Slashdot Mirror
Xbox Private Key Distributed Computing Project
aeiz writes "The Neo Project has added "The Xbox Public Key Challenge" to it's distributed computing client. The aim is to compute the 2048 bit private key that Microsoft uses to sign Xbox media. If it is a success, modchips wouldn't be necessary. Now many Xbox hacking and scene sites have started groups in order to compete with one another." gee, only 2048 bits? No problem *cough cough*.
Could anyone of you tell how much time/processnig power this will need in comparisson to things like the RSA challenge?
Thank you.
Isn't reverse engineering a company's hardware/cracking encryption a violation of the DMCA? I am not saying I support the DMCA but it would be a shame if unsuspecting people jumped on this project and had the FBI raid their house and throw them in jail.
Slashdot is guilty here too. Guilty of Bad journalism! Advocating illegal activity is pretty unprofessional.
Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! God bless the USA!
1. Provided Microsoft uses a proper public key infrastructure, brute-forcing this thing could potentially take forever
2. This so that you can feel good subverting an X-Box by making it run Linux
3. By that time the hardware would be definitely obsolete, or X-Box 2 would be out with programs signed with a different key
4. And in any case, buying the X-Box already helps Microsoft. The more units sold, the more games developed.
5. There are tons of other worthwhile distributed computing projects to do out there - Folding@Home, SETI@Home, Mersenne Prime Search etc.
Grow up folks! Running Linux on a hacked X-Box is cool, yes, but this might be going too far...
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Why would it? The relevant section of the DMCA only bans the circumvention of mechanisms that control access to a copyrighted work. The private key itself isn't such a mechanism, as far as I know, though programs that use it probably would be. The DMCA is a bit vague, but it isn't so vague that it outlaws every possible kind of "hacking."
, because in fact Microsoft or someone probably would make DMCA threats against this kind of activity. In that case it's good to understand the law, because such a letter often sounds pretty convincing and scary!
It's a good idea to read the DMCA (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1201.html)
The private key isn't a mechanism? Isn't that the essence of DeCSS?
I think certainly distribution of the actual private key would violate the DMCA. But does distribution of keys which are not the private key qualify? I doubt it.
How long does it take to crack the 32-bit key that satisfies this expression:
(key == 0x1d92bc01)
2^32/2 tries? You say "If you just try all possible keys", but what if we don't and we exploit the structure of the problem instead?
You'd run into copyright infringement issues - the signed code would be property of the copyright owner, and redistributing it would almost definitely be illegal. No need to take chances; I'm sure Microsoft's IP lawyers are looking for any excuse they can to take this project down.
You're quite right on the DMCA. They may try an attack based on something along the lines of trade secrets if this attack is actually succesful, but all things considered, it's a pretty secure mechanism, so hopefully MS sees it this way.
It is guaranteed to be the last assuming the search stops on success... </irrestable extAttr="grin">
Looks like they smartened up after DVDs lame 40 bit key was cracked.
If the encryption on the xbox is not broken (and it might be...) you will NEVER crack a 2048 bit key. If it took d.net 4 years to do a 64 bit key I argue that it will take 2^(2048/64) or 4 BILLION times as long to do the 2048 bit key.
Find another path, this one won't work.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Let's assume we want to find the key in about one year.
6 79812491847 0034501286984934080\2 6173015536181603483336 1032784430099655323\9 9902489291405217648393 6232454940842516362\0 4019484459166088424059 6873702316740293441\3 7127342032430926831573 9828884343009334529\5 9628831104499868523479 9854643717630057264\2 4010974519290044145762 9590988748658836010\6 1834647652719112497108 8586363327032331220\5 68862609019439636890
2 0574938 1512491823325275367\2 3437132028369300928737 2136090488973662885\3 5281529166119647272954 3623272112620364581\0 6188703489047492973236 7903825810597884676\9 6494498088117693882712 8484532375726579806\4 8375737098966810233408 2736619960338101994\9 8321364177283871960956 9923672820142531423\8 3247750938845967420404 6551928328834053889\8 7565463644
:)
The keyspace is 2^2048. This means that to find it on average in one year, we need to search (2^2048)/2 keys.
There are 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 = 31536000 seconds in a year. A current machine, say 2 GHz, will not be able to check keys any faster than 2 billion per second (in practice the number would be much lower than this, but it cannot be any higher, ignoring chips which can parallelise operations). This means we can check 63072000000000000 keys per machine per second.
This means we need:
( (2048^2)/2 divided by 63072000000000000 ) machines to participate.
That's:
25619138501483231307644340348070421074
536045058749470424288206517
242390857959540549852794245
788307622972306591036879771
555215196986044143194475602
237823719925815402062766832
742821393465861224879124664
631953178327398239073428324
171673195729764659671523380
That's a lot of machines. In fact, every person in the world would need to have:
408818288091685305913758191399560859893800
003998376109373765758136618
074952085782319420248781372
917102669618547672588166152
008706652644606806303666902
892981235565930906683499598
519114104392953160204053596
115413517917473248413544519
032527313815387159252508549
machines.
Good luck
If it did, that'd be great, but it never will. The point however, would be moot if a genuine attempt was not made.
The point is thus: to resist technologies that limit what consumers can do with what they legally own.
Microsoft is a very visible example of an entity trying to tell consumers "you may not do this or that with what you have purchased." In no other industry (save the closely related entertainment industry in this case) do there exist similar shenanigan. If I purchase a computer, I should be damn well permitted to run any type of software on that computer I see fit. The XBox, amongst consoles, is the closest device to a personal computer you can get. And yet, the manufacturer is trying to make it impossible for you to use it how you see fit.
This project is a protest of such consumer-unfriendly tactics. They will never crack the key, but they are still trying and Microsoft as well as many others will be well aware that they are trying. This is resistance. Microsoft, we will put forth the same effort against DRM technologies like Palladium. We'll never stop.
Of course, we could all just not buy XBoxes, Windows, Office, and switch to unencumbered/open technologies, but... I digress.
Why bother.
My calculator has one of those buttons... it's an Hewlett-Packard 11C, and the button is labelled "LOG".