some non-text data that was also different in that area of the file with ellipsis.

ahh, finally some real analysis. Thanks!

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

774 bytes = 77 typical text words

Remember, in order for steganography to survive editing/filters/generations there is quite a bit of data duplication - on order of magnitude wouldn't be surprising at all.

exactly. what about about marriage? how/can you merge two accounts? something i wondered about.

Good question. How about inheritance? If I buy $10K worth of songs and then get hit by a bus, surely my next of kin don't forfeit that asset.

I mean, isn't this the reason people are going to buy DRM-free music - to share it with their friends?

No, we're going to buy it so we can use it on all of our devices and exert our rights under copyright law. We want to use our rights, not break the law.

How can you fail to realize that this is a violation of privacy?

Your privacy can't be violated if no information is disclosed. Pray tell, where is the information disclosure here?

I opened up each m4a file in Amadeus Pro and saved them in AIFF format. I then ran the Unix cmp(1) program on the two files and they are byte for byte identical.

Brian - I don't know Amadeus Pro - does it use Quicktime for conversions or does it have its own AAC decoder? If the former, we can't trust it - if the latter I'd say your test is definitive, especially if Amadeus is open source (we'll assume they're not in a secret cabal with Apple if they are closed source....)

Honestly, whats going to happen if somebody steals your iPod? They're going to know your name and email address?

If there is steganography involved, I would assume Apple would encrypt this information before hiding it first - so only somebody at Apple could get this information.

Obviously if your iPod was STOLEN and you can prove it (you would file a police report for something that is worth a couple hundred dollars, right?) they're not going to be able to do anything to you.

Unfortunately they could cost you several thousand dollars in legal fees, even if you're 100% innocent.

That is correct. The audio CD format does not have a place for metadata. It is possible to encode it into the audio soundwave itself, but it's not what we're talking about here.

Um, yeah, that's what steganography is.

Two things. Without the id in protected files, there would have been no easy upgrade to iTunes +, right?

No, it pulls that information from your iTunes Store account, not the files on disk.

 

[ravenblue]

Steganography make some sense i guess because it DOES mean that if you burn a CD or use some other audio capture tool like wiretap, the data will still be retained, so piracy could be tracked to the source. But trying to use this technology to combat piracy could produce a lot of bad pr.

In the 1990s Philips were toying with simpler types of watermarking to some extend with their Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) format, but ut was just pure copy-protection. The format never took off.

Watermarking audio is contraversial for a number of reasons. One being, it DOES alter the sound itself, even though we may be hard pressed to recognize it.

If apple are really going to think in terms of what the world needs in a newe audio format, they need to think of a format that will "stick" for generations to come. Something that could outlive vinyl, 8-tracks, casettes and CDs.

i think they had the right idea with the apple lossless format. CDs ( and SACDs) are the only format right now that consistently offers lossless playback of audio, raising it above all ofther formats in terms of keeping true to the artists intent.

No matter how good lossy compression may get, it DOES degrade the audio. Cymbals sound like they are underwater. Any music that has a "lot going on" sonically suffers to some extent when it is compressed.

Any type of watermarking contributes to that. Even if it is undetectable, the principal of the thing seems off - the point of digital audio in the first place was to get as close as possible to the original master tapes.

Apple should be thinking of a "gold standard" format for audio that represents the best of breed technology used in todays studios - and anticipates the type of bandwidth a typical household may have in 10 years time with fibre to the home, and terabytes of storage.

 

[oogje]

Brian - I don't know Amadeus Pro - does it use Quicktime for conversions or does it have its own AAC decoder? If the former, we can't trust it - if the latter I'd say your test is definitive, especially if Amadeus is open source (we'll assume they're not in a secret cabal with Apple if they are closed source....)

I think Amadeus Pro does use QuickTime and it's not open source.

I just found a copy of faad2 which is (if it's still around) open source and ran the same experiment with the same results - the WAV files compare as identical.

brian

 

[gnasher729]

I think Amadeus Pro does use QuickTime and it's not open source.

I just found a copy of faad2 which is (if it's still around) open source and ran the same experiment with the same results - the WAV files compare as identical.

brian

Let me just say this: There is absolutely no indication that there is any steganography in use at all. There is a blog entry by a woman who explicitely says that she is not a journalist, and has no responsibility whatsoever for what she blogs, making that claim based on absolutely nothing. It is also known that there is no difference between the audio data of different files _before_ turning it into sound.

If you want to be paranoid, consider this: If Apple wanted to put your name secretly into audio files (and why on earth would they do this? There is no possible benefit to be had for Apple and a lot of possible cost), _any_ music that you ripped with iTunes could have your name in it. Since Amadeus was mentioned, any music recorded with Amadeus could have your name in it as well. You would never know because you wouldn't have two files to compare. But again, why would they do this? What benefit for Apple?

 

[Counsel]

Who cares?

You buy an unprotected music file for your use on your equipment. The only way you would care is if you were planning on distributing the music file against the terms of the license.

The problem, as I see it, is that too many people think everything is an entitlement when it is really a privilege. We are not entitled to music, books, etc. for free, rather we abide by the terms of the license, that we purchase, the work is subject to... We don't buy the book and all rights to it, we purchase the right to the copy we bought...

I don't care if they trace it. They have the right to trace it if it is a part of the license.

My advice?

Read the license(s) you are subject to and educate yourself--to your rights and to the rights of those creating music, books, etc...

Counsel

 

[leontief]

who cares indeed

What privacy are we protecting here?

Your music listening habits? Apple already knows these. Your credit card company already knows these. The market research firms that pay for this data already knows them, so what privacy are we protecting.

There are problems with the iTunes model (fidelity, the ability for second sale (ie used tracks)) but privacy is hardly an issue. Information on purchases is only private if all you have ever done is used cash, in person, without any rebates.

 

[Doctor Q]

:wink:

Obviously, our music should be keyed to our DNA, which our playback hardware should check. That way, we can play our music, anybody within earshot (the household) can listen too, our descendants will inherit it, and strangers can't play it if they steal it.

I haven't yet worked out how to handle music inheritance by adopted kids, or what should happen when somebody leaves all their possessions to their pet.

 

[Marky_Mark]

Obviously, our music should be keyed to our DNA, which our playback hardware should check. That way, we can play our music, anybody within earshot (the household) can listen too, our descendants will inherit it, and strangers can't play it if they steal it.

I haven't yet worked out how to handle music inheritance by adopted kids, or what should happen when somebody leaves all their possessions to their pet.

'Chip' the pet, upload the data. Job done.

 

[diazstd]

Use your texteditor to find information about the buyer...

When you open a drm protected music file from the itunes store in a normal texteditor (TextEdit for example)you will find the buyers mail-address and the name (just use the search function in your texteditor).

I actually not know how this is the case when you open a unprotected file in your texteditor.

Best regards
Andreas

 

[cowm007]

Guys, look on the bright side. If you lose your mp3 files while surfing the intranets (like you accidentally drop it on some ftp server or an Apple forum), the music can now be returned to its rightful owner!