As thejrc said, the part about being hired by the RIAA was not true, but there is an underlying problem.

Wired article: http://www.wired.com/news/infostruct...,57229,00.html

In an e-mail interview, Gobbles representatives admitted that they fabricated the RIAA claim to get attention.

"The only excuse we can offer for our immaturity is that we like the fame," they said.

An RIAA spokesperson also said Gobbles' claim that it's working for the trade association was a hoax, but the representative declined to comment on RIAA's technology-based antipiracy efforts.

However, a security flaw described in the Gobbles warning was very real, according to Michael Hipp, developer of mpg123, a Unix-based MP3 player cited in the advisory.

Included with the Gobbles advisory was source code to a hacking program that exploits the security bug. The use of mpg123 to play special MP3 files created by the hacking program will delete files on the user's computer with the Unix command "rm -rf," Gobbles acknowledged.

"If anyone was dumb enough to lose data because of this, they deserved it," wrote Gobbles representatives in an e-mail, which also noted that the program warned users before deleting their files.