Shairport: Airport Express Private Key hacked

Posted by Donny Torrefranca

James Laird, an independent developer, is either a future household name or the next target by Apple. By literally hacking open a girlfriend’s broken Airport Express, he was able to reverse-engineer then system and re-write Airport Express and call it “Shairport”. He was then able to share iTunes music to his computer and other iDevices without the need for licensing from Apple.

There are already other 3rd-party software out there that allows sharing to other Apple-approved devices, so what makes this different? (ie. Airfoil)
By using Shairport, this enables you to do exactly what Airfoil can’t. That is stream music to other devices such as HTPC or other computers not approved by Apple. For this reason, Apple might aim at shutting down Shairport as it potentially can enable a speaker maker to utilize this hack in order to receive AirPlay streams without Apple’s approval.