Apple's Responsibility for iPod Crime

Shawn, I'm behind on listening to YML and just now listening to your May 2 show.

I strongly disagree with your take that Apple is blameless in iPod-related crime.

I think Apple could design iPods to allow owners to "secure" their iPod (via a simple mouse click or two within iTunes). A "secured" iPod's music could only be updated from its "home computer" (the computer that secured it and syncs it). In any attempt to update it from another computer, the iPod would simply refuse to communicate (effectively "ejecting" itself from the "other" computer).

A "secured" iPod could be "unsecured" by its "home computer" without hassle, or (after typing in a long, deliberately impossible-to-remember "unlocking code") from any other computer. This unlocking code would be shipped with the iPod (on a card warning that it should not be carried together with the iPod). It could also be displayed from iTunes in the "home computer". It could also be sent by US Mail to the iPod's registered owner by Apple upon request. The owner would NEVER have to deal with this number EXCEPT to "unsecure" the iPod from an unknown computer. There would be simple but secure ways you could choose to pass this "unlocking code" to other specific computers without actually seeing or typing the number.

If you don't like the idea of long, impossible-to-remember "unlocking code", alternatively Apple could allow unlocking from any other computer without entering a code provided that computer has internet access and only after verifying that the iPod was not reported stolen.

The degree of security on any given iPod could, of course, be customized by the user (to allow allow read-only use on an unknown computer, or to turn it off entirely, for example).

Stealing a secured iPod would be pointless, because you would NEVER be able to put YOUR music on it (the whole reason to have an iPod). Perhaps you could even set the iPod to reject charges from unknown chargers; if so, the thief would even be unable to recharge it.

Of course this is all conjecture on my part, but it all seems do-able (and I have over 25 years of professional computer programing). If an iPod has enough CPU power to run Unix, it could handle this. If this were done, I think iPod thefts (and related violence) would drop dramatically (just like car stereo thefts dropped when car stereos started requiring an ID code to work after being installed--at least that's how it's done in my Acura). I think this could be done without reducing the iPod's ease of use; in fact it might even help ease-of-use by eliminating the current problem where you can easily erase your iPod when you first connect it to another computer (if you click the wrong button on the message asking if you want to erase all the iPod's music and sync from THIS computer).

If an automobile manufacturer made cars with easily defeat-able ignition locks and, as a result, cars were being stolen day-and-night, society would hold the car maker partly responsible. Apple, too, should bear some responsibility for iPod thefts.

Tom Durkin, White Plains, NY