New ‘features’ with iTunes 5

In the beginning there was the iPodService and the GearService. Along with the iPodService, there was the iTunesHelper, which in theory speeded up the launch of iTunes (yeah right), but is really to allow the ‘auto start iTunes when this iPod is plugged in’ option to work, along with supressing the auto-start handler for the iPod when it’s plugged in. Later releases of iTunes stopped shipping with the GearService, which meant one less thing running under the hood, but now iTunes 5 ships with a new feature: ‘Bonjour Service’. This is zero configuration networking in action. My problem is that it’s another Network service running on my machine. I’m of the impression that every open port is another potential way in for crackers and other not-nice people. The feature of talking from one iTunes library to another was embedded into the application, but now a large piece of this feature has been handed off to this new service.