Low Tech Hack Leads to High Tech Trouble

When Pepsi and Apple iTunes teamed up to give away 100 million free song downloads, they didn't expect the promotion to result in hacking. Low tech hacking, that is.

Specially marked Pepsi bottles contain caps that either say "Try Again" or contain a 10-digit code you can enter to get your free song download. When Jon Gales posted details about how to tip the bottle and find out if the bottle is a winner or a dud on his MacMerc Web site, some of the most popular Web sites on the net linked back to the trick and caused the MacMerc Web site to crash.

Apple didn't want to comment. A spokesman for PepsiCo says they have redemption limits in place for these situations but generally find most consumers play by the rules.