An enterprising developer has found a way of life to emulate Apple ’s AirPlay protocol and extend its functionality to allow streaming of audio to any figurer without the need for particular equipment .
accord tohis Website , Australian James Laird managed this exploit by taking aside his lady friend ’s malfunction AirPort Express and examining the depicted object of its read - only memory ( ROM ) , where the twist store its microcode .
This , in turn , yielded the cryptographic key fruit that the company practice to protect the contentedness streamed via AirPlay . Compatible devices need those keys both so as to identify themselves to any copy of iTunes running on a connection and to decrypt the audio that is pour to them ; as a upshot , the keys are tight guarded by Apple , which unremarkably only hands them over to licensed accessary manufacturers .
arm with the keys , Laird was capable to compose a round-eyed app , which he call ShairPort , that essentially make a computer come out to be an AirPort Express , tricking any transcript of iTunes run on the local mesh into permit you stream sound to that information processing system .
In its current state , the app is far from substance abuser - well-disposed , and requires a considerable amount of technical know - how to install and run , make up it well outside the range of the average user . However , Laird ’s discovery technically makes it possible for anyone to indite AirPlay - compatible software without command Apple ’s consent or paying any licensing fee .
This is meaning for two understanding . First , it could conceivably pave the style for a telephone number of innovative products that take advantage of AirPlay in ways hitherto unimagined by either Apple or its manufacturing partners . And second , it would make it niggling for anyone to drop a line an ape that , rather ofplayingthe music streamed , just saved the data to disc . Granted , music on iTunes has now been DRM - devoid for a while , which may not make that government issue a pressing business .
It ’s unclear how Apple will respond to Laird ’s find . One hypothesis would be for the company to simply transfer the digital key used by the AirPort Express , a feat that could be easily accomplished by come forth updates for the router ’s firmware and iTunes .
However , that will only work if Apple engineers have assigned a dissimilar set of keys to every kind of machine that support AirPlay ; if the company is using the same keys for all twist that support AirPlay , then third political party vendors will have to raise the microcode on their product as well — that could potentially bring out some third - party devices , if the firmware ca n’t be upgraded with the unexampled key .
moreover , even if Apple does modify the keys , regain the novel ones would require nothing more than another hacker with a sacrificial AirPort and some spare clip at their disposal .
Another option would be to follow up on Laird in a court of law to get him to withdraw his app from circulation , but by this peak the source code to ShairPort has in all likelihood been extensively downloaded and copied . Thus , even though Apple could credibly get Laird to follow , it ’s likely too late to keep the app from reaching the public at large .
Ultimately , Apple ’s optimum solution might be to depart thing the way they are . The caller could look the other way for “ homebrew ” AirPlay - compatible apps while clamp down on commercial vendors , requiring them to pay a royalty so as to apply the streaming engineering into their product .
Doing so could greatly increase the popularity of AirPlay by fostering a vivacious ecosystem and ensue in greater market penetration and taxation for the company in the long run .
