iRony!: Liberate your iPod October 6, 2006

iRony: Liberate Your iPod!

Friday, October 6, 7-9pm

MIT Media Lab
"The Cube" E15-001
20 Ames Street
Cambridge, MA 02139

Map
Close to the Kendall Square Subway Stop

Come celebrate Defective By Design's week against DRM this Friday. Free Culture Boston and the Computing Culture group at the MIT Media Lab are hosting an iPod liberation party. Attendees will be able to switch their compatible iPods (or other mp3 players) to run on free and open source DRM-free software. Additionally, these iPods will work without Apple's iTunes software (i.e., your music is not hidden), will play patent- and royalty-free music formats (e.g., OGG Vorbis and FLAC), and a variety of games and applications.

Attendees will also be invited to DJ off of their newly liberated iPods and
we'll have Defective By Design giveaways and goodies.

If you have already liberated your iPod (either with RockBox or iPodLinux) you are highly encouraged to show up and to help others.

**PLEASE READ IF YOU INTEND TO INSTALL ALTERNATE FIRMWARE ON YOUR IPOD**

Disclaimer and Technical Details

We'll be installing iPodLinux and Rockbox onto iPods. Both firmwares are meant to coexist with the Apple firmware. This means that you'll be able to press a button on your iPod when it boots and return to the proprietary Apple firmware.

Your experience, and the firmware you can install, will depend on the type of iPod you have. The process will be more or less straightforward based on the formatting of your iPods filesystem.

If you have a Windows (VFAT or FAT32) formatted iPod, the process will be very simple and you will be able to preserve your data. If you have a Mac formatted iPod, you will probably have to reformat your iPod in the process.

IN ALL SITUATIONS, YOU SHOULD BACK UP ALL OF THE DATA ON YOUR IPOD. IF YOU HAVE NOT BACKED UP YOUR DATA AND ARE NOT WILLING TO RISK LOSE ALL OF THE DATA ON YOUR IPOD, WE WILL NOT INSTALL ALTERNATE FIRMWARE.

Migrating to a new firmware for your iPod is invasive and potentially
dangerous. THERE IS A SMALL RISK THAT THE PROCESS MAY DAMAGE YOUR IPOD. PERHAPS IRREVOCABLY. This is the price we all must pay for freedom.

Almost all iPods, except the newest iPod Nanos, are supported by either
iPodLinux or Rockbox. Other MP3 players are also supported. For more
information, visit these websites:

http://ipodlinux.org/Project_Status
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodStatus