Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to Hire Xbox Hackers?
handsomepete writes "According to PlanetXbox, Microsoft is looking to hire 'software design engineers' to look into the properties of modchips and detection code for hardware. A background in game hacking knowledge is listed as a preferred talent. Will any of the Xbox Linux participants take a stab at this job?"
It probably says something about the employee being neutered and lobotomized on page 16 paragraph 9f.
that any employment contract would forbid them from working on any of the XBox projects out there already, such as the XBox Linux Project, or from even disseminating any information they learn whatsoever. Maybe MS is trying to gut these projects before anything else is accomplished?
"Bold as Love"
why would an xbox-LINUX hacker want to take a job at MICROSOFT? so they can help M$ stop the xbox-linux hackers from acheiving their goals? fat chance...
yeah, so they can take em' down from the inside!
Wonder if Microsoft have been in contact with Fairlight yet..
The Xbox is really just the pilot program for palladium. Once all the security holes are patched, Microsoft will then use what they've learned (after patenting it, of course) to create the most difficult-to-hack DRM PC standard.
Let's just hope sellout hackers aren't as good as not-for-profit hackers.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
As soon as someone provides something innovative to the community, there goes MS buying up all the talent so that they die a quiet death in one of the gray offices in Redmond.
When will they finally see that the best way to improve MS is to allow the Open Source developer community free rein in order to come out with more and more brilliant ideas and concepts?
Wearing pants should always be optional.
After hacking games since those Atari times, at last I get a job oportunity! :)
:(
Mom is already crying because I wont be home all day long!
Which will be larger... the XBox, or the hackers hired to break it?
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
Ackbar: "It's a trap!"
-Matt
Will any of the Xbox Linux participants take a stab at this job?
Why? So they can be part of the winning team that kills modchips forever?
no thanks.
[I cam sure that others could cook up something like this, a poster or something, with far greater finesse than this quick effort]
Then You may qualify to Become a Minion for his Satanic Majesty today
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
We should ask the new microsoft employee to answer the 10 best questions in ASK SLASHDOT section!
That would be fun, question No. 1
q 1.- Are you forbidden to disclose your real name?
a 1.- yep!
from the job application...
1. Do you have expertise with modification chips?
2. If so, do you know other people who have your level of expertise with these chips?
3. If you answered yes to number 3, provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses of all of these people. We're interested in prosecuting^H^H^H^H^H contacting them.
What better way to beat the mod chip makers then to recruit them.
"BS in Computer Science or Computer Engineering required."
There's hacking classes in college? Somebody needs to smack the entire H.R. dept. for weeding out a lot of talented folks.
-Lucas
M$ has the master plan to create "unhackable" devices. This can not be done through removing the current generation of hackers from the equation. But even if they succeed they are not going to get rid of the problem of cracking and piracy. By introducing "safe" computing platforms they are going to make the problem worse.
Someone WILL work out a way of controling the "unhackable" device. But because that device will be trusted they would then have the power of causing more damage then now as there will be fewer safeguards higher up the chain.
Anyway, it could be a cool job as long as there is no contractual sideffects, ie "Thou shalt not own xbox or work for competition in the forseeable future because thou knoweth of the secret M$ back door blah blah blah...". If you are already into hardware modding I think its unlikely that you'd get to do anything new at M$ though.
Like it or not, software companies do need to turn a profit to keep on working and paying salaries and stuff. And when you start making game consoles, all your profits are from selling the games.
If you want a computer, get a computer. It won't cost much more, and works so much better as a computer. Game consoles are inherently different beasts - I know from various gaming friends that we who prefer computer games never see eye-to-eye in terms of what makes a good game with the people who prefer console games. And the name of the game with a console is being exclusive. Computers are designed to do everything under the moon with the right program. Consoles only run games, and only those specifically made for it. There's a reason they don't publish API's for a game console.
If you made Halo for computers, no one would by Xbox's, and much fewer people would be buying the game (for the computer). Consoles simply are not computers, and I don't think we should treat them as such. PDA's are much closer to computers then game consoles.
I don't think Microsoft is too concerned about the Xbox Linux Project. :)
The coolest voice ever.
..they won't do it. And if they do, they will no longer be Linux Xbox hackers. They will be, Microsoft developers. (what kinda question was that anyway?)
Turbine Entertainment, who make Asheron's Call (Microsoft's MMORPG offering), have been hiring the people who hack it for quite some time now. Turns out if you are able to hack the system, sometimes you're a bigger expert on it than the people who made it!
(No joke... Todd Berkbile, AC's lead systems programmer now, came from "Todd's Hacking Zone" -- and he's modified some core systems that his predecessors were scared to touch due to flammability.)
This came out about the same time as the Halo 2 Trailer. It requires Windows Media Player 9 beta, showing that M$ doesn't care. Then again, Linux software is just fine, and lots of it is beta. The "beta" M$ software is the same as the "full" stuff anyway!
This is a perfect opportunity to get a decent hacker inside Microsoft.
Sometimes to defeat the beast, you have to get into the "belly of the beast".
It is sad admission for Microsoft to put out this help wanted sign and admit that they don't already have the inhouse talent to deal with this problem. After all the XBOX is x86 architecture and no-one should do x86 better than the Microsoft.
If any XBOX hacker does decide to take this job and relocate to Redmond, whatever you do, don't sign your IP (Intellectual Property) rights away. That is the paper that states that Microsoft will own any thought you have past, present, or future just because they hired you at some point. Then when you quit, they can't threaten to sue you over every email and code post. You'll be FREE of the beast.
Once you are inside and have them believing you have turned to the darkside, we still need the source code for Windows 2000 and Windows NT so we can figure out exactly what a PDC (Primary Domain Controller) is doing. Also, we will need a back door engineering into the Palladium hardware so we can run all our Opensource rippers and players as trusted code on the x86 architecture.
And remember boys and girls, "Security is an illusion!"
I just pictured this conversation in my head:
Minion: Sir?
Head of XBox Development: Yes?
Minion: We've been hearing reports of people hacking the XBox. Apparently its quite easy.
Head of XBox Development: (rubs temples) Alright. How many do you think there are?
Minion: Pardon?
Head of XBox Development: How many developers?
Minion: Oh. Couldn't be more than 30, sir.
Head of XBox Development: (breathes a sigh of relief) That's all? You had me worried for a minute there. Is the alligator pit and trapdoor working?
Minion: Yes sir. I just had maintenence check it over this morning.
Head of XBox Development: Excellent. And the other alligators?
Minion: The lawyers? Already creating reasonable doubt.
Head of XBox Development: Good. Alright, post a job offer with a handsome salary. Make sure you put the word "hacker" in it.
Minion: I'll get right on that-
Head of XBox Development: One more thing!
Minion: Yes, sir?
Head of XBox Development: Make sure slashdot finds out. Wouldn't want to miss any developers, now would we?
Minion: (smiles evilly) No, sir. I'll give our friends over there a call.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
MS is making an offer, these people are free to ignore them or take it. What right do you have telling people who they should be allowed to work for?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
...need to lose the title "hacker" or "geek" for life. You will be joining a company were the VP in charge of their number one product (Windows) admitted to God and everybody that they suck. His excuse is "We all suck". I take great offense that, we do NOT all suck and I guarantee that you will never, never, NEVER find me touching a button for this organization if I live to 10 billion years!
There's hacking classes in college? Somebody needs to smack the entire H.R. dept. for weeding out a lot of talented folks.
I distinctly remember taking a Linux kernel hacking class when I was in college which amongst other things included hacking Linux on the iPaq. I also seem to remember that one of my group members was in a video game class at the same time which included projects such as hack Quake I.
Perhaps the unnamed patron of the Linux X Box project is microsoft itself. They have been known to have an odd way of conducting job interview, this being an interview process similar to Halflife's.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
If you can't beat them,
Hire them.
Dear Microsoft, Please define "game hacking knowledge."
"The chief enemy of creativity is 'good taste'" -Pablo Picasso
Is that were in an economic depression. One thing is for sure - if I was into xbox hacking and I had a CS degree (I don't - I was a social studies major) I would be applying. Judging by the last job fair (where it reminded me of getting into a insanely popular night club) here in Portland I think there's going to be a lot of CS/Engineer people applying too.
:).
This is doubly so if you live in Oregon, Washington or California - where unemployment is still 1st, 2nd and 3rd highest in the nation respectively.
I mean its either that or going to work for stream international
I am fully qualified for the position you have listed. In fact, I may be one of the most qualified applicants around. I have been hacking copy protect mechanisms since I was 7. I have something to tell you. You have heard this before from people just like me, but you have not listened.
You do not seem to realize that what you are doing, in your attempts to introduce completely 'trusted' computers, is evil. I'm not referring to your usual misguided 'save the world by taking it over' style of evil, I'm talking more of a killing kittens for fun kind of evil. You are, whether it is your intention or not, going to remove general purpose computing from the hands of the non-experts, and they won't know enough to stop you. Depending on your success I forsee one of two final results. The likeliest option is that you go out of business in 80 years, because your 'innovations' stunt the technological development of an entire generation and alienate those few who are intelligent enough to have become programmers anyways. In this case, you will set back humanity's development by hundreds of years. Or, alternately, you drive your existing user base to other platforms and go out of business in 5 years. I doubt you will allow the second option to happen.
I have not participated in the efforts to hack your hardware (XBox) previously because I did not want to support you by purchasing one. Now, I see the light. I, with the help of other slashdotters, have realized that the XBox is just a test run of your trusted computing initiatives. It is a chance for you to find the bugs in your system and fix them on a platform which attracts hackers, yet presents no serious loss when it is hacked. I have no doubt in my mind that if you manage to perfect this architecture you will waste no time in implementing it in desktop PCs and using your monopoly power to force a significant number of users over to it.
Therefore, this is my notice to you. I will not let you succeed. I am qualified for your position, but I will not be applying. I will be adding my intelligence to the effort to stop you, and I will succeed. And if I do not, it does not matter. Because I am not alone. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all. And, in the end, you will lose. I promise.
-JM
101010
(Posted anonymously because Microsoft's lawyers are more expensive than mine.)
When I got my first job last summer, I flat out refused to sign anything but the paper giving them the right to deposit my paycheck.
I still got the job. I doubt M$ would accept that.
Try signing John Doe to those documents, see if anyone notices.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
In MS speak, 'apply' and 'submit' are synonymous. No one ever 'applies' to work for MS. You 'submit' to the collective.....remember? This page starts the brainwashing and indoctrination up-front.
/. - I mean MS.
Note a mouseover on the submit button does use the word 'apply'. But why-oh-why doesn't someone check these things...oh, wait..this is
Has anyone thought of taking these jobs and deliberately doing a really crap job? Do it so poorly that they never succeed ;)
;)
I wonder if anyone is a sick and twisted as me.
In Australia at the moment they have jobs going for "anti linux and anti SUN" people. The job advertisments specifically mention limiting the growth of linux and solaris in the "responsibilities" section of the job description.
get the job, take the cash, and then go around promoting linux on Microsoft's money
lounge around on the blue couch
fascism Pronunciation Key (fshzm)
n.
1. often Fascism
1. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
2. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
A number of games in Japan (and even a few in the US) included 'modchip detection' code that would prevent the game from working on Playstation consoles with modchips installed. Of course, the "protection" could be easily bypassed with either a Gameshark (or similar device) or with a crack applied to a CD image of the game. The result was that gamers who used modchips solely to play legally purchased imports were out of luck while the pirates could continue on without problems. Might have even pushed a few to the 'dark side'.
I suspect that any modchip detection code in the XBox will have a similar effect.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
"How is the hacker extermination plan going ?"
"As soon as we've rounded up the most desperate
and the geediest, we'll suck their brains out
and present them to your Filthyness in a cocktail
glass with novelty umbrella!"
"Good. Proceed."
"Right, saw right throught that ceiling and
nail their asses !!
Make sure someone signs a receipt before leaving !"
"oooh those live pictures of those free
thinkers getting busted had me soil my
StayDrys I was so excited!!!"
Can I take my Game Genie to the interview?
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
not Carmen
In the center of the caverns of hell. hidden under layers of evil that have thrived for centurie, sits the morbid domain of the prince of the power of the air. Suddenly, a scaly creature disrupts Satan's ghastly existence with an urgent message. It reads, "Code red problem, conference needed, disaster forecasted!" With a disgusted annoyance this general of evil agrees to confer with his chief demon lieutenant. This is the story of that encounter:
Satan: You may enter.
Demon: My Lord Satan.
Satan: State your business and make it fast.
Demon: Sir, we're having problems of cataclysmic proportions.
Satan: Where?
Demon: In the east sector, sir. The damage is vast.
Satan: Is there something wrong with my abortion clinics?
Demon: No sir that's all fine, we kill 4,000 unborn a day through, shall we say, surgical removal. It's selective breeding, we eliminate human life in the name of convenience like the Nazis and the Jews and with the government's approval.
Satan: Is there a problem with my pet project television violence?
Demon: Sir, it's covered from videos to cartoons. By the time a child graduates high school he's seen 70,000 murders.
Satan: Is this effective enough?
Demon: Sir, just watch the news.
Satan: Is there a disturbance in my false religions?
Demon: No sir business is booming, over 40 million are into New Age and Zen, over 45 million believe in astrology.
Satan: Looks like we're catching up.
Demon: Yes sir, only 50 million claim to be born again.
Satan: Is there a problem with business in general?
Demon: Sir, we're showing tremendous progress, teenage runaways each year a million or more, there's a teen suicide every ninety minutes and your specialty drunk driving will claim more lives this year than the whole Vietnam War.
Satan: Well, is there a disturbance in my...what was that?
Demon: Sir that's the reason all these demons are on crutches and wobbling.
Satan: What's going on?
Demon: Sir that's what I've been trying to tell you.
Satan: What is that?
Demon: Sir, that is our problem.
Satan: Only one thing causes warfare of this magnitude.
Demon: Then sir you know what we're dealing with up there.
Satan: Yes, it's some of those sanctified
Demon: Try blood bought
Satan: Spirit filled
Demon: Saints of God
Satan: Actually
Demon: Presently
Satan & Demon: On their knees in prayer~
Demon: Sir, they're literal holy terrors, they bind us, cast us out. Then they do those disgusting charismatic jigs. They quote scriptures like the Son of God, and sir if you don't intervene we all might wind up in a bunch of pigs.
Demon: Sir, that's the good news, the bad news is the subject of their prayers that threatens our survival. What they're praying for is causing hemorrhaging in the realms of darkness.
Satan: And the bad news is?
Demon: They're praying for revival!
Satan: I hate revival! It just erupts, it's hardly controllable. At the Azusa Street outpouring things got rough.
Demon: Yes sir and when the charismatic movement hit, sir, we were jumping out of windows with all that "untie my bowtie who stolla my honda" stuff.
Satan: Then, I'll come in like a flood.
Demon: But they'll say the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against you.
Satan: OOOOOHH.
Demon: It's written in the Word.
Satan: I'll form weapons against them.
Demon: Sir, no weapon formed against them shall prosper, that's in the Bible too.
Satan: Yes, I've heard. I'll hit them every filthy, lusty thought you could imagine.
Demon: But it's written resist the devil and he must flee.
Satan: Obviously our opponents are taking the battle more seriously than we are.
Demon: And that's very dangerous, sir. Especially for me.
Satan: It's time to launch my final most vicious attack. I'll remind the saints of their past. How they were liars, cheaters, manipulators and moochers.
Demon: But sir, you know what will happen if you remind the saints of their past.
Satan: And what is that?
Demon: Sir, they'll just remind you of your future.
Satan: NOOOOOO
Found on this page: http://www.geocities.com/ninthsaturn/rev.html
Nice touch, blaming seeing dramatised murders for causing actual ones.
I have more dicipline in my left nut than most BS holders will ever have. I spent 10 years in the navy and then I learned to code. The navy taught me the dicipline required to teach myself. The result is that I am far stronger than most. I was fragging ragheads in IRAQ when most of you thought you were learning to program. The best programmers I have encountered are self taught. School is for individuals that do not have the dicipline, motivation and or desire to learn on their own.
What is slashdot soo incredibly lame that It now even helps microsoft get staff ? sheesh, a new level of lameness has been reached.
Fortune Magazine lists Microsoft as one of the best companies in the world to work for.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
I read this somewhere before, and perhaps it bears restating. Maybe we need to set up a web site with a Hippocratic Oath of sorts for things we WILL NOT DO, like creating software and standards that take away freedoms. Perhaps a "Hall of Shame" as well for those who break the oath?
by advertising it. duh.
Is like fucking for virginity.
Karma: Non-Heinous
monster to overeat so either it explodes or falls asleep so that someone can come in and kill it... That and the parable of the weeds Matt 13:24
Am I the only one that see's the reality of sense this way ? Hands UP, I fucking HATE Zealots. Morons, the lot of em. Microsoft Does not stifle creativity nor innovation in ANY_FUCKING_WAY what so ever. Microsoft does go a *little* over board,at times, but that is just fucking nature. LOGIC. or are you telling me you wouldn't want to protect something you worked ALL YOUR FUCKING LIFE on ? Of course YOU would. The Only real thing that STOPS innovation or creativity is YOU. all that usefull energy you spent bitching at microsoft, could have gone into making linux better. But you see, one thing is allready defined. Microsoft has allready won, because the one thing people praise linux for, is the one single thing microsoft is good at.
STANDARDISATION. and that's why linux will never 'win' this pathetic game against microsoft.
Lindows(.com) and Unitedlinux.com ~ are about the only 2 distributions of linux that stand a vague Chance of succeeding against the 'evil beast'. because they know that fact allready.
Until linux is re-engineered and simplified and standardised even more, from the ground up, linux will never 'win'. it's that simple.
Microsoft may not be the best, they may not be kindest, but one thing they do have is organisation. Linux, DOSEN'T. End of story. Nothing more than A toy for hackers and web servers.
In an interview several years ago in boot magazine:
"This is my view of the people who work at Microsoft: You have a choice. You have to realize that what you're doing is bad for the industry. If you're doing stuff that you don't even agree with and do it for the money- we have a word for that: Whore."
Dickhead. People like you stifle creative freedom and not microsoft. get a grip man.
because I'd really like to know who you are because I had a rather similar thought...there just weren't enough backspaces.
You point, then you take modchip!
You will be receiving a bill for my services shortly.
--
BitTorrent in C -- LibBT
http://www.sf.net/projects/libbt
are going to defect and apply to MS? Every crowd has their weak minded and greedy. Which one of you will it be that will work to destroy freedom? pray none of you. for the good of us all. and the dignity of Slashdot.
If you're unwilling to put in the time and effort to learn all about computer science, even the hard parts you hoped to avoid by just getting a job out of high school, then you honestly aren't worth hiring.
Think about it. You are an employer, you see 10 people. 8 of them have degrees, maybe 4 of those are masters, and one of those is a Phd. Do you even consider the lamer just out of high school who doesn't have the work ethic or dedication to even do university? Do you think that lamer will be able to actually meet deadlines?
Plus you're forgoing all you'll ever learn in university, be it from a book, from a prof, or from another student. That's years of life experience you say to your potential employer that you don't want.
Really, for a group of people who like to talk down about stupid people and ignorance, a lot of geeks seem to just want to skip the hard part where they have to learn because they can't coast anymore. That's a disgusting attitude to have towards knowledge.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
the monster is coming to eat you
"Buy 'em out, boys!" -- Bill Gates on The Simpsons
This happens in all sorts of industries, especially satellite. It's a cat a mouse game of who's hackers are better, the broadcaster's or the guy in the backroom shop selling satellite cards. It's merely a who can come up with the hardest to crack hack competition..
What the fuck makes this a troll?
I didnt write the post myself, but its clearly just some dudes opinion, and a valid one too.
yes, once our people are in place we will destroy them from within! it will take time, but the time will come.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
It seems like a great idea from MS' point of view... It'd be hard to prosecute them but most people are lured by the aspect of money.
n/m
So much talk for a job posting ? You guys are really mad ;)
Any organized band of scoundrels/miscreants and or social deviants (labeled as such by RIAA/MPAA/Xbox/etc) who can help deter the enemy should be hired especially in these economic times.
Of course, the "miscreants" - "tech hackers" should take this opportunity to place a mole/double agent right into the maw of the enemy and secretly trojan the entire setup or even spew forth secret Xbox plans and roadmaps to the resistance groups all over the world.
I foresee Xbox really gaining ground on the PS2 this winter. over 200 new titles due by the end of january of 2003 for Xbox. that is staggering.
If Xbox gets it pricepoint down to 150 bux, and gets Nintendo to make games exclusively for Xbox, the gamecube crowd will switch to Xbox and it will dent PS2 big time. M$ is smart and rich.. lets see this battle play out.. I don't doubt Microsoft dominating the home entertainment appliance market within 3-4 years.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies... on the payroll!
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
By continously posting regards MS, you do nothing but free ad for them.
I'm laughing at the people saying : "i am going to buy a XBox because if will hurt MS" ! This is nonsense. If you want to hurt MS do not always talk about their product. Do not say always why they are so bad ! Just say why a given alternative solution is great !
Instead of a XBox why not buy a Barebone with a GForce4 and put a regular linux on top of it for instance....
Choose the right action for the right goal !
4R34'.
NOOOO Don't give up, guys. Microsoft seems always to get what it wants...
I really hope that 'xbox hackers' will release their modifications and code under the GPL, thus crippling any effort Microsoft can do to 'embrace and extend' (a.k.a. 'steal') their code.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Some of the best programmers have tried and no single company has been able to succed. The only way to make a protection system work would be to play the game from a central server and use password protection, fingerprint, retinal scan and DNA samples before you can begin playing.
Pirating has helped some companies in gaining market and mindshare. Sony and Playstation come to mind as does Commodore 64, amiga and the PC. They wouldnt have left the ground if it hadnt been so darn easy to copy the games and apps.Imagine buying all applications on a normal PC without linux?
Should the PS1 have been as successful if it hadnt been modchipped and games pirated? I dont think so and the same goes for the PC. Install a working copy protection and your user base flies off to another platform instead.
HTTP/1.1 400
I wouldn't really call myself a zealot. I'm an engineer. I'll use whatever I think is best; whatever I like the best.
:)
I like IE best for webpages.
mIRC best for IRC
but
PAN best for newsgroups and
Evolution best for mail.
Gentoo is my favorite operating system, but I'll work for whoever will pay me to do stuff I love -work with math and tinker with computers.
It just seemed like an appropriate exercise in paranoia: big company hiring rivals DOES sound a bit suspicious, doesn't it?
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
someone just HAD to mention that damn xbox linux tripe. I mean its an article about the xbox, so obviously the linux project must be involved right? RIGHT!?
For example:
Now I'm not accusing all these people of necessarily selling out, but obviously, if you work with a company, you're less likely to speak frankly about how much it sucks (if only because you have to take into account the interests your employees/shareholders).
It's not about lock-in, it's about lock-out.
Nintendo and other console makers of cartridge-based console games have historically dealt with this issue in a rather straight-forward and obvious way: put a patented peice of the console hardware in the cartidge itself. Nintendo used to put the console MMU on a chip in the cartridge. This was a patented chip that you had to buy from them, and they would simply refuse to sell them to you, if you didn't pay license fees and enter into royalty contracts with them. This is the "dongle" approach.
This set the stage for the current console marketing model, where the console itself is sold as a loss-leader, and the cost of the hardware is subsidized by the royalties to the console maker from the games producer, with a fixed minimum number of games (everything past that point is profit).
This model breaks when it is very easy to copy the "cartridge" because all the "cartridge" contains is data -- as is the case with a CDROM.
The response to this is to deal with it using a CDROM with a data density that is high enough that copying is not an option for the user. That's the DVDROM.
It's pretty clear that what Microsoft is working towards here is the day when they can't rely on the data density distinction to protect the fact that their "cartridge" is only data.
Part of this strategy is to establish an umbilical back to "the mother ship", so that a cryptographic system can be hung of a peg that they have physical control over.
Part of dealing with this is to build a "dongle" into the machine itself (a unique console identifier), and to combine this with the "contact the mother ship" strategy, to endure that a given console can only run authorized software.
Indeed, this needs to be the end-goal of Palladium, as well; DVD content, if it were similarly protected, would be subject to the same controls, in terms of "authorized use".
Unfortunately, such a system permits an easy conversion from a "license purchase" system to a "subscription" or a "pay per use" system, with only a change on the server software side (specifically, you would log events, and could make a seperate "business rules" decision as to which events translated into events for the billing system).
This is actually what consumers need to be worried about; it is the thin edge of the wedge toward not being able to *own* something, rather than merely leasing it.
One has to wonder what lasting monuments, if any, are being built by modern society. The Romans built roads, and most of them, with modern repaving, are still in use today. The reniassance built ornate cathedrals.
Now compare that with, say, the "Riccochet" network, which, now that the company is out of business, has merely left so many useless artifacts clamped to municipal street lights. Motorolla has done the same thing with their satellite phone system, etc..
And now, we are on the verge of doing the same thing with books and movies.
-- Terry
if you can't beat them, then join them and... beat them.
if you can't beat them, then join them and... beat them.
along with cdrips of dvd console games... and with broadband.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
DVD-R does not have the same density as DVDROM, and won't, until multiple layer recording is supported by the writing hardware.
This is moderately irrlevant, in any case, since a DVD drive can detect the difference between a DVDROM and and a DVD-R (or DVD-RW) -- just use hardware in your box that's incapable of reading the recordable format, which is the same reason there is no single recordable format yet.
In the limit, it can be done by having a DVD-R or DVD-RW drive in the product itsel, and trying to write all 1's over the boot sector. If it's pirated software on writeable media, it's cooked.
These are just escalations of the situation without Palladium today, and we were talking about Microsoft hiring people to prototype Palladium in the X-Box to figure out how to make mod-chipping not work.
-- Terry
The ACM may not be all that pervasive in every computer science department, but considering that the ACM puts on many of the industry's biggest conventions, I'd venture to say that it binds (or rather ought to bind) a good number of the programmers out there.
I would argue that Trusted Computing violates section 1.1, "Contribute to society and human well-being."
Of course, I'd say a bunch of us violate section 1.5, "Honor property rights including copyrights and patent," so it kind of makes the point moot...
Please, for the sake of everything that is still good and decent in the world, DO NOT BREED!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Could Microsoft have been the anonymous donner?
Lets see,
Implement a security protocol,
People start hacking it
you could then
take them down
or
Offer them 200k to complete the job and make a less crackable version next time!
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
GameCube had what for a line-up? Star Wars, Luigi's Mansion, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Super Monkey Ball, and Tony Hawk 3 - All 5 star games. Sure you can hate a few of those, but not all of them, they outdo the XBox line-up twice fold in anycase. The games on the GameCube now blow away anything XBox will ever see, Resident Evil, Eternal Darkness, MARIO - And by the end of the year - Metroid, Star Fox, Zelda (delayed?), Final Fantasy Adventures, and more. The XBox as a console is dead in the water. Go to Best Buy and it's sharing shelf space with DREAMCAST of all things!
PS/2 had a great lineup as well, with titles like SSX.. And newer titles like FFX, GTA3, etc that keep the sales pounding.
If you are worried by all this MS stuff come and hack on the box MS can't close down - the Dreamcast. As well as Linux, we've got NetBSD, QNX and NewOS (Open BeOS clone to follow??)
Microsoft's corporate/campus mentality doesn't strike me as one that would welcome a "hacker/cracker" into its fold... especially a person that may have "broken" MS code.
Are you going to let her starve because of "morals"? If you don't have kids/a wife/pets/etc. I guess you're lucky enough to not have obligations. But for some (most) of us, responsiblity begins and ends with our families health and well being and never even gets near weather or not something is morally right or not.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
preview is AGoodThing
"As soon as someone provides something innovative to the community, there goes MS buying up all the talent so that they die a quiet death in one of the gray offices in Redmond."
Game hacking is neither Innovative, nor is Microsoft buying up all the talent.
"When will they finally see that the best way to improve MS is to allow the Open Source developer community free rein in order to come out with more and more brilliant ideas and concepts?"
So what you're saying is that Microsoft should sell the XBox for $800 and give everyone all the source they need to develop games for it. That would be wonderful if Microsoft were, say, Dell.
Microsoft is a Software company. They make software. You don't need a business degree to see that. Microsoft makes the XBox so that they can produce software for the living room, which is a huge software market. They are simply protecting their interests by hiring successful hackers to make it more difficult to hack the XBox 2.
1) Do you think that will prevent people from hacking it? No, but it will make it harder.
2) Why is slashdot so concerned over everything that Microsoft does? It seems silly that a job posting from MS makes the cover.
This isn't news for nerds OR stuff that matters. Microsoft can hire any SDE for any purpose they want to.
Why?
Seriously. Why? You're talking about Microsoft making money. We already know they do this in many ways, not all of which involve competing in a market dynamic on the basis of product quality. More relevantly, your specific point was, in the end they want to make money. There are other motives- wanting to work in a specific field, wanting to benefit the world, wanting to buy up the state of Washington and turn it into a nature preserve so geeks can go big game hunting with digital cameras- there are motives that involve DOING things or BEING things, positive things, negative things, whatever.
If the bottom line is no more than making the most money, they become a poster child for the ugliest repercussions of untrammeled, self-consuming capitalism. They have NO GOALS if that's all it is to them. They could just as well do it all with paper games on Wall Street and not even care what they're producing in terms of software (and in fact they are doing essentially that). They have no connection to the world apart from Hoovering money and 'valuation' from others and accumulating it, only to blow up when they can't maintain the expanding valuation.
I am serious. Why should I respect that in the slightest? Tell me something they want that's more than 'make money'. I don't care if it's 'control the entire world and replace governments'. That is evil and I still respect it more than the brainless, cancerous 'make money'. If you think 'make money' is enough, you haven't ever thought deeply about what you're doing, or what Microsoft is doing, or what capitalism is for. It's not an end in itself, it is a mechanism for society. Treated as an end in itself it is pathological.
Just show up at the police station to collect your prize.
After you sign the non-compete agreement, They'll immediatley terminate your employment which will deny you the opportunity to hack the Xbox or any other hardware platform for your naturual born life.
Speak what praise you will of the Xbox you want, but I'll avoid introducing my own opinions. All I want to state is that market forces definately seem to be openly demonstrating the demise of the original oversize Xbox controller. Go into any SoftwareEtc/Babbages/Funcoland or a EB and ask them just how many of the original Xbox controllers they get in nowadays. You'll find that they're not getting any new original XL controllers in anymore. Wait, and a year from now the Controller S will have even slipped quietly in with new Xboxes
http://liquidben.com - Aspiring to an 'under construction' gif
Check that contract -- corporations get to file patents on the ideas of their employees: so if M$ has them work on mod-chips and hacking future security problems, their ideas may be licensed.
There would be an easy way to deal with this though. Keep a personal journal on your "Windows" box. Have it compromised and then all the information that you aren't allowed to tell anyone will be public knowledge. After all wasn't there a report a little while ago about Security not being Microsoft's top thing?
A very simple Microsoft solution that keeps everyone happy.
Actually, I think most people (a few idealists aside) don't really give much of a damn about principles, at least the way you're using the term.
I've written a fair amount of code on P2P clients. Why? Because it's fun! It's a neat coding project. I donate the source to the community because it doesn't cost me anything and it helps some fellow coders out.
Now, if some company came along and offered me a nicely paying job writing code for monitoring programs to build evidence for court on P2P users, or DoS programs to attack P2P networks, would I take it? Of course! That's a fun problem too.
I don't have any interest at all in turning down a job so that some pimply-faced teenager doper can get just one more Eminem song. Not a chance. That's their own lookout.
May we never see th
Back in Rome, it used to be a popular practice for men to have sex with young boys.
:-)
I think you're thinking of Greece, though Rome supposedly had its own brands of debauchery.
This is part of what got Socrates drinking hemlock...fathers pissed off at him corrupting their sons.
May we never see th
...asserting that morality is relative becomes a pretty ridiculous philosophy when a 15 year old girl is raped by a 40 year old man
Actually, I've always thought that it's kind of a funny quirk of our legal system that a 15 year old boy could have sex with the same girl and it *not* be a crime.
May we never see th
Actually, I know of four coders that work at Microsoft. The first is a Linux nut and has a Tux doll in his cubicle. The next two both prefer UNIX to Windows, and the last doesn't know a thing about UNIX but is relegated to really basic work in VB, and is a pretty poor coder.
Not that I think that this is universal, but it's a pretty good anecdote. Anyone know an MS person that really *doesn't* like UNIX?
May we never see th
Sometimes you're right, sometimes wrong.
I think that in designing new algorithms or something, there isn't really any question -- you want a solid college education.
If you're doing architecture work, your'e a software engineer, I'm a lot more dubious. I can see how missing certain skills could be an issue, but two of the most industrious and technically skilled people I know didn't get a MS -- one got a two-year degree, and the other dropped out of high school. One's written more code for the Linux kernel than most Slashdot readers, and the other did some Linux porting work and last I heard, was reverse engineering and rewriting their oven's firmware.
Also, I've seen waaay too many PhDs that are simply out of touch with the world, aren't very motivated, and like to quibble over minor details, making arguments from authority.
Now, I've also seen very good, competent PhDs -- this wasn't meant to be a blanket statement. But how often have you used those finite automata or formal proof skills you learned in school? If you're a PhD, are you still doing the same work that you did your thesis on? If not, you've blown a lot of money getting skills that you aren't using.
This is just a thought.
I've finished my BS at a prestigious computer science school, and frankly, the stuff that I've used on the job has been almost exclusively the stuff that I spent time being interested in, poking at, reading research papers on, and whatnot. The stuff I learned during school? That mostly gets thrown out.
If you consider that most classes have one or two textbooks, and that reading one or two textbooks gives you the body of knowledge in the class, you can learn a lot more on your own for less money than you can in a class.
May we never see th
Okay, I hate to hurt this person's feelings, but his post was too far out there not to do so.
...huh? What was that?"
I am fully qualified for the position you have listed.
You have your BS, eh?
I have been hacking copy protect mechanisms since I was 7.
What you're 16 now? And the first few years of this involved setting back the clock on your computer and chortling to your friends about how l33t you are?
I have something to tell you. You have heard this before from people just like me, but you have not listened.
Slashdot weirdo: "Bill Gates, you are evil".
BG: "Dum de dum
You do not seem to realize that what you are doing, in your attempts to introduce completely "trusted" computers, is evil.
Translation: My l33t Windows game copy protection bypassing skills will be useless in your post-Armageddonesque society!
I'm not referring to your usual misguided 'save the world by taking it over' style of evil...
This man has a way of reaching out to the hearts of his audience and gaining their sympathy, no?
I'm talking more of a killing kittens for fun kind of evil.
Pay for my warezed copy of Windows? Forbid it, almighty God!
You are, whether it is your entention or not, going to remove general purpose computing from the hands of the non-experts, and they won't know enough to stop you
And what the hell "general purpose computing" experience is it that ordinary users are experiencing that is going to screw them over so much? They won't be able to pirate their Windows games any more?
Depending on your success I forsee one of two final results.
Translation: slap down your highly paid and talented executives -- I'm going to tell you the way your business is going to be!
The likeliest option is that you go out of business in 80 years, because your 'innovations' stunt the technological development of an entire generation and alienate those few who are intelligent enough to have become programmers anyways.
Earth to "We're All Alike"! MS hasn't shipped a development environment (well, except qbasic) with their systems for years, and the same goes for Apple. If we're stunted, we're stunted already. Every talented coder I know is already using Linux.
In this case, you will set back humanity's development by hundreds of years.
Smallpox will return! We'll lose all our advanced agricultural techniques! The horseless carrige will disappear!
Or, alternately, you drive your existing user base to other platforms and go out of business in 5 years.
Ah, yes. The other platforms without a stable ABI/library set/*standard filesystem layout* (Linux)? Or would that be the much more expensive, even more wannabe monopolistic platform (MacOS). You mean the platform without MS Office, or the one that MS could leave without MS Office with the snap of their fingers?
I doubt you will allow the second option to happen.
I'm sure they appreciate your confidence.
I have not participated in the efforts to hack your hardware (XBox) previously because I did not want to support you by purchasing one.
Translation: I'm unaware of the fact that you lose money on each box sold. I hate your guts already and listening to me is going to be unproductive in the extreme.
Now, I see the light. I, with the help of other slashdotters, have realized that the XBox is just a test run of your trusted computing initiatives.
BG: "Damn. Well, Slashdot has us by the balls. We better give up our current strategy."
Flunky: "Are you sure? But, sir..."
BG: "No. No, the Slashdotters have beaten us again. Retreat is the only option left to us now."
It is a chance for you to find the bugs in your system and fix them on a platform which attracts hackers, yet presents no serious loss when it is hacked.
Translation: I'm unaware of the fact that pirated software being freely traded for the XBox would represent a massive revenue loss.
I have no doubt in my mind that if you manage to perfect this architcture you will waste no time in implementing it in desktop PCs and using your monopoly power to force a significant number of users over to it.
Yes, this is pretty much what Microsoft already told all of us in their press release.
Therefore, this is my notice to you.
Throw down the gauntlet! You can take MS! Do it!
I will not let you succeed.
MS is fucked.
I will be adding my intelligence to the effort to stop you, and I will succeed.
What, by breaking XBox security and exposing another hole to be fixed on the PC? I thought you said that was bad.
And if I do not, it does not matter.
Does certainly take the wind out of the sails of the previous claim, doesn't it?
Because I am not alone. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all.
Translation: I read way, way too much l33t haXor propoganda. I have seen too many movies and hung out way too much on IRC making vague claims of incredible skills.
And, in the end, you wil lose. I promise.
We'll see.
(Posted anonymously because Microsoft's lawyers are more expensive than mine.)
I'm not going to say anything here...
May we never see th
I wodnt mind doing that that!! lol
Fellow Slashdot' ers, the day will come...
Makes sense to me.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
That makes perfect sense.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
Wait, no.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
This makes no sense at all!
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever