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> Bending the truth or outright lying to your own customers in order to deflect blame for a decision that you made arbitrarily is entirely another. This entire

by lloeki 14y ago

> Bending the truth or outright lying to your own customers in order to deflect blame for a decision that you made arbitrarily is entirely another. This entire sentence applies to Rogue Amoeba. The Airplay protocol has been reverse engineered years ago: it's basically RTSP with an encrypted stream. Creating an AirPlay audio receiver is currently subject to a license, and requires a private key. This key has been extracted from a dumped AirPort Express ROM. Rogue Amoeba can say what they want about reimplementing the whole AirPlay protocol on their own, the clef-de-voûte is this private key, only available through licensing. When Schiller mentions private APIs, I believe he is not talking about an iPhone private API (which I'm positively sure Rogue Amoeba took great care of not using) but the remote AirPlay API, which they have no right to use without licensing. The key point here is that there's a key virtually locking the API. I think it's perfectly apt to say now that — thanks to the Google/Oracle case — implementing an API is licit, but you would subsequently have to use your own public/private keys. Yet existing AirPlay sources encrypt the stream with Apple's public key, hence the content is at the sole destination of Apple's private key. Compare this to the following situation: you publish you PGP public key and someone writes you an email and encrypts it with your public key. If someone steals your private key, that does not entitle him to decrypt and read the message whose sole intended recipient is you. This is, I believe, the crux of Apple's AirPlay licensing. I generally don't like Apple's silent hammer, and I really like Rogue Amoeba and their software (which I bought multiple times), but — since I knew what was in play technically — when reading the last status report of Rogue Amoeba, it was obvious to me that they were concealing information with the goal of bending the truth to support their side of the argument.

imjoel 14y ago
Exactly. Despite Apple's schizophrenic application of their guidelines, Rogue Amoeba simply needs to take responsibility for everything you pointed out here. To continue to do otherwise is unprofessional and only hurts them in the end. Apple will continue to make billions. P.S. Who else had to Google clef-de-voûte? FYI: It basically means "most important component" or "key element." (via bab.la)
- NyxWulf 14y ago
  heh, I was about to, but then I saw your response. Thanks.
  - cafard 14y ago
    Keystone, then?
    - stcredzero 14y ago
      If you pull it out, does everything fall down?
      - jonah 14y ago
        Yes.
- jguimont 14y ago
  Clef de voûte is the polygonal piece at the center top of a voute (big wall opening in cathedrals for example). Without it everything falls appart.
  - gonzo 14y ago
    Keystone in English
- mikeash 14y ago
  Why is it that in every thread discussing Apple's potential misbehavior, people bring up their extreme profitability as if that were somehow relevant to the question of right and wrong? Drives me nuts.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    I guess the argument(I don't really agree) is that ~99% of their customers don't know about all this and don't care, thus Apple need not care about some random developers because it doesn't hurt sales in the least and that Apple exists to make money for their shareholders and not to foster openness and innovation or necessarily doing what's right for their users. Also see http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/dirty_percent http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/dirty_percent
drewcrawford 14y ago
> When Schiller mentions private APIs, I believe he is not talking about an iPhone private API (which I'm positively sure Rogue Amoeba took great care of not using) but the remote AirPlay API, which they have no right to use without licensing. A key is not an API. AirPlay is not an API. Full-stop. Whether Rogue Amoeba was wrong to do this or whether Apple was right to ban them or whether reasonable observers could have predicted the banhammer is not at issue in this thread. The issue is--Phil Schiller mislead a customer by describing Rogue Amoeba's behavior in a factually inaccurate way. Rogue Amoeba's blog post picks apart these inaccuracies like shooting fish in a barrel. I studied Phil's e-mail and I found exactly one sentence that I thought was accurate. Sure, Apple can remove this app from the store. They should either just say that, or not respond to the customer at all. Somebody who has made a decision that he/she feels confident about has no need to slant the facts and make misleading statements. Whether or not Apple was right to do this independent of the fact that they were wrong to discredit Rogue Amoeba in an inaccurate way.
- lloeki 14y ago
  > A key is not an API. I never said that. > AirPlay is not an API. AirPlay is a remote interface allowing a local application to control software on a remote device and stream data to it. I could implement it over HTTP as a RESTful API or whatever way I see fit and however simple and thin it would be†, it is still a way for applications to programmatically interact through an interface, hence, an API. But again, this is not a problem since we can now safely implement interfaces without fear. > Rogue Amoeba's blog post picks apart these inaccuracies like shooting fish in a barrel ... and (assuming that one thinks they scored) misses the elephant in the room. encrypted AirPlay audio streams. Rogue Amoeba knows about this. Apple knows about this. The only party concealing that fact is Rogue Amoeba, and they're entirely disingenuous about it. Since the very first developments (and really, since their announcement of the feature upon release) people have been wondering about the inclusion of the Apple private key; yet Rogue Amoeba stayed quiet on the subject. What I expected of them was at some point to directly answer the question "did we use the Apple private key?" with "yes" or "no". Again, whether I put a license or not to use my PGP private key, no one has the right to pick up content encrypted for me. They basically created an eavesdropping piece of code. And this is true for any licensing scheme. If there's no license satisfying my will, I have no right to take it anyway. Rogue Amoeba even goes to admit: > While Apple licenses the ability for hardware manufacturers to play AirPlay audio, there is no such licensing program for software. When we inquired as to the possibility of this type of licensing being available for software manufacturers in the future, we were informed that it was unlikely. Then they decided that since there's no license covering that case, they have the rights to build something respecting the AirPlay API (they do) and decrypt data with a stolen private key (they don't). And went on to build it and sell it, get kicked out, complain (rightfully so regarding opacity, laconic answers, and delays), and ignore the most critical part in all subsequent communications. How cool is that? Now the fact that Apple has no explicit licensing scheme for software manufacturers is a blind spot of their part, but who honestly believes that hardware manufacturers implement their AirPlay receiving devices as pure hardware? I bet the licensing terms could apply just as well to pure software endpoints. > Whether or not Apple was right to do this independent of the fact that they were wrong to discredit Rogue Amoeba in an inaccurate way. And the same applies to Rogue Amoeba. † AirTunes has a HTTP control channel used to negotiate details, AES key exchange via RSA encryption, a remote volume knob, metadata transmission, progress information, and a data channel for audio streaming that can be suspended without closing the stream. http://git.zx2c4.com/Airtunes2/about/ http://git.zx2c4.com/Airtunes2/about/

by lloeki 14y ago

imjoel 14y ago

Exactly. Despite Apple's schizophrenic application of their guidelines, Rogue Amoeba simply needs to take responsibility for everything you pointed out here. To continue to do otherwise is unprofessional and only hurts them in the end. Apple will continue to make billions. P.S. Who else had to Google clef-de-voûte? FYI: It basically means "most important component" or "key element." (via bab.la)

NyxWulf 14y ago
heh, I was about to, but then I saw your response. Thanks.
- cafard 14y ago
  Keystone, then?
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    If you pull it out, does everything fall down?
    - jonah 14y ago
      Yes.
jguimont 14y ago
Clef de voûte is the polygonal piece at the center top of a voute (big wall opening in cathedrals for example). Without it everything falls appart.
- gonzo 14y ago
  Keystone in English
mikeash 14y ago
Why is it that in every thread discussing Apple's potential misbehavior, people bring up their extreme profitability as if that were somehow relevant to the question of right and wrong? Drives me nuts.
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  I guess the argument(I don't really agree) is that ~99% of their customers don't know about all this and don't care, thus Apple need not care about some random developers because it doesn't hurt sales in the least and that Apple exists to make money for their shareholders and not to foster openness and innovation or necessarily doing what's right for their users. Also see http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/dirty_percent http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/dirty_percent

drewcrawford 14y ago

> When Schiller mentions private APIs, I believe he is not talking about an iPhone private API (which I'm positively sure Rogue Amoeba took great care of not using) but the remote AirPlay API, which they have no right to use without licensing. A key is not an API. AirPlay is not an API. Full-stop. Whether Rogue Amoeba was wrong to do this or whether Apple was right to ban them or whether reasonable observers could have predicted the banhammer is not at issue in this thread. The issue is--Phil Schiller mislead a customer by describing Rogue Amoeba's behavior in a factually inaccurate way. Rogue Amoeba's blog post picks apart these inaccuracies like shooting fish in a barrel. I studied Phil's e-mail and I found exactly one sentence that I thought was accurate. Sure, Apple can remove this app from the store. They should either just say that, or not respond to the customer at all. Somebody who has made a decision that he/she feels confident about has no need to slant the facts and make misleading statements. Whether or not Apple was right to do this independent of the fact that they were wrong to discredit Rogue Amoeba in an inaccurate way.

lloeki 14y ago
> A key is not an API. I never said that. > AirPlay is not an API. AirPlay is a remote interface allowing a local application to control software on a remote device and stream data to it. I could implement it over HTTP as a RESTful API or whatever way I see fit and however simple and thin it would be†, it is still a way for applications to programmatically interact through an interface, hence, an API. But again, this is not a problem since we can now safely implement interfaces without fear. > Rogue Amoeba's blog post picks apart these inaccuracies like shooting fish in a barrel ... and (assuming that one thinks they scored) misses the elephant in the room. encrypted AirPlay audio streams. Rogue Amoeba knows about this. Apple knows about this. The only party concealing that fact is Rogue Amoeba, and they're entirely disingenuous about it. Since the very first developments (and really, since their announcement of the feature upon release) people have been wondering about the inclusion of the Apple private key; yet Rogue Amoeba stayed quiet on the subject. What I expected of them was at some point to directly answer the question "did we use the Apple private key?" with "yes" or "no". Again, whether I put a license or not to use my PGP private key, no one has the right to pick up content encrypted for me. They basically created an eavesdropping piece of code. And this is true for any licensing scheme. If there's no license satisfying my will, I have no right to take it anyway. Rogue Amoeba even goes to admit: > While Apple licenses the ability for hardware manufacturers to play AirPlay audio, there is no such licensing program for software. When we inquired as to the possibility of this type of licensing being available for software manufacturers in the future, we were informed that it was unlikely. Then they decided that since there's no license covering that case, they have the rights to build something respecting the AirPlay API (they do) and decrypt data with a stolen private key (they don't). And went on to build it and sell it, get kicked out, complain (rightfully so regarding opacity, laconic answers, and delays), and ignore the most critical part in all subsequent communications. How cool is that? Now the fact that Apple has no explicit licensing scheme for software manufacturers is a blind spot of their part, but who honestly believes that hardware manufacturers implement their AirPlay receiving devices as pure hardware? I bet the licensing terms could apply just as well to pure software endpoints. > Whether or not Apple was right to do this independent of the fact that they were wrong to discredit Rogue Amoeba in an inaccurate way. And the same applies to Rogue Amoeba. † AirTunes has a HTTP control channel used to negotiate details, AES key exchange via RSA encryption, a remote volume knob, metadata transmission, progress information, and a data channel for audio streaming that can be suspended without closing the stream. http://git.zx2c4.com/Airtunes2/about/ http://git.zx2c4.com/Airtunes2/about/