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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."
It's sad that the reason it shut down is for "legal reasons" instead of "the realization that it was utterly futile".
I mean, they HAD been working for a few days. Perhaps they got the key! :-P
"Yeah. We, um. Well. We're going to stop now. And cite an obvious legal reason, though we ignored that same reason when we first started. Because we wanted the key. But... now we don't. Or something. Look, I don't care, explain it to yourself. Just know that we've stopped, and are happy. Ok? Ok. Good. Now, onto other news..."
Informatus Technologicus
Anybody else automatically assume that it had ended because they found the key?
hmmm see if anyone else can connect the dots:
Neo Project
Futuristic technology
Hacking
Crack the X-box encryption(i.e. the matrix)
Microsoft IS the matrix....
I'm going to hang up my controllers now.... be afraid, be very afraid.... (Cool Music here)
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.
NO CARRIER
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.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
"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.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Oh, man. Does this mean no more Linux on the X-Box? This news wouldn't be so devastating if there were perhaps some other device capable of running Linux.
*cough*
One thing that indicate the level of professionalism of these people is that the Neo client is written in VisualBasic (check their forums for reference, last night it was _so slow_ that I don't bother linking the thread here). VisualBasic has uses but not here I'm afraid. Yeah, why not lock out all the *nix clusters with cool admins that are the biggest contributors to distributed cracking projects by letting their clusters crack stuff when they otherwise would be idle. I guess they were developing a new portable client from the scratch with C... But still, no sympathy from me.
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)
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
--this is an interesting case. I am reluctant to use the old cars and computers analogy, but it's appropriate here. For decades and generations car companies have come up with innovations and released a product that they own, then sell. It has shape, size, presence, features, etc all unique to that comapny, and covered by various laws of ownership and some laws on use, but still a lot of leeway. And for the same amount of time guys have decided that these products needed "souping up" and customiizing and modifying, and it's all been mostly legal. You can take a car, moidify it heavily and still drive on the public road following a set of road use laws, but you can still drive completely different if you want to on your own property or someone elses property-say a race track-in any manner you wish to. They did it for their own reasons which aren't revelant, make it go faster, make it travel on roads not envisioned as the primary road the designers were aiming for (think heavy off road mods), make it look nicer or whatever.
Seems like more than ample past case law to make hardware modding "legal". In the cars cases it might have required the hotrodder to completely disassemble the entire car, see how every single part worked and how it was designed, then decide how they wanted to do it better or different to suit their needs. It's more than legal, it's commonplace and no one thinks twice about it, it's a huge business and millions of people do it as a hobby.
Microsoft is seeking to become a huge exception to the past rules, as are a slew of other computer hardware and software companies. They can't have it both ways, if they actually are selling a product, then said product must be covered by a consumer warranty, and last I looked microsoft insists their products are as-is, no warranty unless they deem to do allow it at their leisure, ie, the "designed software" and "hard coded into the hardware" part. It's one or the other, if they want all the rights of a sellable consumer product, then they must accept normal useability warranties that are applied to every other "product" out there, and they most definetly DON'T accept that, so the courts should tell them (and ALL those other companies that insist on propietary excuslivity "rights" to their warez) to get stuffed until they do. As to modding the hardware itself, it's the same, either you get to OWN a piece of stuff or you don't, you can't half own something. Case precedence should have been set a long time ago, but it wasn't, now it's a big ole mess because it's become entrenched into computer-dom that they can have their cake and eat it too, something no other product has, and only one private business in the US currently enjoys (outside utilities and that gets into what is a utility), and that's major league baseball, which is goofy enough but exists.