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In parallel efforts, hackers in both the Xboxhacker and Doom9 forums have exposed the "Volume ID" for discs played on XBOX 360 HD DVD drives. Any inserted disc will play without first authenticating with AACS, even those with Volume IDs which have already been revoked by the AACS LA due to previous hacking efforts. Add the exposed processing keys and you can decrypt and backup your discs for playback on any device of your choosing. Now go ahead AACS LA, revoke the Toshiba-built XBOX 360 HD DVD player... we double-dog dare ya.

The problem is with the solder joints. After many cycles of heating up and cooling down they just lose contact. The most common error to get is three red lights on the console and if you check the error code it will be 0102.

It's fixable if you're good with a heat gun (for soldering jobs). The error is very common - and it's not just from one batch. Microsoft will have to admit to this error again and again in the months to come.

How to fix it yourself: http://www.xboxhacker.net/forums/index.php?topic=1 193.0

Yeah. That has worked out for them so well.

This post would look much better without the link domains showing.

RTFA, please. The "hackers" would prefer a legally signed bootloader, since it would not have the side effect of allowing pirated games to run on the Xbox. That's why they aren't releasing their mods right away - they're giving M$ the chance to do the right thing. And actually, you can already boot linux without a modchip; see here for details.

It's on the front page of xbox-scene right now and here and you can download it here

I have heard of the 007 save game exploit, but this is the first I've heard of MechAssault having a similar exploit.

I just checked XBoxHacker but there's no reference to it there that I could find. (I don't check the latest XBox hacking new very often, so that's why I only know of one site to check.) Do you have any references to the new exploit?

You can do it without modifying it, but you need a memory card to store the code that executes the exploit. Also, the memory card trick works ONLY for running Linux, not other games or Xboxmediaplayer :(

See this link for more.

This thing sounds like crap. All they keep doing is harping on the port blockers for the kiddies. The Xbox media player does all this and more.

Oh, and someone HAS figured out how to run Linux on an UNMODDED XBOX! I submitted the story yesterday, but...

No. Original software was written to exploit the bug. (It's the "included zip file" from the announcement). You can't simply copy any old executable code onto the memcard and expect the game to load it- the hacker composed a special, magic header block to smash stack, fool signing, or something.

That software is "a tool"- and unlike 077AUF, it was designed with the explicit purpose of evading Microsoft's code-signing checks- which are a "copy protection mechanism"!

Go back and read the post more closely:

"...Basically there is a bug in the save handling, which has been found in several games, I just took 007 because only one save is needed for both US and PAL game version - for other games you usually need two (or even more)."

Here's the announcement in a forum...

Due to a few..."parties" pressuring us if you will, we decided to halt the project to stop any legal troubles. We have said from the beginning that if any pressure was put upon us, the project wouldn't go any further. Well, too bad. we managed to check nearly a billion key, and ranked a good 1.5 years of CPU time in only a few days. thanks to all who participated - and a special thanks to those special people who pumped out amazing packet rates for XboxHacker.net

A billion! So they only had a bazillion gajillion to go.

Main Site ( 1.0.600-Xbx
& 576 Stable) Canada

Mirror 1 (1.0.600) Xbox-Scene.com
Mirror 2 (1.0.600) Xboxhacker.net
Mirror 3 (1.0.600) Xboxhackz.net
Mirror 4 (1.0.600) Canada

Mirror 5 - (Sponsored by AMD Users) (1.0.600) United States

Mirror 6 -(Accueilli près support-fr.com) (1.0.515 Stable) - France
Mirror 7 -(Accueilli près SecuriteInfo.com) (1.0.515 Stable) - France

Links to download the Windows Client 1.0.600 (Stable). (Taken from http://www.theneoproject.com/dloads.html)

Main Site - (1.0.600-Xbx & 576 Stable) Canada
Mirror #1 (1.0.600) Xbox-Scene.com
Mirror #2 (1.0.600) Xboxhacker.net
Mirror #3 (1.0.600) Xboxhackz.net
Mirror #4 (1.0.600) Canada
Mirror #5 (Sponsored by AMD Users) (1.0.600) United States

Site claims a Linux client will be available in February.

it's being worked on already, and basically as you've said - there's an eeprom that holds the serial number, and it can be reprogrammed with a different serial number. the suggestion of "flooding" m$ with hacked serials has been brought up, but i suppose the success of that will depend on how acurate m$'s database of known xbox serial #s is.

well, what about the latest hacked modchips? correct me if i'm wrong, but weren't those from a few guys in australia? i'd check my facts, but the link (and in fact all of xboxhacker.net) in the original story has mysteriously disappeared, making me wonder if they or their provider were served with cease and desists...

Here's a thread you need to study.

But xboxhacker.net also seems to be down. Coincindence or M$ ploy to wipe out all modchip sites?

The thread the article mentions can be found here for those that are interested. There's links to pictures of the new Xbox motherboard too. Sounds like all that's needed is a few tweaks to the hacked BIOS image and everyone will be back in business. My bet is that any new protection will be defeated before the new units even appear in stores in North America. Sometimes I wonder why Microsoft even bothers.

XboxHacker.net and Xbox-Scene will update you.

The X-ecuter modchip is one (tough) wire, 10 easy solderpoints (no wires, pcb to pcb). You boot the box with the Evo-X cdrw, after that you install what you want via FTP to the box (Evo-X includes an FTPd) and off you go, running everything you want from the harddrive (which you can switch for a new 120Gb if you want).

It has already been discussed by people active in looking at the X-Box here, including a comment by bunnie, the original Hacking God. The current feeling is that until they stop using a commodity CPU, whatever they do can be worked around in greater or lesser time.

http://www.xboxhacker.net/

The BIOS hacking forums there is a focus of efforts to reverse-engineer the X-Box for the purpose of allowing Linux to run on it.

In the last few weeks we have successfully recovered the RC4 key used to encrypt the second bootloader in the BIOS, this has led to discoveries about the PIC chip that have allowed a minimal clean BIOS to run for the first time.

I also run a site at http://warmcat.com/milksop which has a variety of GPL hardware designs that are of use in getting the X-Box to run Linux (although they have many other applications).

On the prize, I worry it will change the ethos of people working towards this goal, which until now has shown the best side of people with a common, righteous purpose working together.

He frequents the Xbox hacker msesage boards. Heres what else he had to say about Microsoft in this post...

"To answer some specific questions:

no, I will not publish the encryption key or the boot block. That's Microsoft copyright material, and I respect their copyright.

Microsoft is not particularly happy about the paper, but they seemed to concede that well, reverse engineering is protected by law, so there's nothing they can do about it. Let's hope they don't change their opinion...they've been known to go back on their word before. "

also, from his website...

"You are actually allowed by law to reverse engineer copyrighted code so long as it is necessary to discover the ideas or functional elements behind the code (still, I'm not allowed to post copyrighted code for free distribution). Hey, microsoft...what are the ideas and functional elements behind your BIOS ROM? ... hmm...patent search turns up nil on the Xbox...guess we'll just have to reverse engineer it. (FTR, Nintendo has patented what looks to be the entirety of the N64 console, thus perchance making reverse engineering an N64 illegal--not yet court tested.)"

I quote from a posting to XBOXHACKER that quotes "I did the work in february, but it took about three months to get it positioned and cleared with both MIT and Microsoft."

I guess that means the DMCA was not violated although the posting mentions that Microsoft intend on addressing these 'holes' in future revisions of XBOX hardware.

The XBox uses the IDE password mechanism to prevent you from dropping the drive into a PC and reading it, but if you connect the drive to the PC *after* the XBox has unlocked it (without resetting the drive), then you can read from it. Course your PC BIOS didn't see it at boot so you need to write custom software to talk to it.. but that's been done..

The folks at xboxhacker are very determined. It's fun to watch.

Considering what is known in the XBox reverse engineering world right now, I am absolutely shocked (and pleasantly so) that someone has come up with an emulator so quickly. First of all, XBoxHacker reports that the BIOS has four copies of itself and a whole host of protections to make sure that hackers don't try to overwrite it with their own code. Secondly, the BIOS boot code is hidden somewhere and isn't actually in the BIOS that the processor chip sees when it starts up at FFFF:FFF0; the community surmises it's in a hidden ROM somewhere, which is making reverse engineering a much more difficult task.

I would love to know how these guys did it--and I'm not going to rule out that someone provided them with the XDK or a whole host of internal docs to accomplish this.

At any rate, massive, massive props. I'll bet Microsoft has visited that site a few times in the last couple days. ;-)

It may suck for all you Linux lovers to have to admit this, but Micro$oft put togther a nice machine in the XBOX.

Actually, the two are totally unrelated. I am very pro-Linux on the desktop, because in my opinion it is a superior OS to Windows, and because MS has a monopoly their (I don't like monopolies). However, MS doesn't have a monopoly in the console world, far from it. So in that sense it really is the outsider in that very different market. So there really is no reason why a Linux "lover" couldn't or shouldn't own an Xbox.

Anyway, I'm getting an Xbox + Halo next week and playing it on the internet through my Linux LAN, proof that the two can coexist... Also, I may try one day to put Linux on my Xbox (when it will be reasonably safe to do so... it's still quite an expensive toy to mess around with).

Not that I don't think this thing is really cool, but the name Lik-Sang rang a few bells in my head. I have not dealt with them directly, but I have heard a number of reports, many of them on XBoxHacker.net, of Lik-Sang screwing up orders and shipping faulty equipment. One story had Lik-Sang shipping a faulty device out to a customer, who then sent it back only to have his same device returned to him.

Once again, I cannot stress enough that I have not dealt with Lik-Sang ever, but that I have heard enough tales from dissatisfied customers that I would exercise a lot of caution with their products or reports.

This stepping-stone to a secure operating system is sometimes called "Secure Boot."

It's also called the xbox.

That's why there are folks attacking the BIOS of the xbox (search your favorite p2p network for xbox.bin), trying to figure out how to boot unsigned software, over at xboxhacker