Jon lech Johansen cracks apples iTunes / Airport Express interoperability

The Norwegian hacker who cracked the CSS encryption for DVDs several years ago recently announced that he's decoded another set of copy protections around Apple's iTunes. The latest hack of Jon Lech Johansen, age 20, would bypass the lock-and-key system that links iTunes and AirPort Express, a device which broadcasts iTunes music from a computer to a stereo. As Berkman Fellow Urs Gasser explained in a recent report in TechNewsWorld, the issue is interoperability -- a users' ability to choose between different devises. Users tend to like interoperability because 'creates multiple distribution channels and removes market barriers,' Gasser explains. But this type of choice may be at odds with the interests of DRM developers.