X-Box Private Key Challenge Ended

powerlord writes "The Neo Project (mentioned in a recent slashdot article) recently stopped its bid to recover the X-Box private key citing legal reasons: "Due to legal reasons, we will no longer be hosting or participating in the xbox challenge." DCers.com, a site devoted to distributed computing sheds some light on Neo's sudden flip-flop with a blurb claiming that: "... many legitiment DC'ers that have been working this project since it started that have decided to quit because of the new Neo client that also tries to crack the X-Box encryption." and that they believed this might ultimately kill The Neo Project."

Comments

what legal reasons?

[ironfroggy]

Does anyone, perhaps close to the Neo Project, have any idea why the stopped trying to crack the XBox key? They state legal reasons, but I don't see any specifics. As far as I knew, this was legal. After all, isn't this what The Neo Project does all the time? Why is the key being on the XBox any different?

yea...

[mschoolbus]

and that they believed this might ultimately kill The Neo Project.

So, if you remove the main purpose of the Neo Project, it may kill the project? Obviously.

Well it was a good idea guys, time to shutdown...

Most Obvious Event of The Year

[Chester K]

recently stopped its bid to recover the X-Box private key citing legal reasons

Well duh . You don't think Microsoft (or any company, for that matter) would just sit back and let you crack a private key they use for actual business? It's one thing to crack a key in a challenge specifically presented for that purpose, but it's another thing to try to, in effect, come up with a way of forging Bill Gates' signature.

who still wants to crack this key?

[ironfroggy]

I'm sure plenty of people would still like to crack this key. I propose modifying the Neo Client into a decentralized system so anyone still interested can still donate those CPU cycles.

Umm...

[ThrasherTT]

If you didn't see this coming, you have some serious reality issues. This is the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the initial annoucement of the cracking attempt.

Re:On XBOX Emulation

[iainl]

"Awhile back, it was stated that XBox game discs spun backwards, thus making emulation and even making legitimate backups as close to impossible as anyone could ever imagine."

This isn't, indeed cannot be the case. Grab a legitimate XBox game disc off your shelf, any one whatsoever. Stick it in your nearest DVD player. See how it plays? If its capable of streaming that animation off the disc in full 5.1 surround, then there must be at least some info on there in a normal fashion.

MS didn't NEED to do anything...

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to crack the X-Box Private Key *feels* illegal to most users (even if it isn't...IANAL). So, many of the participants of the Neo Project probably decided that they didn't want to have anything to do with that, and stopped participating. This means that they have a lot less computing power for ALL of their projects (not just the X-Box one). So it makes sense for them to stop the X-Box Key Crack if it will bring their users (and computing power) back to the project.

Why I *DONT* want to see the key cracked.

[stratjakt]

It doesn't seem to me just as simple as 'signing' some code and burning it to a disc. I don't have the full info with me, but I've seen the dev kit and there is a completely custom layout to an xDVD, with big blocks of sectors reserved for security features. It's reminiscent of the PSX's scheme - 'bad' sectors on the disc that cant be replicated with a burner (they all automatically recalculate ECC info).

Short of having your own pressing facility, the key would do virtually no good. So who would benefit? Asian pirates on a commercial level - they could start pressing counterfeit XBOX titles en masse, just like they did with Dreamcast. They arent going to be selling silvers of debian linux for 5$ a pop on the streets of hong kong, believe me.

Modchips enable those who want the ability to backup their software and run homebrew applications, and I'm wholly in favor of that. If this project succeded, it'd just put mass commercial counterfeiting in the hands of bad guys, which I'm absolutely not in favor of.

(Now, in theory, one could use a no-solder type mod (pogo pins on the lPC header), install some sort of dashboard replacement to install the new linux BIOS and run it. That'd be about it, since you cant modify the original xbox' bios in RAM, you'd never be able to run unsigned native code from a CD/DVD-R. Since you'd have to temporarily mod the console to get linux on there anyways, you might as well flash the TSOP while yer at it)

Re:Why I *DONT* want to see the key cracked.

[stratjakt]

The xbox wont even LOOK for a signature unless you put it in the disc format it expects - and you cant. The mods do more than skip the signature check, they also skip the media checks, even letting it boot from a UDF filesystem. That's my point. Signing an xbe is only the first step, now you have to put it on XBOX media.

You could never burn a bootable xDVD, signature or no signature. The best you could do is mod the console, install linux on the HDD, then remove the mod - and whats the point of that? You still void the warranty and have to go through the mess of installation and removal.

The only people who could create a bootable xDVD with the signature would be those with commercial production facilities.

Re:Why I *DONT* want to see the key cracked.

[terminal.dk]

You don't get it - do you ?

We do not want to crack it to make pirate copies. And the asians can probably make them already if they want.

We want it cracked so that the people who bought the hardware can run 3rd party hardware of their own choice on their own hardware.

Would you be happy if MS said that you are not allowed to use any non-MS software on your Windows PC ? And started shipping only Windows to run on hardware protected PCs ?

Re:Why I *DONT* want to see the key cracked.

[terrymr]

If you have the equipment then encryption keys and strange disc formats aren't going to stop you copying discs en masse. The only people it stops are private developers and casual copiers. Any determined pirate with enough time & hardware will find a way to exactly copy those discs. The reasoning behind the encryption & disc protection is not to stop copying but to stop people other than MS producing software for it. This has been the normal behaviour with console manufacturers for years. It has little to do with piracy and everthing to do with controlling the flow of software. The reason for this is that the boxes are sold at a massive loss - maybe $200 or more per unit and the only way to make money is to sell lots of software at inflated prices. Once again this is an example of a corporation expected the law to protect a ludicrous business model i.e. we want to sell these at a whopping great loss but make money off of selling things for it without anybody else being able to sell things for it.

Re:For the lay person:

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but don't you think it was their right to do so? I'm sure cracking their key violates their acceptable use policy as well as any other license you implicitly agree to when you use the product.

I'm not trying to be pro-MS here - this is an issue that affects all legitimate software/hardware that tries to project it's IP with software or hardware encryption.

Saved Face

[Euphonious Coward]

That was a good face-saving move.

Now, they can say they would have broken it if if wasn't so scary to try.

Otherwise, they would have to admit it would have taken them forty-leven trillion centons just to try out the easy combinations like "haxorz begone", before moving on to the non-alphabetic "hard" ones.