RIAA's Methods

[Michael Kennedy]

I just got done reading a Wired article that some of you may have already read about how the RIAA is deciding on which of us, er, which mp3 traders are sharing illegal files.  The article itself is here and it got me thinking about how to circumvent the RIAA's methods.

It says that they have hashes of the files since the Napster days and they're using those to track whether the rips are new or old, plus they're using "metadata" tags (do they mean ID3 tags, etc?).  So, I'm wondering why someone hasn't come up with a method yet on slightly scrambling the files (without losing any more audio quality) to mess up the hashes.  Also, the metadata they're referring to should be a cinch to strip as well.

I don't know a thing about the make-up of an mp3 file, but if anyone runs accross any more info on exactly how they're hashing the files it might be interesting to see if it would be a worthwhile endeavor to come up with a small app that scrambles the mp3 files just enough to mess with their checks.

[Guest]

There are already programs that you can use to strip ID3 tags from mp3s, but scrambling the files enough so they have different hashes would break the effectiveness of most p2p apps, as that is how they keep track of who has what and how they know that you can get a transfer from person x & y and then resume later from person z.  There are other forms of p2p apps that you could use to be anonymous. i.e. The freenet project

Erik