iTunes Plus Using Stegano-what?
Those of you who thought Apple would sell straight AAC files without any form of personalization may have to think again. Erica Sadun at O’Reilly is suggests that the DRM-free AAC files Apple is selling through iTunes Plus may use a form of steganography.
No, that’s not a dinosaur (don’t worry, I thought so too). Steganography is apparently the art of sneakily sending data such that only the recipient knows that the data even exists (more at Wikipedia). Apple is, in effect, watermarking each AAC file individually.
One can only presume that the information being embedded into the AAC file (not the file headers, but the actual data itself) consists of personal account information. While I’m sure this represents some sort of compromise between Apple and EMI, it’s not mentioned in any of Apple’s iTunes Plus documentation or licence agreements.
Very sneaky Apple — you should at least tell us that these files are personalized.
Interestingly, reports are flying from all over the internet about iTunes Plus speed woes. I certainly noticed that my iTP purchase took longer than my regular DRM’ed ones. Perhaps it’s the personalized encoding that is leading to some delayed responsiveness?
Regardless, you may want to think twice before you start throwing your recently downloaded DRM-free files all over the interweb (not that any of our readers would ever do that).
(P.S. — Yes, after a long hiatus, I am finally back to TAB. It’s good to be back.)
#1 ridgek says:Aren’t the new DRM-free iTunes songs 256k instead of 128k?
#2 Ben.a says:From what I understand the DRM’d files were always personalized in the exact same way. It’s just that maybe no one cared since you couldn’t move them around anyway.
#3 Travis Bell says:My iTunes Plus downloads didn’t even move past 500KB yesterday. This morning however, upon firing up iTunes and crossing my fingers my 29 iTunes Plus tracks came down in a jiffy.
Can only assume Apple opened up some more bandwidth for us as they simply must not have expected that much demand.
#4 BdeRWEST says:Or, you know, the speed difference could be because you’re downloading a file with twice the bitrate as the ones you have…
But no, has to be the super secret watermark.
#5 d.w. says:People have already confirmed (by downloading the same some from two different accounts and decoding the files to WAV or AIFF) that two iTunes Plus files downloaded by different people produce exactly the same decoded data.
What the files do contain is purchaser account info in one of the MPEG4 atoms, same as they always have. This is a non-story.
#6 Dave M. says:There is nothing sneaky about this. It’s been common knowledge since the iTunes Music Store opened.
The Mac sites have been making such a big deal about this and I just don’t get it.
As to the “speed woes”. Every time Apple does something new and interesting, their site slows down a little as everybody and their brothers are checking it out. My experience with updating all my EMI tracks was a little slow, but it was not horrible.
Sorry, but I have to agree with others here. This was pretty much a non-story and not worth clogging up the tubes with.
#7 Joel says:While I’m sure this represents some sort of compromise between Apple and EMI …
Why would they need to compromise? It was EMI’s idea to open up their catalog like this in the first place, and we all know that Jobs is gung-ho about going DRM-free.
I’m not so sure about this being a non-story, though. I have no problem with some sort of UID being stored in the files that can be linked back to the purchaser, since it keeps people honest about what they do with them without infringing on fair use. That said, I would like to know exactly what information is being stored in the file. Lets keep things open on both sides of the fence.
#8 Yasser Dahab says:BdeRWEST: I was talking about the time it took to start the download, not the download itself.
Joel: I agree with you — I don’t care that the information is there, but Apple should let us know what’s going in there.
And I still think steganography is a funny word.
#9 fog city dave says:Can we please put this lame non-story to bed? Apple has encoded purchaser information into music files bought from the iTunes Store since day one, and they have clearly said as much in their end user agreement. It is not sneaky, has always been fully disclosed from the start, and it has nothing to do with EMI or DRM. It’s not a watermark to track piracy. I don’t know what Apple uses the information for, but it has always been there and they cannot use it to track anything sepcific to you, as laid out–again–in your end user agreement.
As for the speed issue, it’s called an ass-load of people trying to download non-DRM tracks (and upgrade their existing DRM tracks) at the same time. Whenever Apple does something significant to the iTunes Store (Windows version, TV shows, etc.) it is always slow as molasses for the first few days because demand goes through the roof. Go outside, watch some baseball, have a good weekend, and forget all of this stupid nonsense.
#10 CJ says:I honestly don’t see how anyone can have a problem with this. If you’re just going to use your songs in your own devices and not put it out on the internet there should be nothing to worry about.
Also, you can tell the iTunes Plus files are different from normal .m4a files because they are labelled as a “Purchased AAC Audio File” rather than an “AAC Audio FIle” or “Protected AAC Audio File” in the Kind column in iTunes. If you hit get info on the tracks it will also tell you who bought it and their account name right in iTunes. It doesn’t take all these scientific technical tricks to see that.
#11 Greg Kefalas says:@fog city dave: You got it. I double-checked my Fairplay 1 songs. Lo and behold, account information.
I don’t understand why this is becoming such a huge issue as it’s nothing new. Why are all of these blogs being sensationalist about it?
#12 DaveD says:As already pointed out, iTunes has always done this. More, if there was any intent on subterfuge (you DO know what that means, right?) on Apple’s part, would you think they’d choose to encrypt that info in such a way that Terminal.app would show it?
Also, regards to download speed… I had the same thing. I thought I had read somewhere that the download site is not the same as the DRM site. Sort of like it’s hosted by the record label. If so, that would explain the difference.
#13 fog city dave says:Wouldn’t it be refreshing if bloggers actually took the time to do some basic, simple research on a story and add their own insights, rather than just rehash sensationalist speculation from someone else’s website? An impossible dream in this age of Google ad mania and hit trolling? Actually, there are a few good ones out there, Daring Fireball, Graceful Flavor, and Roughly Drafted, to name a few. Come one Apple Blog, you too can do the simplest research on the items you blog about. It sure seems like all of the commenters here knew something you didn’t (or pretended not to).
#14 Chris says:Unsubscribe
#15 Dave M. says:At least point out in the article that this isn’t really new news. Then we won’t at least think that the author isn’t “in the loop” as it were.
Chris: I have been culling my Apple blogs lately. Due to the overwhelming cross-posting that goes on between them. One story, like the iTunes DRM-less version being released, shows up in just about every blog I read. I don’t need to hear about it 30 times!
However, this site has one thing going for it. The screencasts it does for Quicksilver! QS baffles me so much, that the screencasts have helped me to use the program more than anything else I have found.
So, TAB is still in my list of blogs, but others…
#16 BdeRWEST says:@Yasser: Oh. Carry on then, nothing to see here.
If it is true Apple has done this since the iTunes Store’s launch, a). why hasn’t some tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist brought this up before? Or b). Would this have been in the EULA of previous iTunes/iTunes Store versions?
#17 drew says:take a look at http://www.macrumors.com
or just the following post http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3696625&postcount=123
it looks to be a simple time code. ;-p
#18 Dave M. says:BdeRWEST:
a) It has been brought up before! (http://tinyurl.com/yulra9) This link points to a newsgroup posting from back in 2004.
b) I’m sure it was in the previous iTunes Music Store EULA. Hard to say now since that version is long gone.