Corporate Hacking

We’ve heard of kid hackers, teen hackers, professional hackers, male hackers, female hackers, legal hackers, illegal hackers — all sorts of hackers. But yesterday, “hacking” was taken to an all new plane, when Real Networks [[http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040726-4030.html|announced]] that they had sucessfully managed to hack up Apple’s proprietary DRM code used with the iPod, thus allowing users to play files downloaded from Real on their iPods. Naturally, Apple was [[http://prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-29-2004/0002221065&EDATE=|"stunned" ]] with this development.

They have responded saying that ” RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod(R), and we are investigating the implications of their actions under the DMCA and other laws. We strongly caution Real and their customers that when we update our iPod software from time to time it is highly likely that Real’s Harmony technology will cease to work with current and future iPods.” Real is calling this new technology “Harmony”. They have [[http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-29-2004/0002221388&EDATE=|responded]] to Apple, saying that they “remain fully committed to Harmony” and providing consumers who own iPods with alternatives. Is this what we’ve come to? Corporate hacking? What would happen if IBM decided to hack into Microsoft’s products? Or Sun into both of them? Or Microsoft into everybody else’s?