Filed under: Cult of Mac, iTunes
How David Kestenbaum iMet his neighbor on iTunes
Are there any established rules of etiquette for meeting people through iTunes? NPR has a sweet story about David Kestenbaum's attempt to meet his musical "soulmate," a neighbor who piggybacked onto his WiFi connection and accidentally left her shared library accessible from his computer. The story proves to be part wish-fulfillment, part stalking, and partly poignant. It says something about the separate lives we lead in today's society and how computers can, or could, or maybe even can't, bring us together. If a total stranger rang your doorbell and said he admired your music, would you let him in? No? Me neither.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Simon said 12:01PM on 1-14-2007
Maybe you wouldn't, but when I moved into my apartment four months ago, a girl came up to my place from the first floor, and knocked on my door--just to tell me she admired my library and wanted to give me some cds, a cool graphic novel and magazine she worked on--and we've established a really nice little back-and-forth friendship.
Really nice to connect with someone in an unexpected manner, it's not really that strange if you think about it--it's a new piece of ourselves that is out there, so it only makes sense that someone would compliment you on it.
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Logan Williams said 12:14PM on 1-14-2007
How did her email address pop up?
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Peter said 12:14PM on 1-14-2007
Well this does make a statement that there are a lot of unsecured wireless networks out there.
What else could Anna see on his computer?
I suggest that NPR should have mentioned the security issues.
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Joe said 12:31PM on 1-14-2007
How *did* her e-mail "pop up". When I heard this on NPR yesterday, that immediately led me to suspect this story as part bull****, though probably mostly true. I suspect there was a little bit more than just iTunes sharing, unless she accidentally changed some of her mp3 tags to reflect her e-mail address instead of artist name? Or is there a download service that automatically does that to unsuspecting customers?
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mr. O said 12:36PM on 1-14-2007
Peter,
They did. He mentioned at the start of the story that his wife had left their firewall down, hence the vulnerability.
A knock at the door is scary but she felt comfortable enough to browse through the guy's computer's contents without consent? At least he made his presence known!
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Jon said 12:50PM on 1-14-2007
Look at your iTunes purchases. If you go to "Get Info", it lists the email account that they are bound to.
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Marten said 12:50PM on 1-14-2007
If you have music purchased through the iTunes store and someone else on the network tries to play the file, it will prompt them for the username/password, but the username (email address) will already be filled in. This is likely how they got the email address.
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Jon said 12:52PM on 1-14-2007
Ah no, wait. When you view shared files, it only displays limited information. I have no idea how he got it then.
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Cody Jackson said 1:13PM on 1-14-2007
Her name came up because it was a protected-AAC. He clicked on the iTMS song, and it displayed her email address and a password field to unlock the computer for her music. Have any of you that are so puzzled about this actually ever used iTunes?
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Ahmad said 1:20PM on 1-14-2007
same thing happened to me in my dorm this year. I found a girl one floor below me who had the absolute greatest music collection ever.... and now we're friends :)
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Chris said 2:07PM on 1-14-2007
This is actually how I met my girlfriend, saw her music collection, added her on MSN, went for drinks and the rest is history.
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narco said 2:11PM on 1-14-2007
If a hot chick knocked on my door and said she admired my music collection? HELL YEAH I'd let her in!
Fishes,
narco.
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Roland said 3:46PM on 1-14-2007
Four years ago I met my better half "on-line" when I was setting up a wireless connection and I repeatedly would connect to another router called "Eve's Garden" instead of my own. It was pissing me off so I left an old-fashioned handwritten message on the bulletin board in the lobby asking whoever owned it to email me. Turns out it was my upstairs neighbor who I had my eye on for a while but never had the courage to go and ask her out. So don't knock it.
P.S.: She's a lifelong Mac-user and I'm a Windows security engineer (so I know how to lock down a router with MAC filtering and WPA-2). Nevertheless I bought a MacBook last summer while we were in Greece celebrating our 40th birthday, so I know I've done at least ONE thing right in my life. Okay, maybe TWO. :-)
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Peter said 3:51PM on 1-14-2007
What I meant was - his wife was completely wrong for deliberately disabling the firewall.
And it was wrong that NPR or David did not warn listeners that they should not ever drop or turn off their firewalls. They are there for a reason - but most people are unaware if they are on or off or what they are...
Most people I have met, who have wireless connections, do not realize how easy it is to access information off a computer with the firewall off.
NPR used this as feel good piece on the air because lots of people want to social network online but it is not a very responsible of NPR to promote this kind of behavior - ID thieves and those looking for passwords and access to credit card numbers look people who do not have a clue about network security. They are the people that are easy to steal from...
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Tom said 4:56PM on 1-14-2007
I actually met one of my friends in college through the iTunes library sharing. On this network you could see ALL iTunes shared libraries across the entire campus, so I would usually have around 100 libraries to browse. Some people would put their AIM screen name on in their library title, which is how I got in touch with my new friend.
Most people had your typical college kid mixture of rock, pop, rap, etc, but I was more into electronic music. I can't remember if my friend contacted me or vice versa, but we both had similar music.
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Jonathan Badeen said 5:55PM on 1-14-2007
Sort of happened to me in college to. Had a few guys knock on my door cuz i had set up a shared folder over the network to obviously share. I didn't end up becoming friends with them but my friend who was there ended up becoming like best friends w/ the guys.
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Dan Oblak - MacBigot.com said 10:43PM on 1-14-2007
I have met people, myself, when using a public WiFi network in an intentionally and deliberate community venue (MacWorld Expo, Apple Store opening, etc.); and believe it or not, those people I have struck up conversations with (iChat with Rendezvous rocks!) have remained in my Buddy list for years.
I have to admit, that seeing a handful of people available in iChat is not enough impetus to contact each one of them 'just because' they are visible -- that would be tiresome after a while. But it they are visible in both iChat and iTunes, I might be more compelled to see whether I think they're interesting or quite potentially ... not, based on what I think of their musical taste.
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red said 10:56PM on 1-14-2007
I have all the same songs as this guy, except for #5, and they're all rated 5 stars in my collection. He's not as unusual as he might think. He just has good taste. :)
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Robert said 4:47AM on 1-15-2007
Well, I haven't looked at other peoples purchases but on my local drive my purchases from iTunesStore show my name and the account email address if you do a Get Info on them.
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breilly said 4:17PM on 1-15-2007
Did he just happen to have an audio recorder with him when he went to this woman's door or was that a re-enactment? Why would she agree to be recorded if she was reluctant to talk to him anyway? And why did it take him months just to check the names in his apartment building (actually his wife did it)? The whole story sounds a little manufactured to me.
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