[Infowarrior] - Wikileaks stymies Apple iPod Sync Ban

[Richard Forno]

Apple's Ban On iPod Sync Software Stymied By Wikileaks

http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Apple%27s_Ban_On_iPod_Sync_Software_Stymied_By_Wikileaks

The iPodHash project is an effort to open the iPod and iPhone to third- 
party media software other than Apple's iTunes.

BY THOMAS CLABURN (InformationWeek)

Apple's legal effort to remove the source code and related Web pages  
that could create iTunes-like software from the Internet appears to  
have failed.

The company succeeded last month in removing information about the  
project from the public BluWiki.com site by claiming that the posted  
code violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

But last week, the offending Web pages were published on WikiLeaks, a  
site accustomed to resisting takedown demands.

The project, named iPodHash, is an effort to open the iPod and iPhone  
to third-party media software other than Apple's iTunes.

"Apple added a hashing mechanism to its iTunesDB file from 6th  
generation iPods," one of the WikiLeaks documents explains. "This  
hashing mechanism was soon reverse engineered, and hence third-party  
applications were able to write to iPod classic and iPod nano 3G. With  
iPhone firmware upgrade 2.0, (or iPod touch 2.0 or iPhone 3G), Apple  
changed the hashing scheme. And here we are to reverse it yet again."

To do so, the project participants are seeking "someone with knowledge  
of x86 ASM, to convert small piece of ASM code to C [programming  
language]." They aim to use this information to allow third-party  
media software to synchronize media files on iPods and iPhones with  
copies of those files stored on a PC.

Apple last month sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sam Odio, who  
operates BluWiki, demanding that he remove the pages related to  
iPodHash. An attorney representing the company claimed that BluWiki  
"is disseminating information designed to circumvent Apple's FairPlay  
digital rights management system."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation disagrees with Apple's position.  
Last week, the cyberliberties advocacy group said that Apple's DMCA  
claim doesn't have a leg to stand on.

EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann claimed that the iPodHash project has  
not yet succeeded, which means Apple is trying to ban technical speech  
rather than functional code that enables the circumvention of a  
digital lock.

He also claimed that the iTunesDB file is authored by the iPod owner  
rather than by Apple, just as Microsoft doesn't own the copyright to  
documents authored in Word. That gives the iPod owner the right to  
access the file, he argued.

And von Lohmann pointed out that Apple's lawyers have overlooked the  
DMCA exemption for efforts that circumvent technological protections  
"for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently  
created computer program with other programs."