The group members, who have a mix of hardware and software skills and first described their hack as part of a tech collective called Lagrange Point, say several dozen people have contacted them asking for help with their AirPods. “We’ve had tremendous interest from people in India who have these AirPods or whose grandparents need them but haven’t been able to use them,” says Jayasimha. Others have documented the same problem in social media posts.
The researchers demonstrated that they could bypass Apple’s geo-restrictions with a set of AirPods Pro 2 connected to a 10th-generation iPad using only Wi-Fi. They note that it would be possible to do the workaround on an iPhone or iPad connected to a carrier, but it would be more involved.
To find the workaround, the researchers first looked at the different ways iOS determines where a device is in the world. For Wi-Fi only devices, there are several checks. The server looks at which Apple Store region the device is connected to, as well as the time zone, language, and region the device is set to. Additionally, the operating system sends a simple web request to an Apple web service, which then responds with the country code where the device appears based on the location associated with its IP address.
The researchers first tried to manually change the iPad’s time zone and region settings, but ultimately it was unclear if this affected their ability to hide the iPad’s true location. When masking the iPad’s IP address to appear connected to the United States didn’t work, the researchers evaluated other metrics the device might use to determine its geographic location. It turns out that iOS also examines Wi-Fi “service set identifiers,” or SSIDs, which help devices connect to the correct Wi-Fi network when there are a lot of network signals in the air — like in an apartment building or at a coffee shop .
The operating system also uses GPS triangulation and device identifier “MAC addresses” of nearby devices, including routers, to determine the device’s location. In other words, even if a person in Bengaluru uses a proxy to make it appear that their iPad has a US-based IP address, all nearby routers and devices are connected to IP addresses located in India, which give away the true location.
