Blathr Wayne Lorentz

What is Blathr?
Showing blathrs with the tag “iTunes.”

The Soviet bread line of password resets

Monday, September 18th, 2023 Alive 19,137 days

Apple says to cool your jets

You cannot be in a hurry to reset an iTunes password. Itʼs simply not an option.

Two-factor authentication is so last Thursday. The new hotness in account security is leveraging temporal annoyance.

When you try to reset an iTunes password, not only do you have to wait an unknown amount of time to complete the process, you have to wait an entire extra day first to find out how long the process will take.

In my case, 24 hours after I got this message, I received an e-mail stating that it would take seven days before I would be allowed to reset my password. So eight days in total in order to regain access to all of my music from iTunes Japan.

It makes sense that scammers arenʼt going to be that patient. Their business model relies on the ability to flip and abuse an account nearly instantly, before the owner even knows something is happening. Eight days isnʼt going to fly on the dark web.

And to be fair, thereʼs no song in my iTunes Japan account that is so urgently needed that I have to listen to it right at this very moment, so I find all of this slow-motion hoop-jumping to be a curiosity. I expect there are other people who consider it an outrage.

But, true to its word, exactly seven days after I received the e-mail from Apple telling me Iʼd have to wait a week to change my password, another e-mail arrived with a link allowing me to do so. It took 192 hours, but at least the process just worked.™

❖ ❖ ❖

Dickhead move

Thursday, July 20th, 2023 Alive 19,077 days

A screenshot showing both albums in the same directory

When I purchased Kate Nashʼs album Made of Bricks from iTunes, it helpfully sanitized the filename of the song Dickhead so that my computer wouldnʼt be offended.

Then, sometime later, Appleʼs Music program — the successor to iTunes — upgraded the quality of the song, and at the same time kept the filename “Dickhead.” Iʼm sure my computer is clutching its digital pearls.

❖ ❖ ❖

Sending a message

Monday, February 24th, 2020 Alive 17,835 days

A malformed progress box in iTunes

If Apple canʼt make its programs work, what chance do I… oh, wait. Itʼs iTunes. This is probably an improvement.

❖ ❖ ❖