Re: False uploads through NAPSTER

[Robert Graham <robert_david_graham () yahoo com>]

--- James Rowley <James.ROWLEY () edin uk sykes com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> Something that always puzzles me is that there must be a way to upload other
> files than MP3's through Napster by changing the file extension to .mp3
>
> I tried this & it didn't work, however there simply must be a way to fool
> Napster into thinking that it is uploading an MP3 by embedding the correct
> information within the file.

MP3 files have a distinctive format. Napster reads the basic MP3 information
and attempts to find the frequency and bit rate. It then tries to read the
extended information for the artist and song title (rippers these days will
automatically download that from the web and paste it into the MP3 file).

Napster only looks at the beginning and end of the file. In theory, you could
create a wrapper that has a few frames of MP3 at the beginning and end, but
encapsulates some other file in the middle. Would also be great stegano when
the FBI confiscates your disk drive.

Remember that you don't really need to create MP3 info yourself, but instead
could simply copy the first kilobyte from an MP3 file and prepend to your own
file. For more fun and games, you could abuse the Artist/song-title fields so
that you can find your friends within the Napster database. You could also
create a napster covert channel, transfering data back and forth by doing
searches in the napster directory. Note that I've tried something like that;
but it doesn't work: the directory is very buggy and it is hit or miss whether
your find something. It seesm that it doesn't store all the records in a common
database, and different searches apply to different set of records.

Anyway, my mind wanders....



=====
Robert Graham  http://www.robertgraham.com/pubs
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