Cracking the AirPort Express

Well that didn't take long. Jon Johansen, aka DVD Jon, aka the wiseass who took on the MPAA and cracked the copy protections on the DVD, is back (not that he ever went away, except for the once having been on trial part) with his latest hack. This time he broke the encryption Apple uses to stream audio from iTunes to the AirPort Express, meaning that, at least in theory, you could set it up so that any application could stream to the AirPort Express. You think Apple will freak out over something that makes the AirPort Express only that much more valuable and useful to people? Yeah, probably.

[Glen @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

Being able to play other formats through the Airport Express is what I am waiting for. Hopefully with this we can get the ball rolling. BBC only streams in Real Audio and until I can listen to ALL Net radio through the Airport Express then it doesn't really hold much value.

[Tim @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

Well, you could always transcode from whatever format you want into Apple Lossless format on the fly, and then stream that to the Express. I'm pretty sure at least the first solutions will involve that.

[Mike Cohen @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

It would be great if the Airport Express was a real audio output device which could be used for any audio. I'd love to be able to play GarageBand through it.

[babbette @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

Like poster 1, I want to be able to stream BBC thru Airport Express. My kluge solution is to use Audio Hijack Pro to record it, send it to iTunes, transmit to Airport Express, which is connected to my transmitter for my wireless speakers. I've traded off convenience (ibook no longer tied to transmitter for wireless speakers), to time delay, and having to go back and delete stuff I don't want to keep from iTunes (Tony Blair's speeches are not keepers :) ).
Apple keeps talking about music, music, music, but us streaming radio listeners are a market too aren't we? I'm crossing my fingers that Apple or a third party gives us a product to access Airport Express for all sound-out soon

[J Money @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

I tried to download Jake's tool for Aiport Express and his site is either down or is blocking me. Has anyone else had this issue?

[thomas @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

If anyone finds a software or Hack to stream wma or Real through Itune (or something that would reencode on the fly a non Itune feed) please mail me :)
tgeffroyd@(remove)hotmail.com

Thanx !

[Christian Degas @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

Me too! if anyone knows of a WMA send me a link! [e-mail]

[Ben Pazolli @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

I'm sure you all know you can just plug the wire that goes into your sound system into your headphone or line out port and then play it like normal. But this dosn't help you with the portability of your computer. Anyway I'm having to convert my music from WMA to MP3 for no other reason then to play them off the airport. Mind you, apple has been doing this for years.