iTunes music sharing

[greatm31]

hey. do you guys know if allowing music to be shared via iTunes (on my mac, of course) is any security risk on a network? I'm at a university, and I'm sure there are plenty of evil bored hacker kids on it, so I don't know. Also, in the itunes preferences it says that X number of users are connected to my music; is there any way to find out any more information about those users?

As a complete side note, do you know how I can send a message directly over a network that includes both macs and pcs? Thanks so much.

 

[varmit]

hey. do you guys know if allowing music to be shared via iTunes (on my mac, of course) is any security risk on a network? I'm at a university, and I'm sure there are plenty of evil bored hacker kids on it, so I don't know. Also, in the itunes preferences it says that X number of users are connected to my music; is there any way to find out any more information about those users?

As a complete side note, do you know how I can send a message directly over a network that includes both macs and pcs? Thanks so much.

I would say there is probably going to be no security risk in sharing your music. If there is, you will see an update for it pretty darn soon. Turn on your firewall if you don't feel safe. You can do a "tcpdump" or there is a couple of other utilities out there that can say who your computer is talking to. Search www.versiontracker.com for what you want. http://konfabulator.com/ has a widget for telling what ip addresses your computer is talking too, that would suit you just right.

I know NT/2000/XP computers can use something call "netsend" to send messages to eachother. There is a way to do it with the Mac, but I will leave it up to the hacker inside you to find it. Why don't you use AIM or something, everyone has a name when they get to college. If not, get one.