Airport Express private key Cracked?

Airport Express is a portable device by Apple that supports music streaming from iTunes. Just like any other Apple product, there are certain restrictions when using it. Currently, iTunes can be used to stream music to AirPort products. With the right private key, it is feasible to use iTunes to stream music to more devices. Developer James Laird has managed to crack the code by digging the right private key from Airport Express:

My girlfriend moved house, and her Airport Express no longer made it with her wireless access point. I figured it’d be easy to find an ApEx emulator – there are several open source apps out there to play to them. However, I was disappointed to find that Apple used a public-key crypto scheme, and there’s a private key hiding inside the ApEx. So I took it apart (I still have scars from opening the glued case!), dumped the ROM, and reverse engineered the keys out of it.

This is going to open up a whole new set of issues for Apple. The company has set these restrictions for good reasons. ShairPort could open the door to more sophisticated hacks for air streaming. It is unlikely for reputable hardware makers to take advantage of this information. But this solution could be used to stream content from iTunes to Macs and X-Box.

ShairPort may work today but it is still in its early stages. It has some bugs that will have to be fixed. But we are not complaining. Having a way to stream content from iTunes to devices other than Airport Express is a huge development.

Have you tried Shairport?