Microsoft Banning 360 Firmware Modders?

arcon5 writes "After several months of silence it was more or less accepted that Microsoft wasn't going to do anything about the firmware hacks that allow Xbox 360s to play backups. Rather surprising, considering the 'inventor' of the hack confirmed in March already that the mods are easily detectable, and the reports that piracy is running rampant in countries like China. It appears that Microsoft is finally taking action against them though, although they may be hitting the wrong persons." Best part of that article is the firmware chip encased in epoxy.

Banning 360 modders?

That's a lot of modders, but it's not really that big compared to their entire subscriber base. Wonder why they bothered.

Re:

So where's the TPM module that validates the firmware???

What a gloriously stupid assumption...

"After several months of silence it was more or less accepted that Microsoft wasn't going to do anything about the firmware hacks that allow Xbox 360s to play backups..."

How naive must someone be to think that silence on the part of a corporation equates to a tacit approval for people to circumvent a piece of hardware's embedded security system in order to run pirated copies of software?

Re:What a gloriously stupid assumption...

How naive must someone be to think that silence on the part of a corporation equates to a tacit approval for people to circumvent a piece of hardware's embedded security system in order to run pirated copies of software?

Where in that sentence you quote does it say that they thought the silence was 'tacit approval'. There's a large difference between 'not going to do anything about it' and 'tacit approval'.

I might not do anything about someone's propensity to emit noxious gas from their butthole in my presence, but that doesn't mean that I have given my 'tacit approval' for them to rip huge farts while standing in the same room with me.

Re:

Yeah except that copyright includes fairuse. Don't like it? Then PROPERLY LICENSE your software (e.g. have the purchaser sign an agreement when they buy a copy of the game...).

Re:

No.

Historically, archival copies were allowed and expected to be allowed. No medium is impervious to aging and wear. Some media can be damaged by using them.

Paying $5 (or 5 cents) for the right--and it is still a legal and moral* right to keep archival cop

Pointless?

I thought there was already a chip out that allowed you to turn on/off the modded firmware on the dvd-rom.

Seems like the modders are always one step ahead.

Re:

Not on the 360... yet... although I don't know the details of this particular hack. Even several of the physical on/off switch modchips were eventually able to be detected or thwarted by Microsoft code updates.

Re:Pointless?

Uhh...no...physical switch chips can not be detected as long as they are off. I'm assuming your speaking of the original Xbox modchips here. Even software switch chips can't be detected on it as long as they are done right. The problem people ran into on the original Xbox was that they would initially sign onto Live with the stock HD, play for a while, put a chip in, switch the HD, and after a while MS began looking at HD serials. You were usually ok if you were never on Live before switching the HD, but many went on with a stock driver first, then switched their drive. I personally prefer the old Xbox since pirates could only play with legitimate games on Live and you could do a hellll of allot more with it than you can with the 360.

slashdotted

After several months of silence it was more or less accepted that Microsoft wasnt going to do anything about the firmware hacks that allow Xbox 360s to play backups. Rather surprising, considering the inventor of the hack confirmed in March already that th

Re:slashdotted

but that would be plain silly since MAC addresses are known not to be unique:

Uh... no. MAC addresses are supposed to be unique. Prototype hardware notwithstanding, you are prohibited from ever shipping Ethernet hardware in which the MAC address is not unique. Of course that doesn't mean you (as the user) can't change the MAC address in software so that it is no longer unique, but the address assigned to the hardware by the factory is, by definition, globally unique.

Re:

Which is not to mention that even if the MAC address never hit the wire as part of the protocol, MS could easily pass it as part of the conversation that goes on when connecting to XBox Live (just like I assume they also pass the serial number, dashboard v

Re:

In fact MS has used the MAC address when forming Globally Unique IDs in the past.

At one point the easiest way for a program in Windows to get the MAC address of its main network connection was to get the systems GUID.

Not surprising that they might continue

No content

Whoever wrote this doesn't have a understanding of how this hack works. Their simplification doesn't accurately portray how this hack works.

From the article:
The fundamental problem with the firmware hack is that it's a so-called Man in the Middle attack on the system's security. Imagine a phone call between 2 English speaking people, and you've got control over the line in between. By cutting in at the right moments, you can make it appear to one of the participants that the other one is saying something to him, but it's actually you saying something else and making him believe that it's a valid response. That's a simplified explanation of how the hacked firmware works: it lies to the 360 kernel about what the disc is saying about its authenticity. Now imagine if both the speakers on that phone line suspected you were in the middle, and switched to speaking a slightly modified dialect. If you're still breaking in with the original dialect, it's easily detectable that you're trying to fool around. Back to the 360, since Microsoft still has absolute control over disc contents and the kernel code, they can simply change the dialect on both sides and thus detect firmware hacks. If they wish, they can take any action they want upon detection, ranging from the simple Xbox Live ban to even bricking your 360 or disabling it to run any newly released games.

Wrong. You are completely compromising the one end of the conversation. it doesn't hijack the communication at all. The dvd drive has been completely compromised and it can speak whatever dialect you make it speak.

The way of authenticating a disc is already set and can't be drastically changed without significant changes to the dvd drive and all currently pressed discs. Its like trying to change away from CSS after you already have a ton of DVD players sold. The hack has been upgraded alot since its initial release and is much more difficult to detect. In its latest form you can't even read out the dvd firmware using the chipset commands.

Re:No content

Or Spanish either, apparently.

it worked before

ms dont really care about pirates, because the consumer buys some part of their family of products. allow people to copy 70% of the system and you sell 30% to a much wider audience.

Can someone repost the text of the entire article?

My open source XBOX-360 Web Browser doesn't render Flash yet.

It's fishy

Here's the Original Xbox.com post [xbox.com] about it. It seems very fishy for a few reasons:

First, he's hiding his played games [xbox.com]. That's a very very rare thing to do, because it's just not necessary. Who cared what games you've played, unless you've modded something?

Second, he's got a Gamerscore of 77103. For those who don't have a 360, each game is given a budget of 1000 Gamerpoints which can be unlocked however the game publisher wants - usually it's points-per-level, or for unlocking things in the game. Xbox Live Arcade games get a budget of 200. Gamerankings.com gives me a total of 66 games released for the Xbox 360. That's 66,000 possible points if he finished anything and everything - and most of the games are nigh impossible for any mortal to get all 1000 points on.

Lastly, he's currently playing Cars online as I type. That game is not scheduled to be shipped until tomorrow the 31st, in-stores probably November 1st. If this were the only thing odd I'd just attribute it to a broken street date, but considering all the factors it sounds like he is using a not-quite-ethical way to play games in a way Microsoft didn't intend.

Re:

Ethical according to whose ethics?

Re:

Or to be more precise, not-quite-ethical according to whose ethics?

Yes, the preview button is my friend.

"Backups" re-defined

Reading the article cached at mirrordot [mirrordot.org]

Amusing that the article has the word "backup" with a handy little tooltip thing which pops up and defines backups as meaning "Pirated games downloaded from the internet or sold cheaply"

Re:

Piracy in china is also known as "market share."

No, it's not. Market share is a measure of percentage of annual sales, not annual piracy.

Re:

They are. I regularly buy software recommended to me by someone who isn't a programmer who has pirated it. I recommend it to the next fellow if it's any good. Sometimes, when I say I like software, people listen to me. I don't know why, really. Maybe

Re:

I'm going to repeat a comment I made the other day: Just because you think piracy is "free advertising" doesn't mean software companies should give up all their intellectual property and copyrights.

Re:

Unfortunately for them, they dont get the choice in the matter.