I remain on the road and therefore have to find ways to amuse myself in the off-hours. One of my favorite ways to do so is to eavesdrop on other people’s iTunes libraries.
What some people fail to realize is that when they are connected to a public (or, in my current case, semi- public) network — like the one in my hotel, for example — iTunes sharing works just as it does on your home or office network. If you have iTunes up and running and sharing switched on, others can see your iTunes library and enjoy its contents.
But there’s this:
What do you suppose happens when someone on that network attempts to play a hunk of media you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store? Right, they’re presented with the Authorize Computer dialog box. And in this dialog box is your Apple ID — you know, the one that’s often your .Mac email address.
OK, so someone’s got your .Mac email address. What’s the big deal?
You ever notice that iDisk command in the Finder’s Go menu on a Mac? When you select that command, one of the options that appears in the submenu is Other User’s Public Folder. Seems to me that if someone wasn’t careful about what they put in their Public folder, embarrassment might ensue when perfect strangers poked around. And even if the contents of that Public folder were as pure as the driven snow, how difficult would it be for a prankish individual to drop something the tiniest bit alarming into it?
Me? If I like what I’ve heard in my victim’s iTunes Library I often take the opportunity to write a little thank you note in TextEdit and fling it into that self-same Public Folder. But then, I’m a reasonably nice guy.
I’m just sayin’….