When I checked into the hotel tonight, I fired up my macbook on the provided (hardwired! gah!) Internet connection and went about my evening routine (blogs, pocasts, email, twitter… you know the deal).  When I popped open my iTunes to crank on some tunes something came to my attention:  There was a remote library showing in my iTunes.

At first, I gave “John’s Music” very little thought, I was listening to a podcast at the moment and wasn’t interested in investigating.  However soon after, when the show ended, my curiosity got the better of me and I went for a peek.  The music itself wasn’t all that amazing, but upon closer inspection I noticed something else.  I realized that I now knew far more about John than I thought I would and just from looking at iTunes.

Based on primarily his playlist names, and to a lesser degree the content, I was able to deduce:

• John’s last name
• John’s wife’s name
• John has two daughters
• John’s daughters’ names
• John owns an iPhone
• John’s wife owns an iPhone
• John is from the US
• John’s daughter (presumably the eldest) has an iPod Shuffle
• John is highly spiritual and a Christian

Those are some pretty crazy personal details… and they were all there for the taking right out of a publicly shared iTunes folder.

How do I Un-Share?

It’s actually ridiculously easy…

First, go to your iTunes Preference Panel…

Second, unselect the “Share my library on my local network” checkbox.

Now I realize that this may seem a drastic step for those who only ever use their iTunes at home.  But if you travel, or make use of open public wi-fi hotspots (or poached ones) your iTunes library could be giving away personal information without you even knowing it.  It also illistrates the point that not all Apple products ship in a “secure” mode as often touted.  It’s not out-of-the-box functionality, but it isn’t difficult to poach files out of someone’s iTunes folder if they’re DRM free…