Apple's iPod code 'cracked'

Asher Moses
October 24, 2006

The iPod has just had its fifth birthday, but Apple's celebrations may be cut short thanks to a 22-year-old Norwegian who claims he's cracked Apple's proprietary iPod-iTunes ecosystem.

Jon Lech Johansen, affectionately known as DVD Jon, garnered worldwide fame and notoriety when, at the age of 15, he cracked the encryption scheme used by DVD. This allowed for DVDs to be copied and played back on any device.

Now Johansen claims he's mastered the inner workings of the iPod and its FairPlay encryption technology, allowing him to remove many of the restrictions Apple places on its users.

Today, songs purchased from Apple's iTunes store can't be played on non-iPod devices, and, if you've bought songs from other music stores, the chances are you won't be able to play them on the iPod either since they use a form of copy protection that Apple doesn't support.

Johansen's latest company, DoubleTwist, has developed programs to get around these restrictions, and plans to license them to digital music stores that are looking to sell copy-protected songs capable of being played on the iPod.

Johansen's driving force is his belief that users have the right to listen to songs they have bought legally on any device they own.

"Today's reality is that there's this iTunes-iPod ecosystem that excludes everyone else from the market," he told Fortune magazine.

"I don't like closed systems," he added.

Specific details on how his programs work are as yet unknown, but it's understood that they trick an iPod into thinking it's playing an iTunes-purchased song by emulating Apple's own FairPlay encryption technology.

Unlocking the iPod-iTunes ecosystem is seen by many as a good thing for consumers, as it will most likely result in increased competition to the iTunes Store, possibly resulting in lower prices and a higher quality service.

DoubleTwist has already signed its first client, which it refuses to name. It remains to be seen whether or not other companies will license the technology, as it's possible they could be sued by Apple.

Johansen says that his new business is operating well within the law, because, rather than removing protection, his programs are technically adding copy protection.

"The law protects copyrights, but it doesn't keep you locked into the iPod," Johansen told Fortune.

Whether or not US law agrees with him remains to be seen, and may only be determinable in court since there are few previous cases that can be used as precedents.

A spokesman for Apple Australia refused to comment on this story, and would not confirm or deny whether or not Apple would be taking legal action against DoubleTwist.

Either way, Johansen doesn't appear to be concerned, as indicated by the title of his personal blog: So Sue Me.