AirPort Express Reportedly Cracked

[MacRumors]

ZDNET Netherlands reports (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/mac/0,39020393,39163378,00.htm) that the public key used by Apple's AirPort Express (http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) has been revealed by Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen, famous for developing code to bypass DVD encryption and bring DVD playback to Linux. Johansen also released JustePort, a program for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux that reportedly allows third party software to stream music to an AirPort Express.

[MrSugar]

ZDNET Netherlands reports (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/mac/0,39020393,39163378,00.htm) that the public key used by Apple's AirPort Express (http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) has been revealed by Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen, famous for developing code to bypass DVD encryption and bring DVD playback to Linux. Johansen also released JustePort, a program that reportedly allows third party software to stream music to an AirPort Express.

whoa.. that's pretty intense. Windows media player streaming to an AE.. ewww

[KevanDual2.5]

If a human mind is able to create the encryption then another human mind can crack it. I don't think there is any such thing as 100% crack-proof!

[musicpyrite]

Yea, I saw this on slashdot.

I wonder how Apple will respond to this?

[friarbayliff]

That's intersting. Someone was bound to do it eventually though.

[ZildjianKX]

One word... sweet.

[D0ct0rteeth]

Yea, I saw this on slashdot.

I wonder how Apple will respond to this?

I doubt apple really cares.. they probably prefer that it is cracked in order to sell more units and broaden its appeal.

However for legal reasons and to please the whiney biach that is the RIAA I am sure they needed it to be secure and will re-secure it proptly thru a software/firmware update just as they did with the fiasco re: sharing iTunes libraries last year.

- Doc

[NusuniAdmin]

If a human mind is able to create the encryption then another human mind can crack it. I don't think there is any such thing as 100% crack-proof!

what if a computer generated it? Computer AI that would be designed to make encryptions would be pretty extreme. I have not heard of this yet, but im sure it will be popping up pretty soon. Only thing is the AI would have to be made VERY well.

[kingtj]

Why the heck are people rating this story "negative"? Is it so horrible to think a product you paid over $100 for could be given additional uses not on its original "compatibility list"?

All Apple has to (and IMHO really *should*) do about this is put some sort of disclaimer on the Airport Express boxes stating that applications other than the one below (list them all) are considered "unsupported products", and Apple does not guarantee their proper/reliable operation with this device.

Open source is what allowed Apple to build OS X to begin with. I think it's pretty "two-faced" of them to try to take legal measures to stop people from releasing open source that enables originally unintended uses of their products by their customers.

[LaMerVipere]

One word... sweet.

I second that. :)

[JoePike]

And soon we will all be able to watch a DVD on our PowerBooks and pump that audio wirelessly to the home stereo system. Money!

-Joe

[bob_the_gorilla]

Well, I haven't rated it. I'm ambiguous.

Cool - I could use it to get sound from Halo wirelessly. One less wire coming out of my powerbook.

Not cool - the RIAA won't be happy with Apple, and they'll have to fix it. More bad feeling in the music industry isn't good for our rights.

[dizastor]

This guy is amazing. I wish I had half the knowledge he does.

[stcanard]

Okay, this bugged me about the slashdot headline too, being way to sensationalistic...

This is not "CRACKED" in any way. He has disassembled iTunes (probably) and retrieved the public key.

This allows people to write programs that will send to airport express, but the encryption itself is still completely safe.

Breaking this is as simple as Apple putting out a firmware update with new keys, and probably tweaking things a bit so the public key is harder to find next time.

Since the music itself isn't encrypted except when it's being streamed, there is not even a worry about maintaining backward compatibility (like there is with CSS or FairPlay). Apple software developers could do this in their sleep.

[ryanw]

I doubt apple really cares.. they probably prefer that it is cracked in order to sell more units and broaden its appeal.

However for legal reasons and to please the whiney biach that is the RIAA I am sure they needed it to be secure and will re-secure it proptly thru a software/firmware update just as they did with the fiasco re: sharing iTunes libraries last year.

- Doc

Well, thats the thing. He hasn't really CRACKED the encryption, but more he's cracked AirTunes. So he can has figured out how to encrypt the traffic to talk to the Airport Express and have it play music. So this isn't really a leak or a deficiency in the encryption, but more a problem if apple doesn't want anyone to be able to use AirTunes except for iTunes. For all we know Apple might release an API to developers to use AirTunes into their applications and this might become a moot point.

[Blue Moon]

Why the heck are people rating this story "negative"? Is it so horrible to think a product you paid over $100 for could be given additional uses not on its original "compatibility list"?

All Apple has to (and IMHO really *should*) do about this is put some sort of disclaimer on the Airport Express boxes stating that applications other than the one below (list them all) are considered "unsupported products", and Apple does not guarantee their proper/reliable operation with this device.

Open source is what allowed Apple to build OS X to begin with. I think it's pretty "two-faced" of them to try to take legal measures to stop people from releasing open source that enables originally unintended uses of their products by their customers.
As another member already pointed out, Apple has very little choice (if they want to protect their asses from being attacked by the RIAA) other than to take legal action and to create a patch.

[mikeyrogers]

I think this is good for two reasons:

1) Either we have an open ended audio device that allows us to use it how we intend to or
2) Apple will patch it like they do with most of their cracked products and in order to get people to download it, as an incentive, they will add a cool feature or two of their own.

With thought 2, that got me to thinking even more...Apple sure does get a lot of the hardware cracked...I wonder why. :confused:

[Mord]

Johansen also released JustePort, a program for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux that reportedly allows third party software to stream music to an AirPort Express.

good to hear

[ryanw]

As another member already pointed out, Apple has very little choice (if they want to protect their asses from being attacked by the RIAA) other than to take legal action and to create a patch.

As I stated in my other post, this has nothing to do with RIAA. The stream is still safely encrypted and has no way of being intercepted. This software lets you stream music ENCRYPTED to the Airport Express through other means than iTunes.

[lou tsee]

And soon we will all be able to watch a DVD on our PowerBooks and pump that audio wirelessly to the home stereo system. Money!

-Joe

I'm afraid, you won't be able to do so. streaming audio in this way
causes a latency (delay) of around 1 second. so your movie soundtrack
will be out of sync badly :(

I had the same idea i the first place though....

[Spaceman Spiff]

what if a computer generated it? Computer AI that would be designed to make encryptions would be pretty extreme.

Ah, yes, but this computer would have to be made by a human first. Which would bring it limitations again.

[bathysphere]

As another member already pointed out, Apple has very little choice (if they want to protect their asses from being attacked by the RIAA) other than to take legal action and to create a patch.
i don't really understand why the riaa would have a problem with this. anyone care to fill me in? because i just don't see it.

[stcanard]

Not cool - the RIAA won't be happy with Apple, and they'll have to fix it. More bad feeling in the music industry isn't good for our rights.

If anything, it should be the opposite:

1) The content that can be played now is the same as the content that can be played before. Just that there are more options in the programs.

2) The stream is still as safe as it ever was.

3)Safer, actually now that we know Apple is using a trusted encryption method instead of creating their own.

Apple knew this was coming. You cannot hand people both ends of the encryption process and expect that they aren't going to be able to figure it out. That's the fundamental issue with encryption based DRM -- the necessary information for defeating it by definition has to be build into the player.

[supertex]

With thought 2, that got me to thinking even more...Apple sure does get a lot of the hardware cracked...I wonder why. :confused:

The PC world gets just as much stuff cracked, if not more, it's just that nobody is surprised when Microsoft security breaks down, lol (not that this is technically a break in security...)

[ryanw]

I'm afraid, you won't be able to do so. streaming audio in this way
causes a latency (delay) of around 1 second. so your movie soundtrack
will be out of sync badly :(

I had the same idea i the first place though....

Sure, but you could maybe integrate it into the DVD player to offset the video by 500ms or 1000ms or whatever to compensate for this issue. Make it even a user defined offset with a slider or something...

[johnnyjibbs]

I can just see Apple releasing a firmware and iTunes update that breaks this. Knowing Apple, they will not be happy to have Windows Mediap Player users streaming wirelessly, even though they would sell more AirPort Express units as a consequence.

Mind you, I'm surprised there are no third party hardware units for Win Media Player available yet. Too short a time for the copycats to copy I guess.

I love my AirPort Express. :)

[jsw]

If a human mind is able to create the encryption then another human mind can crack it. I don't think there is any such thing as 100% crack-proof!
Quantum-effects-based encryption is uncrackable. Of course, as with anything, the information is not encrypted before it's sent and after it's received, and so is always vulnerable then.

[ZildjianKX]

Okay, now anything can play music on the AirPort Express...

Now for any online music store to play music on the iPod :)

[jcook793]

Hey I submitted this yesterday afternoon! We could have beaten Slashdot! I demand justice! :)

So when there is a Linux port does that mean I can sit at work and connect to my server at home and freak out my dog with weird sounds? :D

[abram]

I'm afraid, you won't be able to do so. streaming audio in this way
causes a latency (delay) of around 1 second. so your movie soundtrack
will be out of sync badly :(


This might not be a problem if the latency is consistent... I believe apps like mplayer let you manually control the the offset between audio and video.

[gekko513]

Okay, this bugged me about the slashdot headline too, being way to sensationalistic...

This is not "CRACKED" in any way. He has disassembled iTunes (probably) and retrieved the public key.

This allows people to write programs that will send to airport express, but the encryption itself is still completely safe.

Breaking this is as simple as Apple putting out a firmware update with new keys, and probably tweaking things a bit so the public key is harder to find next time.

Since the music itself isn't encrypted except when it's being streamed, there is not even a worry about maintaining backward compatibility (like there is with CSS or FairPlay). Apple software developers could do this in their sleep.

Excactly ... It's not cracked. The important thing (from a legal perspective) is that the music is still encrypted when it's "in the air". The private key is still secure in the Airport Express unit itself.

If someone found the private key, on the other hand, Apple would be in more trouble because that would enable anyone to "steal" the music you're broadcasting. That wouldn't make RIAA happy.

[spaceballl]

Eh. not that big of a deal...

[FriarCrazy]

This is exactly what I've been waiting for... I can just imagine sitting on my bed in my dorm playing a movie (yes, yes I know the offset issues. Well, that can be solved!)

[ericdano]

This is the same guy who did the Fairplay AAC stripping right?

Why not do the same for Windows Media Files? I don't think he is advancing the Apple/AAC effort at all. In fact, you could point to him and his efforts as being a reason why Apple/AAC is NOT the way to go if you want to DRM you efforts (IE: Microsoft pitching this to RIAA).

So, if he wants a challenge, why not break/strip/whatever Windows Media Files that are protected???

[puckhead193]

And now he's laughing all the way to the bank!

[zv470]

Jobs already said they would look at other applications being able to use AirTunes, but first wanted to let the technology mature a bit. Maybe 6 months time we would have got this from Apple anyway.

ps. I'm still looking for that quote, but I know I read it here somewhere. :o

[billyboy]

Doh. When I saw the headline, I thought I was going to have to hold back on ordering an Airport Express because there was a build problem with the case cracking. Breathes again.

[dizastor]

Actually Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry works in the Airport Express assembly plant... there was actual crack found inside the case.

[Mantat]

There is one ever-safe encryption method: quantum. Impossible to crack and will ever stay that way. Only looking at the communication disturb the transmission...

On the other hand, I would like to point out that Slashdot is among the worst source of information, they always forget details or give sensational title to 'normal' news. This is why I stopped going there and prefer less popular news sites.

[narco]

So what if the RIAA doesn't like this news? Can they threaten Apple to stop sale/production on them until they've proven it to be "secure"? Is this a sign that I should buy one before they're discontinued?

.narco

[whw5]

I think this is good for two reasons:

1) Either we have an open ended audio device that allows us to use it how we intend to or
2) Apple will patch it like they do with most of their cracked products and in order to get people to download it, as an incentive, they will add a cool feature or two of their own.

With thought 2, that got me to thinking even more...Apple sure does get a lot of the hardware cracked...I wonder why. :confused:

its the only hardware worth crackin'

[Elan0204]

I'm not really understanding what the big deal about this story is. So now people who buy music on a store other than iTMS can stream that music too. I don't really think that is very exciting, especially since there is no other store compatible with Macs. It seems that movie watching and game playing won't work well anyway thanks to the streaming delay, so what other real applications of an open Airport Express are there?

[geniusj]

Okay, this bugged me about the slashdot headline too, being way to sensationalistic...

This is not "CRACKED" in any way. He has disassembled iTunes (probably) and retrieved the public key.

This allows people to write programs that will send to airport express, but the encryption itself is still completely safe.


Perhaps I've misunderstood, but as I've seen it explained, here's what happened.

The AES key used to encrypt the traffic is itself encrypted with an RSA key. RSA is public key crypto, not AES. In order for him to decrypt the AES key, he obviously needed the RSA private key. As far as I understand it, this is totally cracked.

Regards,
-JD-

[~Shard~]

You knew this had to happen eventually - nothing is crack-proof! The interesting thing will be to see how Apple responds (not that they can technnically do a lot right now...)

[Moonlight]

All keys can be cracked by "brute force decryption" it just takes alot of computer power and alot of time.

[discstickers]

If a human mind is able to create the encryption then another human mind can crack it. I don't think there is any such thing as 100% crack-proof!

Actually, a one-time pad is a crack-proof cypher. Assuming you keep it secret and don't reuse it. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_time_pad

[shawnce]

Perhaps I've misunderstood, but as I've seen it explained, here's what happened.

The AES key used to encrypt the traffic is itself encrypted with an RSA key. RSA is public key crypto, not AES. In order for him to decrypt the AES key, he obviously needed the RSA private key. As far as I understand it, this is totally cracked.

Regards,
-JD-

No he found the public key used in the RSA encryption stream and is using that to hand shake with the AirPort express so that they can share a common AES key allowing one to stream audio to the AirPort device. The public key is used to encrypt the AES key and only by having the private key can one decrypt it and AirPort Express hardware has the private key embedded in it.

In other words the AirPort requires an encrypted AES stream of Apple loss-less audio and the AES key used to encrypt that stream is handed to the AirPort Express device by passing the AES key encrypted using a public RSA key.

[~Shard~]

All keys can be cracked by "brute force decryption" it just takes alot of computer power and alot of time.

Brute force definitely isn't the preferred method though - cracking something like MD5 or RSA using it would essentially take years with a supercomputer.

When I worked at the CSE in Ottawa (Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian NSA), they had Canada's most powerful computer there, a Cray T3E, I believe, and although we could rip through sequential-based encryption algorithms such as DES, 3DES, etc., using pure brute force on encryption such as SHA-1, RSA, etc. would be infeasible. Not impossible - but infeasible. ;)

[docpsycho]

On the extreme side: he'd better start watching his back, it would be more cost effective to be 'rid' (dead, deceased, assumed room temprature) of him than go after him legally again.

[pentajigga]

i just want to be able to dj with ableton live or another app in a lounge and being able to move around

[wdlove]

Are we discussing the Airport Express Base Station? Or it is the just Airport Express? Sounds like it would be smart to have a backup.

[ifjake]

i don't see this as a big deal. the dvd thing was pretty serious. now he's just breaking encryptions for the heck of it. your a big man now, johansen.

[KevanDual2.5]

what if a computer generated it? Computer AI that would be designed to make encryptions would be pretty extreme. I have not heard of this yet, but im sure it will be popping up pretty soon. Only thing is the AI would have to be made VERY well.


But, any AI software designed will be done so by a human. No computer will ever be able to generate a truely random number. They all use a formula to create them which can be 'cracked'.

[krohde]

It's quite clear that AE is intended for more than just music. My personal feeling is that sooner than later we will be able to get system output directly fed to the AE. this would mean that 3rd party devs don't need to do anything special to their apps for this to work - in fact it's apple that has been a little slow, but they are of course testing the appeal of this nifty device.

I will buy one as soon as it hits $89. i really don't think apple can justify the price tag just for that "cool" feature. look at what it costs for a linksys router and i don't think the inside of the AE is that much more expensive if even at all. Linksys has more plastic...

Krohde

UPDATE: I think if you want a 'fool proof' AE system the computer should download the AE's unique key (just like with unique MAC address) - unique for every AE (i.e. a series based encryption identifier).

[jfw]

Breaking this is as simple as Apple putting out a firmware update with new keys, and probably tweaking things a bit so the public key is harder to find next time.


I think it will be hard for them to keep the public key secret for any length of time. The harder they try to obfuscate it, the more enjoyment the hackers (real hackers) will get out of uncovering it. Furthermore, changing the firmware means changing iTunes at the same time, which just about guarantees that they will have thousands of support calls from people for whom one or both update goes wrong leading to their expensive toy not working.

What's probably worrying Apple a lot more is the prospect of people tearing apart their AirPort Expresses to try to reverse-engineer the firmware. Did they put the private keys in the firmware image? Or is it safely stashed in an FPGA somewhere, so that it will be much harder to unearth? As soon as someone digs out the private keys, that is when the RIAA will have to start worrying about people being decrypt DRM-protected music.

[shawnce]

Brute force definitely isn't the preferred method though - cracking something like MD5 or RSA using it would essentially take years with a supercomputer.

When I worked at the CSE in Ottawa (Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian NSA), they had Canada's most powerful computer there, a Cray T3E, I believe, and although we could rip through sequential-based encryption algorithms such as DES, 3DES, etc., using pure brute force on encryption such as SHA-1, RSA, etc. would be infeasible. Not impossible - but infeasible. ;)

MD5 and SHA-1 are a one way hash functions for blobs of data. You don't crack these in the traditional sense other word since you cannot reconstruct the original message from them. They are not a form of message encryption but are used for verification (signing) of messages. If the MD5s of two blobs match then the two message match with an extreme level of confidence. Note that MD5 is not really consider to be viable for message verification any longer since ways of constructing (largely different) messages that have a MD5 hash match that of a different message have been found. In other words someone could inject a message other then the one you should receive yet the MD5 hash wouldn't detect it (assuming you got the MD5 hash in a secure fashion). So far using SHA-1 appears to be more resilient to this.

RSA is an asymmetric (aka public-key) cypher that is easier to "crack" then a symmetric cypher such as 3DES or AES at similar key lengths (and in many ways much longer key lengths). RSA is also more computational expensive then say AES for a generally weaker encryption. That is why RSA keys are very large (1024 bits) fro RSA and why RSA is often used only to transfer shared keys for a symmetric cypher like AES. The real data transfer is often done using a symmetric cypher not a public key system since the more data you transfer via many public key systems (using the same keys) the easier they can be to attack.

Studies exist as do rumors that RSA can be attacked without having to attack the key space while so far no practical methods have been found to attack AES (or even 3DES (http://www.scramdisk.clara.net/pgpfaq.html#Sub3DESBroke) that I know of) that are faster then brute force attacking the key space.

So am curious on how you folks "rip through sequential-based encryption algorithms such as ... 3DES, etc."? I could see you doing DES but not 3DES unless you happened to be using poorly chosen keys.

[ruud]

I think if you want a 'fool proof' AE system the computer should download the AE's unique key (just like with unique MAC address) - unique for every AE (i.e. a series based encryption identifier).

Wouldn't work either - that could still be reverse engineered. Whatever iTunes does to stream audio to the AE, can be done by a reverse engineered application.

The only way I see this could possibly work is if the AE is restricted to playing audio that is encrypted by a third party before it enters iTunes to begin with. But that would be quite inconvenient, to say the least.

[stoid]

Actually, a one-time pad is a crack-proof cypher. Assuming you keep it secret and don't reuse it. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_time_pad

I could see this being an option. Before you can use your AirPort Express to stream iTunes music to it, you have to physically connect the two via Ethernet. A small utility generates an encryption key and links the two together. The AirPort Express or computer can store as many unique keys as needed to connect to each other. Am I missing something, or is the 'hassle' of physically connecting the AExpress to the computer the only drawback to this method?

[nacl99]

This really means next to nothing, the only thing is you can use a different program to play the audio out, but thats not a big deal iTunes is free, and if you care enough to buy an AE you probably use iTunes, this might even spike AE sales for people who will never use iTunes.

but really no biggy

[stoid]

It's quite clear that AE is intended for more than just music. My personal feeling is that sooner than later we will be able to get system output directly fed to the AE. this would mean that 3rd party devs don't need to do anything special to their apps for this to work - in fact it's apple that has been a little slow, but they are of course testing the appeal of this nifty device.

I don't think that you will be able to stream ANY audio to an AirPort Express because of latency. There is a half second to a full second of pause between audio commands my laptop send to my AirPort Express and hearing the sound change. In a game this can cause big problems as many games rely rather heavily on sound to cue the player. In a movie, latency of more than 1/10th of a second can be jarring and a full second would be downright unusable! However, if the feature is built in to the application, it could adjust the video playback to compensate for audio latency. While we might see this in DVD Player or a few games, Tiger will not and logistically can not have the option to run ALL computer sound through an AirPort Express.

[stcanard]

I think it will be hard for them to keep the public key secret for any length of time. The harder they try to obfuscate it, the more enjoyment the hackers (real hackers) will get out of uncovering it.

I agree entirely, as I said earlier I believe Jobs has even admitted this himself (with respect to any drm, not just the airport express encryption).

I'm not certain from a business perspective this even entirely worries Apple -- It's completely unrelated to ITMS sales, it's completely unrelated to iPod sales, it's completey unrelated to Mac sales, it's completely unrelated to airport express sales; it's a very different matter than Real hacking FairPlay.

My understanding of the purpose of this encryption was to stop people from intercepting (and thus recording) the signal, and this is still 100% effective for that.

It wouldn't surprise me if Apple was planning a quicktime API call to allow this anyway, and if we had waited 6 months the same thing could have been accomplised through a published interface.

[AliensAreFuzzy]

Really I don't see why the RIAA would have a real problem with this. It's just sending an audio signal from a different application. It's not like he figured out how to send the stream from iTunes to something else. If that happened then the RIAA would definately have something to be pissed about.

[Moonlight]

Brute force definitely isn't the preferred method though - cracking something like MD5 or RSA using it would essentially take years with a supercomputer.


I never said it wouldn't take time....

[ruud]

I could see this being an option. Before you can use your AirPort Express to stream iTunes music to it, you have to physically connect the two via Ethernet. A small utility generates an encryption key and links the two together. The AirPort Express or computer can store as many unique keys as needed to connect to each other. Am I missing something, or is the 'hassle' of physically connecting the AExpress to the computer the only drawback to this method?
In this scheme, the encryption keys have to be stored on the computer in a location where iTunes has access to it. If they can be accessed by iTunes, they can be accessed by any other program as well.

[stcanard]

In this scheme, the encryption keys have to be stored on the computer in a location where iTunes has access to it. If they can be accessed by iTunes, they can be accessed by any other program as well.

Yup, this is the fundamental paradox of encryption based DRM.

By definition the player (be it a DVD player, CD player, MP3 player) must have the capability to decrypt the stream to be able to render it.

By definition the consumer must have access to the player to be able to play the media.

Therefore the industry is providing the consumer with the means to defeat the DRM, and they have no choice but to do that.

That's why there is such a push for laws protecting this (e.g. the DMCA in the US). Since a technological solution is impossible the only recourse is to scare people away from trying. The problem is it only takes one...

[7on]

It's quite clear that AE is intended for more than just music. My personal feeling is that sooner than later we will be able to get system output directly fed to the AE. this would mean that 3rd party devs don't need to do anything special to their apps for this to work - in fact it's apple that has been a little slow, but they are of course testing the appeal of this nifty device.

I will buy one as soon as it hits $89. i really don't think apple can justify the price tag just for that "cool" feature. look at what it costs for a linksys router and i don't think the inside of the AE is that much more expensive if even at all. Linksys has more plastic...

Krohde

UPDATE: I think if you want a 'fool proof' AE system the computer should download the AE's unique key (just like with unique MAC address) - unique for every AE (i.e. a series based encryption identifier).

The Airport Express is also a print server. I think standalone print centers (IE converts USB to Ethernet) costs about $100. Airport Express isn't that unreasonably at the moment.

[Surreal]

There is one ever-safe encryption method: quantum. Impossible to crack and will ever stay that way. Only looking at the communication disturb the transmission...


brilliant

LMAO

wow..that was good. special even.

*schroedinger smiles*

*cat asks for sweet sweet death*

[Earendil]

So, if he wants a challenge, why not break/strip/whatever Windows Media Files that are protected???

Since when was cracking windows software a challenge? :rolleyes: :o


It was too tempting ;)

-Tyler

[manu chao]

Sure, but you could maybe integrate it into the DVD player to offset the video by 500ms or 1000ms or whatever to compensate for this issue. Make it even a user defined offset with a slider or something...

When AirTunes came out, I thought, 'Cool now I can watch DVDs on my Powerbook and have decent sound without running a 5m cable through the room', then it sunk in that so far the sound has to come from iTunes...

About that image delaying, I guess since the laser can not read from two different positions on a DVD, one would have to buffer the images for about a second. Let's 6GB = 3h, that is around 500k per second, presumably that has to be decrypted and decompressed, otherwise you wouldn't get the sound out. Taking a compression ratio of 10 (I'm just guessing), that would be 5MB which could easily be stored in RAM. The idea should work without problems.

[soniquev8]

The RIAA will give a ****? Yeah... sure they will. The Airport Express isn't critical to DRM in any way... and neither is this 'hack'. It would be like the RIAA going after Audio Hijack (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) or any other utility that allows sound output.

Do you really think the RIAA would take an interest in something like this? No music is being stolen. If they're going to pressure Apple to fix this, why aren't they pressuring Apple to remove digital audio (optical, no less) output from the G5s? Digital audio output would seem more threatening to their dastardly goals than a crack in the Airport Express' security key.

Speaking of Audio Hijack (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) , I wouldn't be surprised to see this 'hack' as an option in a future release.

[jdlaronde]

I would like to see software that would allow me to build the reverse of this... I would like to have a piece of software running on my existing HTPC that would run and pretend to be an AirPort Express on my home network. Thus enabling the button at the bottom of iTunes 4.6 and allowing me to stream audio to my home theatre. I could do it with something like shoutcast but iTunes is better.

[shawnce]

I would like to see software that would allow me to build the reverse of this... I would like to have a piece of software running on my existing HTPC that would run and pretend to be an AirPort Express on my home network. Thus enabling the button at the bottom of iTunes 4.6 and allowing me to stream audio to my home theatre. I could do it with something like shoutcast but iTunes is better.

In theory trivial except that one doesn't have the private key that relates to the public key that iTunes uses. Your AirPort Express look-a-like wouldn't know how to decrypt the AES key that is needed to uncompress the data stream being sent.

Now if you could get iTunes to use a different public key, one for a private key that you know, you could get it to work but of course this likely requires modify the iTunes executable (which they may or may not take steps to make difficult).

[Spades]

Just to make it clear, this means one thing. You can stream anything you want to an AE. The data being broadcast is still secure against anybody else intercepting and decrypting it. The AE is still the only device that can decrypt the stream.

The only possible issue is that anyone on the network could stream anything they want to the AE. But then they could do that before, if they had iTunes. This really doesn't seem like a big deal.

[Counterfit]

I think this is the longest a thread with such deep technical content has stayed completely civil :eek:



:D

[shawnce]

I think this is the longest a thread with such deep technical content has stayed completely civil :eek:

Bite me! :mad:

It that better? :p

[stoid]

In this scheme, the encryption keys have to be stored on the computer in a location where iTunes has access to it. If they can be accessed by iTunes, they can be accessed by any other program as well.

But in that scheme all you could do is crack your own security, which isn't a lot of fun. This prevents anyone else from picking up your stream and decrypting it and 'stealing' your music.

[virividox]

it was inevitable

[stcanard]

But in that scheme all you could do is crack your own security, which isn't a lot of fun. This prevents anyone else from picking up your stream and decrypting it and 'stealing' your music.

Ahh but there has to be a common method for them to communicate this information to the Airport Express (unless you're talking about a custom firmware for each and every unit sold?)

So all you have to do is build the man-in-the-middle driver that sends the same configuration info, and thus the same key...

[Steven1621]

how many eople are actually going to use this hack? very few i would say

[SeaFox]

From what I've read of the more technical discussions of this software over at Slashdot, this software would NOT, in fact, allow you to use third party software to play over the AEx.

The software unlocks the connection between the computer and the AEx, but the audio stream still has to be in the format the AEx is expecting: Apple Lossless. And there's only one program that can create Apple Lossless files: iTunes.

So maybe you could stream AL files with the software from your Linux box, but you would have to create the files on a Mac or PC first. Third party software couldn't stream because AL is a proprietary format and Apple could sue them for creating a program that could encode in it.

So if you have a Mac or PC with iTunes this software really will do nothing for you you can't do already: Listen to AL on your stereo.

[iNetwork]

Well, I haven't rated it. I'm ambiguous.

Cool - I could use it to get sound from Halo wirelessly. One less wire coming out of my powerbook.

Not cool - the RIAA won't be happy with Apple, and they'll have to fix it. More bad feeling in the music industry isn't good for our rights.

Why would the RIAA care about you streaming mp3's from say, winamp or the like? You can do it in your own home with iTunes, why would adding additional player support (WMP has copyright protection built in too) be an Issue to them? Think this through please.

[iNetwork]

But in that scheme all you could do is crack your own security, which isn't a lot of fun. This prevents anyone else from picking up your stream and decrypting it and 'stealing' your music.

And how is this different from say SHOUTCAST mp3 streaming that I tunes supports the playing of??? Again you have to play the music for them to steal it, highly unlikely... You people are too afraid of the law. If the RIAA is going to go after Apple for allowing you to stream and they haven't shut down shoutcast, then they have their priorities mixed up. It's much easier to capture a stream from shoutcast than it is snooping next to your neighbor's wireless network, hoping and waiting for him to capture "Brown eyed girl" when he wants it. This is just a stupid way of thinking.

[iNetwork]

I would like to see software that would allow me to build the reverse of this... I would like to have a piece of software running on my existing HTPC that would run and pretend to be an AirPort Express on my home network. Thus enabling the button at the bottom of iTunes 4.6 and allowing me to stream audio to my home theatre. I could do it with something like shoutcast but iTunes is better.

My HTPC is a linux box. I have it running a web server with a php interface that allows me to use my wireless Dell Axim via a web browser to select music and play it. No Itunes required. :)

How to HTPC using linux (http://www.sllug.org/how-to/linux-htpc/introduction.html)


Myth TV <--Linux HTPC software (http://www.mythtv.org)

Been there, done that and didn't have to pay any company to do it. Just read the manuals and documentation and did it myself. If people would learn stuff about computers and how to ACTUALLY use them to do what they want them to do and not wait for someone to sell them something, we'd be a lot better off. People are amazed that my HTPC runs better than any windoze unit and I can control it via my pocket pc--the whole thing!

[hose this!]

I'm all for this hack. Kudos to the young fella that cracked this. Hopefully, this will lead to another crack that will allow me to play MY music (rightfully purchased) simulcast across multiple AEs and even just off my computer and one AE at the same time - just like I could if I had a convoluted wiring scheme... wait, wasn't it things like this that the wireless revolution was supposed to solve????

[BrianKonarsMac]

this guy is a stud. hopefully we will be able to stream ALL audio over the Airport Express, not just iTunes. now let's watch programmers do their magic and exploit airport express' full potential, not apple's limited, close-minded vision.

[MacFanatic90]

Has anyone noticed that this whole thing spookily resembles Real's recent anouncement of Harmony? And whether or not Apple is ok/not ok with it, someone seems to have taken down Jon Johansen's blog (http://nanocrew.net/blog/).....is Apple Legal responsible, or did it not have the needed bandwidth to handle traffic? Note: It has been down for several hours...

[Penman]

what if a computer generated it? Computer AI that would be designed to make encryptions would be pretty extreme. I have not heard of this yet, but im sure it will be popping up pretty soon. Only thing is the AI would have to be made VERY well.

You can prove mathematically that any encription based in mathmatics can be broken. Governments have known this for years. The most secure encrption is technically very simple but impossible to crack and not based in mathmatics at all (it's based in randomness - there are no formulas used, simply substitution) and are called 'one-time pads'. As the name implies - they can only be used once (without being massively compromised) and thus are only worth the hassle for really, really secret stuff. Unles you have access to a truly random source (a quantum decay) they're very hard to make. any lack of randomness can be used to compromise your system. Bad (meaning non-random) one time pads are useless.

Thus - most encyption used by anyone (including the government) is crackable but based on the difficulty of finding the products of large prime numbers. As this is mathmatically based it's vulnerable. Nothing ever secured this way will ever be 100% secure and as computer speeds increase doing the work to find the primes gets easier.

Anyway - sorry to geek out a little but that's why Apple cannot - even in theory - secure its products. One-time pads are impossible (you'd need a new one every time you used a program) and everything else is vulnerable.

This crack was inevitable. Apple's 're-securing' will only last till someone can be bothered to break it.

Penman.

[space2go]

And even one-time crypto would not help in that situation as the user (aka the enemy) controls at least one place where a copy would have to exist.
If you don't control the hardware you've already lost.

And a firmware update for AE could be extremely helpful in getting the private key out of it. ;)

[Shagrat]

But, any AI software designed will be done so by a human. No computer will ever be able to generate a truely random number. They all use a formula to create them which can be 'cracked'.

Surely you could use a noise source like a Zener Diode, sample the absolute value of the noise generated at intervals, and use those values for the random number generator. Easy to do, i would have thought. No algorithm going on, just measuring thermal noise.

And it all depends on which "brand" of AI you are talking about. The GOFAI (Good old fashioned Artificial Intelligence) is procedural. But there are other "flavours" around (none of which, so far, have produced "intelligence" as such), which are based on non-programmed coding, such as neural nets, which are "trained" rather than progralmmed.

[ExoticFish]

Sure, but you could maybe integrate it into the DVD player to offset the video by 500ms or 1000ms or whatever to compensate for this issue. Make it even a user defined offset with a slider or something...

i was thinking that it would be sweet if in Tiger they let the Airport Extreme be a sound device output and just let everything running on the system play through it. i'm sure they could work out some kind of offset to the system so that video/audio would be in sync.

[discstickers]

I could see this being an option. Before you can use your AirPort Express to stream iTunes music to it, you have to physically connect the two via Ethernet. A small utility generates an encryption key and links the two together. The AirPort Express or computer can store as many unique keys as needed to connect to each other. Am I missing something, or is the 'hassle' of physically connecting the AExpress to the computer the only drawback to this method?

The pad has to be the same length as the message being sent, and it can't be used ever again. So for every play of every song, the AE base station and iTunes would need to generate identical random keys the size of the song. That's simply not feasible. You can't just store the keys either. That'd be pointless, as they could be found out easily.

[sjk]

And soon we will all be able to watch a DVD on our PowerBooks and pump that audio wirelessly to the home stereo system.Personally, I'd usually prefer listening to the audio through good headphones while watching a DVD on a PowerBook display. Hard to describe, but there's a certain kind of distracting discontinuity when audio "overwhelms" video when viewing on a small screen. Sort of analogous to watching video on a decent large screen while listening to its audio track with a weak audio system. For me there's a distinct kind of discomfortable when audio/video become too imbalanced. Surely the experience would be different with a well-placed 30" Apple cinema display. :)

[ClimbingTheLog]

There is one ever-safe encryption method: quantum. Impossible to crack and will ever stay that way. Only looking at the communication disturb the transmission...

Sounds like a job for a quantum entangled man-in-the-middle attack.

[jared_kipe]

I would like this to be able to play all sounds from my computer through airport express.

[relimw]

i was thinking that it would be sweet if in Tiger they let the Airport Extreme be a sound device output and just let everything running on the system play through it. i'm sure they could work out some kind of offset to the system so that video/audio would be in sync.
I whole-heartly agree, and even emailed Apple that request about 5 hours before this story broke as I'm now the proud owner of 2 Airport Expresses. Dang it, I want to play rtcw thru my stereo! :D

[weldon]

i was thinking that it would be sweet if in Tiger they let the Airport Extreme be a sound device output and just let everything running on the system play through it. i'm sure they could work out some kind of offset to the system so that video/audio would be in sync.
This sounds like a cool idea, but it would completely suck if there was any delay at all. Sure, they could compensate for the latency in the audio by delaying the video but would you want to use a computer where what you typed or your mouseclicks didn't show up for a full second? You would go nuts trying to use the GUI with any kind of delay.

DVD playback is another thing entirely because no one will care about a slight delay in video. You won't get frustrated with the delay in the GUI (unless you're trying to pause a movie at an exact moment).

[dietsoda]

It's been said that this is next to useless because you need to encode in Apple Lossless to send the Express. I'm unclear about this as you can easily export in Apple Lossless from QuickTime Pro. So can you access the capabilities of QT Pro from your own app without having to pay anything to Apple? Does the end user need to have pro or is the 'pro' bit just in regard to the QuickTime app itself?

If apps can just freely access the full QuickTime API on any machine with QuickTime on it then there's no reason at all that other developers won't be able to ad it to their own apps is there?

[rmiller021]

I managed to get the source code before slashdot took down his site. After messing around for a little while i got it to compile for Windows XP and OSX.

[Porchland]

this guy is a stud. hopefully we will be able to stream ALL audio over the Airport Express, not just iTunes. now let's watch programmers do their magic and exploit airport express' full potential, not apple's limited, close-minded vision.

This mentality bothers me the same as the Harmony-on-iPod crowd. It's wrong because Apple ought to be able to operate its own vision of things. You don't walk into Starbucks with your own bag and say, "I love your machines, but I brought my own coffee this time."

[Mord]

This mentality bothers me the same as the Harmony-on-iPod crowd. It's wrong because Apple ought to be able to operate its own vision of things. You don't walk into Starbucks with your own bag and say, "I love your machines, but I brought my own coffee this time."

thats a damn good idea i'd rather bring my own coffee that i prefer than any starbucks stuff that they sell. i'd love a service like that ;)

[sjk]

Using Nicecast To Send Any Audio To AirPort Express (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/posts/Article/ThreesCompany-2004-07-24.html)

[macsrus]

I find this whole thread rather funny.....

First of all... this hack doesnt mean much....
And noone is going to be able to steal your music...

And even if they could capture the music being sent over a Aex... it isnt like they wouid be stealing it from you... i.e. you would still have it.

Second why would anyone(Apple included) care whether or not some other program could send music to the Aex.... I keep hearing people say they would like it because it would give them options...
Like what option.... iTunes is free already so why not just use it anyway instead of some other program

Second who really uses an Aex anyway...
I for one wouldnt... It seems like the silliest product to come out of Apple in years
I would prefer to use my 201 cd changer to play my music thru my stereo than to try to send it out of my computer.... And yes my stereo can do playlists too

[jaromski]

But, any AI software designed will be done so by a human. No computer will ever be able to generate a truely random number. They all use a formula to create them which can be 'cracked'.

depends on your definition of "random". if done wholly in software then i would agree with you that the "random" generator could be compromised. software is composed of algorithms; algorithms produce some output for a given input. that is to say there is a perfect knowledge of how a produces b on so on.

now i think your argument becomes murky with respect to hardware random generators. i mean technically you could figure out some way to reverse-engineer the chip that generates the random number, but the critical flaw is you can't "feed" the input for the hardware random number generator like you can with the software generators. maybe your input is the temperature of some chip, some voltage fluctuations or, to put it simply, some localized environmental condition that you can't control. this changes the whole ball game.

there have been online casinos that have been hacked because their random generators were done in software. idiots. but if you go down to vegas you can be guaranteed all "randomness" is done in hardware; keeping the algorithm a secret doesn't buy you anything. controlling the inputs does.

jaromSki

[SandyL]

This mentality bothers me the same as the Harmony-on-iPod crowd. It's wrong because Apple ought to be able to operate its own vision of things. You don't walk into Starbucks with your own bag and say, "I love your machines, but I brought my own coffee this time."
Your analogy is invalid. Try this one: Starbucks is in the business of selling coffee machines, you buy one of their coffee machines, and now Starbucks is telling you what type of coffee you're supposed to be using.

When I buy a product, I don't buy into anyone's vision except my own. I bought the product, and now it's mine to do with as *I* please.

[macsrus]

When I buy a product, I don't buy into anyone's vision except my own. I bought the product, and now it's mine to do with as *I* please.

I agree..
Thats why I hacked my xbox

[amnesiac1984]

infeasible. Not impossible - but infeasible. ;)

no, not infeasible but unfeasible. :p

[~Shard~]

no, not infeasible but unfeasible. :p

Infeasible (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=infeasible) and unfeasible (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=unfeasible) essentially mean the exact same things actually, with "infeasible" being the more widely adopted and accepted term. So :p back at ya... :cool:

[wdlove]

Your analogy is invalid. Try this one: Starbucks is in the business of selling coffee machines, you buy one of their coffee machines, and now Starbucks is telling you what type of coffee you're supposed to be using.

When I buy a product, I don't buy into anyone's vision except my own. I bought the product, and now it's mine to do with as *I* please.

I happen to really enjoy Starbucks coffee. So I purchased a Hot Press from them that brews Starbucks.

When it comes to the Airport Express, I will be using as designed. Don't have the technical expertise like others to make changes.

My wife wants one mainly so that she will get better reception for her 15" PB on the 1st floor.

[macsrus]

I have two Airports one old one and the new Airport Extreme that I never use... Because I bought a Dlink that gets much better reception in my house...

[savar]

ZDNET Netherlands reports (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/mac/0,39020393,39163378,00.htm) that the public key used by Apple's AirPort Express (http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) has been revealed by Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen, famous for developing code to bypass DVD encryption and bring DVD playback to Linux. Johansen also released JustePort, a program for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux that reportedly allows third party software to stream music to an AirPort Express.


<yawn..>

Boring! Wake me up when they crack the Private Key. I'm sure Apple has opted for at least 128bit encryption...which would take so much CPU power to crack that I don't think there's enough interest.

Futhermore, "cracked" is the wrong word. Most likely he dumped the contents of AE's ROM or firmware, dissassembled it, spent a few days analyzing the source to figure out where the public key was stored, then copied it straight out of memory. This is closer to reverse engineering or hacking than it is to cracking.

This like saying, "I cracked Steve Jobs email account because I found his public key!!" Come on--its probably listed on Apple's LDAP server! The whole point of a public key is that its generally made public.

[amnesiac1984]

Infeasible (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=infeasible) and unfeasible (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=unfeasible) essentially mean the exact same things actually, with "infeasible" being the more widely adopted and accepted term. So :p back at ya... :cool:

i have to say i stand corrected but I have never heard the word INfeasible used and it still sounds really stupid to me. maybe it's an Americanisation? And the fact is my UK dictionary on my OS X spell checker doesn't have infeasible in it.

edit, i guess we are both right (http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary/infeasible)

[neut]

Using Nicecast To Send Any Audio To AirPort Express (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/posts/Article/ThreesCompany-2004-07-24.html)

Rogue Amoeba are the ****... now to go try it out. :)


peace.

[weldon]

Futhermore, "cracked" is the wrong word. Most likely he dumped the contents of AE's ROM or firmware, dissassembled it, spent a few days analyzing the source to figure out where the public key was stored, then copied it straight out of memory. This is closer to reverse engineering or hacking than it is to cracking.
If he could extract the public key from firmware, then I'm sure he would've pulled the private key out as well. I don't know how he got the public key, but I would suspect that he took an audio file that was already encoded in Apple Lossless and then looked at the stream to figure out how it had been altered by encryption.

[amnesiac1984]

Second who really uses an Aex anyway...
I for one wouldnt... It seems like the silliest product to come out of Apple in years
I would prefer to use my 201 cd changer to play my music thru my stereo than to try to send it out of my computer.... And yes my stereo can do playlists too

I would use one if I had that kind of money to spend on those sort of things.

You'd need a 2001 cd changer to get as much music as I have on my mac, and besides it takes ages to make a playlist on one of those things, not quite drag and drop.

Sound quality is the only upside to a CD changer, but they tend to lack even that compared to a decent single disc player.

[wdlove]

I have two Airports one old one and the new Airport Extreme that I never use... Because I bought a Dlink that gets much better reception in my house...

Are you saying that the Airport Express Base Station isn't that effective for home use. My wife depends on using her 15" PB via wireless network for her job.

[Mantat]

Are you saying that the Airport Express Base Station isn't that effective for home use. My wife depends on using her 15" PB via wireless network for her job.

I dont understand his comment. From personal experience, Linksys products are the worst possible router, netGear are much better. Almost look like a troll to me, after all why hasnt he sold the two routers on ebay? They are easy to sell and fetch a good amount of cash.

Anyways, Apple wireless routers are not the best for range (they are average) but they are the first for setup, maintenance and security setup. They are super reliable (my linksys dropped me serveral times) and dont interfere with applications (try MSN video chat with a old linksys and I would understand).

From the comment I have seen, it seems that the Airport Express is a very good product with a good range but be warned that you need OSX 10.3 to use it.

As you can see, I dont like the linksys offering. I would ratter go for Apple if you want the simplicity of setup and audio out, or with netGear who have the best range the last time I looked.

[wdlove]

I dont understand his comment. From personal experience, Linksys products are the worst possible router, netGear are much better. Almost look like a troll to me, after all why hasn't he sold the two routers on ebay? They are easy to sell and fetch a good amount of cash.

From the comment I have seen, it seems that the Airport Express is a very good product with a good range but be warned that you need OSX 10.3 to use it.

As you can see, I dont like the linksys offering. I would ratter go for Apple if you want the simplicity of setup and audio out, or with netGear who have the best range the last time I looked.

Thank you for your timely comment Mantat. Your post makes a lot of sense to me. We are running OSX 10.3.5, so no problem there. Our current 2Wire doesn't work too well on the first floor. So she wants to purchase a Airport Express to alleviate the problem. Either way we should be all set. My thought has always been that an all Apple setup always works together more efficiently.

[uv23]

I'd also recommend against linksys. ****e reception and constant problems. I'm on my second one after managing to return the first but this one has started exhibiting the same problems (randomly unable to connect for a day or so; or power light begins flashing for no reason, necessitating a hard reset and rom flash, etc...)

[macsrus]

I dont understand his comment. From personal experience, Linksys products are the worst possible router, netGear are much better. Almost look like a troll to me, after all why hasnt he sold the two routers on ebay? They are easy to sell and fetch a good amount of cash.

Anyways, Apple wireless routers are not the best for range (they are average) but they are the first for setup, maintenance and security setup. They are super reliable (my linksys dropped me serveral times) and dont interfere with applications (try MSN video chat with a old linksys and I would understand).

I cant sell the other 2 because they were bought with Federal dollars and belong to Uncle SAM....
And I was just stating a fact that my DLINK(not linksys) router has much better range and works much better for me than either of the 2 Airports I mentioned earlier.

[gekko513]

If he could extract the public key from firmware, then I'm sure he would've pulled the private key out as well. I don't know how he got the public key, but I would suspect that he took an audio file that was already encoded in Apple Lossless and then looked at the stream to figure out how it had been altered by encryption.
Who said he extracted the public key from firmware. The best place to look for the public key would be in iTunes for Windows, which obviously needs the public key to start the communication with the aexpress.

[pcap]

Sorry if this was already mentioned, but I read through the thread and didn't see it.

You wouldn't want to use Airport Express for anything but music. Someone mentioned DVD's and someone else mentioned Halo, there's a delay of a second or 1/2 a second, games would suck and DVD's would look like they were dubbed from another language.

[stcanard]

If he could extract the public key from firmware, then I'm sure he would've pulled the private key out as well. I don't know how he got the public key, but I would suspect that he took an audio file that was already encoded in Apple Lossless and then looked at the stream to figure out how it had been altered by encryption.

He got almost certainly got the public key from iTunes. With his previous experience hacking iTunes he probably had quite a head-start figuring out where to look.

If finding a key was as simple as being able to compare the original with the encrypted version, encryption would be useless... (yes, I know that's how they did it in World War II, but the math has changed _a lot_ since then).

[zync]

I'm afraid, you won't be able to do so. streaming audio in this way
causes a latency (delay) of around 1 second. so your movie soundtrack
will be out of sync badly :(

I had the same idea i the first place though....

I'm really late to this conversation but I've been thinking of this and have noticed that with my AirportExpress/iTunes combo the song pointer in iTunes is correct with the stream. In other words, Apple has added the delay to the interface as well. If that is possible, they might be able to delay DVD video reading, since the tracks aren't merged on DVDs. In other, other words, I believe it's possible.

BTW, what got me thinking about this was the fact that Synergy showed the album floaters about three seconds before the previous song stopped (That and wondering if they rigged iTunes as they did:)). I have it set to check with iTunes every three seconds so that's probably about a 1 second or so delay, as you stated.

[natant]

this is great, but there's massive lag when i do it. when playing a quicktimg file, the audio being broadcast is a good 2 seconds behind the video. it's a start...but not functional for watching movies or playing games.

[neut]

this is great, but there's massive lag when i do it. when playing a quicktimg file, the audio being broadcast is a good 2 seconds behind the video. it's a start...but not functional for watching movies or playing games.

i couldn't get nicecast to load properly...

as for the lag, does it matter how far you are from the base station (are you running on b or g?). i hope apple can at least add the DVD player and quicktime (iChat?).

guess we'll see.


peace.

[natant]

when i tested nicecast i was standing right next to the airport express. it's still nice for some things tho... can at least stream bbc now (realplayer only) and i record music in the garage, can now run upstairs to monitor a mix on the home stereo. but not at the point where it can play dvd's.

[weldon]

Who said he extracted the public key from firmware?
The person to whom I was responding suggested that he extracted the public key from the firmware, which I pointed out was silly because if he could get anything out of firmware, he would get the private key too. Your idea of disassembling iTunes for Windows to find the public key in the code is probably more accurate than my first thought.

[diehlr]

Very cool. It's always nice to have a choice of media players.