Anontune: Hacker Group Anonymous To Create New Social Music Platform [Videos]

After making it into TIME's list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, the infamous global band of hacker-activists Anonymous seems to get busy with something they're not known for - Music.

A small group of coders, who claimed to be part of Anonymous, is working on a new social media platform named Anontune, with an ambitious goal to create a service that could seamlessly pull together songs that are streamed from all around the Internet, Wired reported.

The project is still in its initial stage and is designed to pull songs from third-party sources like YouTube and let anonymous users put them into playlists and share them - while keeping the service from being shut down by music industry lawsuits, said the report.

On the ever-sprawling internet, music can pop up anywhere - Tumblr pages, blogs, The Hype Machine (to name but a few). Almost any song is available at any time, whether posted by legitimate sources or uploaded by fans or pirates, and Anontune would tap into that rich reservoir, the report added.

According to one of the creators of Anontune, the project was started by a group of Anonymous hackers who met online six years ago on what was then an underground hacking site.

We would say stuff like, 'People really use YouTube as a music player yet it really sucks for that purpose ... it's too unorganized,' the anon told Wired via email. And then, 'YouTube does make a good music player but you can't play all your songs on it since the obscure ones aren't uploaded,' then eventually, 'Hmmm, what if you were to combine music websites like Myspace, Yahoo, YouTube and others?'

The source said that the project got the kick-start in December when an anon posted a link to Anontune, saying that he wanted the idea to become a reality. Despite the site was not very good, the prototype attracted many into the project and they formed a team that day and stopped hacking.

To use Anontune, users need to set up an account and then they can build playlists by typing in the names of songs they want to hear. Users can also choose from the names of songs that are imported from their iPods (video can be found below).

As of now, Anontune pulls up songs from YouTube and SoundCloud, but more sources like Yahoo Music, Myspace Music and Bandcamp will also be added soon, according to the report.

The Wired report also warned users saying that the Anontune system relies on executing a Java applet. One must think very carefully about running code that was written by members of Anonymous.

The source also said that only 20 percent of the service is completed so far. However, once finished, the service is expected to improve the way people engage with music.

Here's a video announcement from Anonymous, followed by another video that tells how to share iPod music online with Anontune.