Sneaking around?

December 19, 2006 12:10 AM

Bizarre-roomie/iTunes-filter. (It's kind of convoluted, so let's just leave it at...

OK, I left town for a month, a mere 6 weeks after my new roomie moved in. In those 6 weeks, no real problems worth mentioning - sure, we have VERY different personalities, but I have no reason to be uncomfortable with her as a roommate.

I sublet my place, she was okay with it. I subsequently found out that she loved the people who lived here when I was gone.

As a precaution, I password-protected my mac G4 running iTunes 5 and OS 10.3.9 while I was away. But I turned off the password protection when I got back, so that turning on my computer automatically logs onto it as well.

OK, now I've been back for about 2 weeks, and all of a sudden I notice in iTunes that there's a Limewire playlist with her name on it. What does this mean? Since she would have needed my password to log on to my computer while I was gone, it must have happened in the last two weeks, right? She has her own computer, a laptop, and she connects to the internet via my DSL connection and a Belkin wireless router. Is there some way that she could have used Limewire on her machine and it turned up on mine - since we share the router? Or did she sneak into my room and use my computer without my knowledge? (For what it's worth, I've tried very hard to make very clear boundaries between our living areas. It should have been very clear to her that her using my computer with my knowledge and consent is unacceptable to me. Had she asked, I probably would have said yes - doing it behind my back is not so cool.)

Moreover, if she did surreptitiously sneak into my room and use my computer to download tunes, how eggregious an offense is this? As I said, we have completely different personalities, and I think that I made a bad choice in selecting her as a roommate - but strictly for personality issues, not because I think she is dishonest or a bad person. Just that there's a certain incompatibility. Still, I'd be surprised to learn that she was sneakily using my personal stuff. I'm trying to be careful and not over-react. But my personal space is VERY important to me, as is the comfort of knowing that my roommate respects it and won't use it without my consent.

posted by fingers_of_fire to human relations (19 comments total)

er, make that "it should have been very clear to her that her using my computer WITHOUT my knowledge and consent is unacceptable to me."

d'oh.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 12:14 AM on December 19, 2006

Is it under "shared music"? I bet you anything that it is. For some reason, Limewire likes to throw its downloaded music into a playlist, and then broadcast it on your iTunes sharing.

You can either have her disable sharing ("broadcasting") of her iTunes playlists, or you can disable receiving it on your end. Poke around in your iTunes preferences.
posted by rossination at 12:15 AM on December 19, 2006

So, to clarify - my point is that the music you're seeing is probably not on your computer, but rather being shared by hers (streamed, basically).

Or I could be wrong, completely.
posted by rossination at 12:15 AM on December 19, 2006

my money is with rossination. chances are what you're seeing is not actually on your computer, rather, it is a shared playlist on her computer.
posted by ASM at 12:18 AM on December 19, 2006

iTunes will share playlists with your local subnet (using Bonjour / Rendezvous) - it's not just that she's sharing a playlist on her machine & it's showing up on yours, is it?
posted by Pinback at 12:18 AM on December 19, 2006

If she is indeed being sneaky and underhanded, you should still give her an exit. Ask her something along the lines of: "Hey, were you looking to hook me up with some cool new music? I noticed that new playlist and I apreciate the sentiment, but just give me the suggestion next time, I'm more than a little paranoid about my computer." That way, your roomie can save face without (necissarily) involving and ugly confrontation, and the boundaries have been absolutly and clearly set forever and all time. I know you said they were already, but having had more than one shitty rental experience I can say that just saying something doesn't make it register. This is an example of behavior to watch out for in the future, but it's very possible that you can kill her with kindness this time around.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 12:20 AM on December 19, 2006

This happened a lot a my college. I think it's probably what other posters have mentioned: iTunes looking for other people's libraries so you can listen in. (One time there was about 30 people showing up under my shared thing. People used to flirt via changing their song titles and whatnot as well.)
But if it's not that, try giving her an out like Doublewhiskeycokenoice mentioned.
posted by sperose at 12:34 AM on December 19, 2006

Yeah, my dad actually did a similar thing when I came home for Thankgsiving. He was in the other room setting up his new iPod on his PC, and kept going, "hey Dan, why the hell does it say "rossination's music" here in my 'I-Tunes'"?
posted by rossination at 12:40 AM on December 19, 2006

Agreed. But it's easy to test. If it is a shared playlist, shouldn't that folder go away when her computer is off?
posted by The Deej at 2:21 AM on December 19, 2006

limewire specifically creates its own playlist, and since sharing is enabled by default in iTunes, there you go -- it'll appear unless the playlist is deleted from her machine or one of you turns off sharing. it's happened to me many times on shared subnets.
posted by sonofslim at 4:45 AM on December 19, 2006

Upgrade to the latest version of iTunes (you're two behind) and you'll see the left pane in iTunes has been reorganized. Shared playlists are listed separately from playlists on your own computer, so that would be a good way of determining if the playlist she created is on your Mac or not.
posted by emelenjr at 5:21 AM on December 19, 2006

If you can put up a screenshot of what the playlist looks like, that might help. You can't do IMG tags on MeFi anymore, but you could put it somewhere publicly accessible.
posted by WCityMike at 5:33 AM on December 19, 2006

If she has her own computer & internet access, what would her motivation be for sneaking in and using yours? That just doesn't make any sense. It's gotta be via the wireless.
posted by mdn at 5:43 AM on December 19, 2006

If she puts her name on it, it's hardly "sneaking". But I'm guessing shared playlists anyhow.
posted by mendel at 6:08 AM on December 19, 2006

Are the songs in that mystery playlist songs you recognize from your own iTunes library? Go into the iTunes prefs and disable sharing. Did that playlist go away?
posted by emelenjr at 6:11 AM on December 19, 2006

yup, the sharers have it. Thanks for the feedback, I was a bit freaked out by the whole thing, but once her computer was turned off, the playlist disappeared.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 7:43 AM on December 19, 2006

Do yourself a favor and go back to the password, huh? Hopefully you never have a boundary issue with this person (or anyone else) but if you've discovered that this makes you feel skeevy then the smart thing to do is prevent yourself from ever feeling this way again.
posted by phearlez at 7:58 AM on December 19, 2006

phearlez writes "Do yourself a favor and go back to the password, huh?"

If not because of the room mate at least to make a slight roadblock for a thief. There is probably something on your machine you don't want joe random person reading.
posted by Mitheral at 10:32 AM on December 19, 2006

Yeah, and if you have seriously personal info (like financial), put it in a True Crypted folder.
posted by IndigoRain at 11:35 PM on December 19, 2006