Where did this mystery iTunes playlist come from?

August 18, 2006 11:47 AM

Who is "swami" and why did his iTunes playlist show up on my computer?

I have a notebook computer with iTunes installed. It is conected to my home network pretty much all the time and I have the standard Norton anti-virus/spyware/firewall stuff in place. I am the only one in the family who uses this computer.
Last week I got my first iPod (brand new, fresh from Apple) and set about filling it with the music and videos I had in my iTunes library. About 2 days after I first synced the iPod to iTunes, I noticed a playlist in iTunes that I did not recognize. It was labeled "swami's frostwire tunes" and when I tried to open it I got a message telling me I couldn't (I don't remember exactly what it said).
I checked my network settings to make sure I hadn't accidently gotten into someone else's network. I ejected the iPod, exited iTunes, rebooted and restarted iTunes and the playlist was gone. The next time I tried to use the iPod it no longer had any songs on it and kept freezing iTunes. I ended up reformatting it.
All is well now, but I wonder what the hell happened. Any ideas?

posted by Biblio to technology (6 comments total)

Do you have a wireless access point on your network that's unsecured, or that someone cracked the security key to?

The playlist appearing happens here in my office when people have LimeWire and/or FrostWire running... iTunes will pick up that a playlist exists at the address, but won't be able to access it.
posted by SpecialK at 11:51 AM on August 18, 2006

Swami is another person on a nearby wireless network with his iTunes on "share." Probably nothing to worry over.

Of course, if you're in a small tin shack in the middle of the desert using only an old Itanium satellite phone to check your AskMe, then you might have issues.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:52 AM on August 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

You can turn this off in Edit → Preferences → Sharing, uncheck “Look for shared music,” although that doesn’t address the underlying issue of “swami” having access to your network (or you having access to his, maybe).
posted by hilker at 12:39 PM on August 18, 2006

Either swami is connecting to your wireless access point or your "home network" is actually part of another subnetwork. For instance, are you living in a dorm or student housing? Is your landowner providing internet access to all the residents? If so, then swami is a neighbor. (If you have cable or DSL then this is not possible save for misconfiguration on your ISP's part.)
posted by dendrite at 1:42 PM on August 18, 2006

Likely a neighbor is named swami, and has his itunes set to share (and probably doesn't know it)
posted by filmgeek at 1:44 PM on August 18, 2006

You are probably part of a larger local network segment than you think -- I regularly get all sorts of people's playlists in my complex who (I assume) also have DSL, but aren't on my personal network.
posted by advil at 2:33 PM on August 18, 2006