Chaosmint :: QTFairUse, MyTunes, and Protected AAC Explained. I’ve been using itunes for a litle bit on the Mac. Because it does such a good end-user job, its hard to see what’s really going on underneath. Great notes from Chaosmint about what is really happening:
* File Formats. There are unencrypted formats MP3 and M4A (AAC, but not protected). Apple created a new format M4P which is AAC encrypted with an iTunes ID. If you want to listen to an M4P song, you have to have the iTunes ID and only three machines can have that ID at any one time.
* MyTunes. iTunes allows streaming of MP3, M4A or M4Ps out over your LAN, but you can’t save the files being streamed. Mytunes lets you save those files to disk. Now, M4Ps are still encrypted, so you still need keys.
* QTFairUse. What this does is that it takes an M4P file and if you have the right iTunes ID and password, you can decrypt into an M4A file effectily removing the DRM form the song.
* Audio Hijack. These are tools that takes the M4P file and when it decrypts into uncompressed format (e.g., a WAV file in Windows speak, an AIFF file in Mac speak), then you grab that and recompress it anyway you want.So, it doesn’t crack the scheme, but grabs
* Ripping a bunred CD. it just as you can make a Audio CD with iTunes and then rip it to get unprotected content. This is exactly the same idea as audio hijack.
The basic problem is that with PCs, you can always find a stage where the music is open and then you can grab it.

One response to “What is MyTues, QTFairUse and Audio Hijack?”

  1. a little ludwig goes a long way Avatar

    iTunes hackery
    Tong Family Blog: What is MyTues, QTFairUse and Audio Hijack? — Rich has a good summary of all the iTunes hackery that is going on. Kind of humorous to read articles over the last month that file-sharing is declining –…

I’m Rich & Co.

Welcome to Tongfamily, our cozy corner of the internet dedicated to all things technology and interesting. Here, we invite you to join us on a journey of tips, tricks, and traps. Let’s get geeky!

Let’s connect