PhotonPort captures a Mac display and system audio, accepts input events from a paired device, and exposes local-network listeners. Please do not publish a suspected vulnerability, pairing transcript, device identifier, IP address, or unredacted log in a public issue.
Use GitHub's private vulnerability reporting form:
https://github.com/lotgood/photonport/security/advisories/new
Include affected commit/version, transport (USB or WiFi), OS/device versions, reproduction steps, and the security impact. Redact secrets and personal data. You should receive an acknowledgement within seven days. This is an experimental, unsupported project, so no remediation SLA is promised.
Only the latest commit on main and the latest published PhotonPort release are
considered for security fixes. Upstream OpenDisplay issues should be reported to
the upstream project unless they also affect PhotonPort-specific code.
The standalone iOS receiver and protocol repositories are separate MIT-licensed
projects: photonport-ios and
photonport-protocol. This
repository remains GPL-3.0-only for the Mac sender and retained history; the
split does not relicense historical iOS code here.
The compatibility manifest is protocol 3.0.0, pairing 2.0.0, Mac minimum 0.1.0, and iOS minimum 1.0.0, with mismatches failing closed. The only supported pair is an M4 Max Mac on macOS 27 over USB with an iPad Pro 11-inch M4 on iPadOS 27. Other OS versions are unverified.
- WiFi requires human-confirmed SAS pairing, then uses TLS-PSK plus receiver-first protocol-v3 proofs that bind the primary and audio connections to one active receiver session.
- The receiver permits one active primary across all paired identities. Same- or cross-identity replacement is rejected until explicit disconnect, connection loss, or the 5-second liveness timeout.
- USB/usbmux traffic is plaintext, accepted only from structural loopback peers, and uses a fresh per-connection session seed for the v3 proof. The seed binds one primary connection and its channels; it does not authenticate a human or paired Mac identity against a locally compromised device. The UI therefore labels such sessions generically as “USB Mac.”
- The manual host/port endpoint is plaintext and is intended only for trusted loopback-style tunnels.
- TLS-PSK has no forward secrecy. A valid or stolen PSK may claim an idle receiver first (causing a temporary lockout) or impersonate a receiver to the Mac; session binding prevents silent takeover of an already active receiver but does not provide key revocation or PFS. Prefer USB for sensitive use.