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Xbox Hacking Book Prepares to Fly Off Shelves
SecurityFocus posted an article today about a new book that covers hacking the Xbox. The book's author, Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, reports that it's selling well, even though the release date has not yet arrived. Presumably, this is because the book covers soldering techniques and adding features like blue LEDs and modchips to Xboxes, most of which violate the DMCA. If this stuff is interesting to you, you can order a copy from Huang's site. It amazes me that a book such as this could be banned, yet car service manuals can be sold in most bookstores.
The only part that violates the DMCA is the part that describes how to circumvent copy protection schemes.
That's the reason Microsoft will want him to hang over this.
It's also the reason someone has to do it. Someone has to stand up and show how insane this all is. Too bad someone has to martyr themselves in order to get the point across. This guy will ruin his fiscal life in the united states.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Is the book banned, or the techniques the book describes? There's a big difference.
Clearly, the book is not banned, since it is being published directly by the author. However, from his site, the book was not picked up by a publisher for fear of lawsuits. That's somewhat alarming, but it's not equivalent to outlawing a book.
Actually, there are plenty of "survival" manuals and whatnot out there that describe all kinds of illegal activities, so I would be surprised if tort law could be used to terminate publication of a book (because if it could, it would have been done already in other contexts). However, this doesn't mean that the threat of lawsuits could not be used as a scare tactic.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Microsoft has every right to void the warranty if I purposely modify the box. What they don't have is the right to demand I don't violate the EULA and void the warranty. I hate to say it, but corporations should be banned from donating money to political parties or candidates. If a company wants to push their own agendas, they shouldn't get a free write off. Instead, they should have to pay their employees, who then donate the money. This means, for every dollar a company spends to buy votes, they have to pay taxes on it. I have no problem with companies like microsoft buying influence in the white house as long as those purchases are taxes at 33%.
I find it amusing that the open source crowd shows such great interest in a closed piece of hardware, hardware that is defended by DMCA-supported lawyer jargon and manufactured by "The Great Satan" of digital freedom.
I find it even more amusing that after 5 years under the DMCA, someone still has the cojones to basically thumb his nose at "The Great Satan" of digital freedom.
I think that this only helps further the idea that if the various media/software companies do not provide what the user wants, the user will figure it out for themselves. When the bottom line of company Y starts to really shrink, they will provide the customer with what they want to maintain the revenue stream on related products (think IBM and SUN selling and supporting Linux so that they can keep selling servers).
Just wait, pretty soon automakers will start using the DMCA to keep you from repairing your car yourself. That way you have to take it to an "authorized repair center".
I thought they already did that, well not via the DMCA as yet, but by keeping proprietry engine computer management data out of the hands of the 'unauthorized service centres'.
God damnit people, if you're going to rail against something, you should at least learn what it actually is. The DMCA explicitly excludes speech from being outlawed. The issue with DeCSS was wether source code should be considered 'speech' or a 'device'
A book is obviously not a device, and it is protected by both the 1st amendment and the DMCA itself!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
You refer to tort law. That's certainly a factor. But the DMCA provides for criminal prosecution of violators. If nobody is willing to publish, or even self-publish, books on hacking this or that because they don't want to go to jail -- well then, that kind of book is banned, whatever you call the process.
> How is modding your X-Box illegal under the DCMA?
Well, check it out -- search for 17 USC 1201 on google and read the law. Section c, I think, describes circumvention devices and outlaws them. Also, the act of circumvention is outlawed.
In this case, circumvention and circumvention device are defined carefully, but I believe that x-box modchips would fall under the definition. Certainly the act of using a modchip to play illegally copied games would be a DMCA violation. If the modding community builds enough reasonable legal uses of modchips (ie, Xbox linux), then it's possible that modchips would be in the clear because they have substantial non-infringing use.
> if the actual harware mod is illegal then WTF? I should be able to do whatever I want with my hardware (physically).
Yes, that's something awful about the DMCA, isn't it?
Oh come on, he didn't write a book about how to hack a PRC-90 to pick up secure broadcasts. He wrote a book about how to mod a PC thinly disguised as a game platform in order to run software other than that supplied by the platform vendor.
That said, Wiley & Sons has every right to refuse to publish anything it doesn't want to (that's part of "free speech" too), and Huang seems to have done OK publishing it himself. No blood, no foul.
Still, the fact that you were so willing to compare a mod that can allow you to put Linux (or pirated games) on an XBox to a mod that can allow you to actually threaten national security says a lot about how the public conceives of corporate vs. personal interests.
All's true that is mistrusted
While the DMCA makes it easy to shut down a web site, the US Judiciary is VERY leary about restraint of dead tree writing and publishing. IMO, Mr. Huong getting a pro-bono defence would be easy, since any attorney should/would know that a form letter with a law office header is about all that's needed to fend off anything short of a libel suit or national security issues.
For instance, printing and selling a magazine with DeCSS source code is no big deal, but if the same people put links to the electronic version on their web site, it is. As long as the "Anarchist's Cookbook" is still on the shelves, "Hacking the Xbox: an Introduction to Reverse Engineering" hasn't got a problem.
Luke, help me take this mask off
It's not. This is just typical slashdot DMCA alarmism!
The only thing I can think of that would reasonably make people think that a book describing circumvention would be illegal is the threats that Ed Felten received about his watermarking paper. However, I don't see any reasonable argument (or any actual caselaw) that would indicate that such a thing is banned by the DMCA.
How about if I print a book with copyrighted information that I violated the DMCA to get? How about if I print DeCSS?
It amazes me that a book such as this could be banned,
I guess you're too green to remember Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book"......and a bit too charming to know that this kind of 'publicity' helps to sell such books.
"Laugh while you're faking it and smile while you're taking it."
None of it violates the DMCA. Books are not devices. They do not violate the DMCA. Ever.
It's easy - DMCA - Sec. 1201:
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
Emphasis mine. Books qualify as products, don't they? I think free speech violates DMCA - that's the problem.
The car service manual analogy is interesting. I wonder how the public would react if Ford sued Chilton, using the DMCA? There are plenty of aftermarket carbs, cam shafts, mod chips etc for cars. What would prevent Ford or GM from applying the DMCA on aftermarket parts manufacturers?
Ford has a copyright on the engine design and wants to control access to the design. By taking an engine apart you can thwart their control and get the engine design. They bolt the engine togther pretty tight, so that is their copyright protection.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
I am not an open source zealot, but I do have serious concerns about many of the projects that Microsoft has on the horizon, such as Palladium, the whole Trustyworthy Computing scheme, and Microsoft's push toward their proprietary Windows Media format. I see the purchase of an X-BOX as a $200 endorsement of Microsoft. And that's not something I am comfortable doing.
The whole DCMA debate leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I follow most of the discussions pertaining to the DCMA on Slashdot. In fact, it seems like the X-BOX is the focal point of much of the DCMA debate on this site. And while I agree that the DCMA is a terrible piece of legislation, I don't see the logic of buying and modding an X-BOX to protest the DCMA. It seems like the easiest thing to do is to avoid the DCMA entirely, or at least, to avoid the corporations that use the DCMA to prosecute consumers. I can render Microsoft's enforcement of the DCMA moot by not purchasing an X-BOX. If I want to hack around on a console, I think the best choice is a Dreamcast. I can run NetBSD on it, and since it is no longer a revenue stream for Sega, they are not going to go to legal expense of throwing the DCMA at enthusiasts who hack around on it.
Microsoft is making it difficult to buy an X-BOX without also making additional purchases, namely X-BOX Live! Some of the newer games, and especially many games on the horizon and in development, will simply not be playable without an X-BOX Live subscription. There is also at least one game out now for the X-BOX that virutally requires the purchase of an additional controller which costs nearly $100.00. It seems that this is a trend that Microsoft will continue. And it's a trend I have no desire to endorse.
Simply, I can write all of the vehement arguments I want against Microsoft and the DCMA. But if I were to open my wallet and plunk down the cash to buy one, I'd feel very hypocritical because the best way for me to protest the DCMA is to avoid the X-BOX altogether.
Unfortunately, it's becoming harder and harder for people to mod their cars, what with chips and other electronics in the car. You need diagnostic software now to diagnose and fix most problems on modern cars. Which increases the efficiency of a car, but decreases the ability of the weekend mechanic from fixing a car. Oh well.
I don't see the car companies invoking DMCA to stop that..
What the hell is the difference?
Perhaps because Joe Sixpack would easily be able to understand that his rights are being violated in this case?
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
If I go into a car dealer with $35,000 and buy a car, I own the car and what's in it. I can modify it in any way I want to, change the tires, the color, add a chip to it...you get the point...
When I buy an Xbox, M$ still owns it. Buying these things is really more like "renting" them with this intellectual property stuff. If I pay for an Xbox I am paying to make that my property.
The only things we will own someday are the things we pay ourselves for.
Xbox hacking is funny, but it just shows microsoft how to make the secure PC truly secure - the Xbox hackers are gradually teaching them about all the glitches, so they can produces something uncrackable in the future.
He was going to publish a paper on the weaknesses of the SDMI schemes. The SDMI people threatened to prosecute under the DMCA and only backed down when Felten went to the Supreme Court about the whole deal.
Whether or not part 4 applies, you have to go through the courts to exonerate yourself- and you might not be able to easily do it, having to go through the entire judicial system to do it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If you unsoldered the bios chip that contains the boot code and mailed it back to MS. Does that mean you have the legal right to do anything you want with it at that point? Since there is no licensed software in it?
I do not find it so amusing as all that, simply common sense. It seems to me that a closed-source system, to an open-source zealot, is like an unreachable itch: the longer it itches and the less reachable it is, the more tantalizing it becomes. Also, on a fundamental level, the Xbox is just a fancy-schmancy basic PC with artificial blocks on it to prevent anything but limited use of it. All told, the above adds up to a very enticing temptation to open-source muckers-about.
What I find amusing at best (and sad at worst) is that the DMCA was passed by our "Elected" representatives in DC. These same people who are telling YOU (and me, actually), the American voter, not to pay "...any attention to the man behind the curtain," are the same ones you BLITHELY allowed to attain their post, either in an act of omission ("I forgot to vote" or "I was too busy") or comission ("I voted for Congressman X, but I didn't know that a kneejerk fundie neoconservative would actually FOLLOW THROUGH on the slow REPEAL of the First Amendment!).
Suck it up crybabies: you let Congress take away your toys, now you have to play with the leavings.
Ok... setting cynicism to off...
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
it says nothing about your rights of free speech or the press concerning publishing in a dead-tree format.
I used to think so too. But then 2600 got blocked from publishing decss, and then even linking to pages publishing decss. There was a reason the new york times spoke up for the magazine, I assume it's the same reason they no longer link to related sites in their stories, but instead inconveniently write out the URL as if it were text. The DMCA ended 'free' speech in the USA. The party is over, all consumers please return to your assigned duties, we've got a war with the Canadian aggressors to organize.
Because then they'd realize they could use it for things and in ways that don't make Microsoft money. As long as Microsoft maintains the illusion that the X-Box is only good for playing Microsoft approved games, it can make up the initial loss off the games, and the X-Box doesnt compete against regular computers, another Microsoft revenue stream.
>Sega made the Dreamcast, which kicked ass, but
>they've had to resort to pure software
Sega paid someone to make the Dreamcast. And the software is Windows.
"It amazes me that a book such as this could be banned, yet car service manuals can be sold in most bookstores." Pffff, car service manuals are necessary for maintenance in order to assure the safety of the passengers and fellow human beings. Car service manuals don't tell you how to turn your car into a dragster. In the same spirit of distorsion, what about the right of modding a semi-automatic gun into full automatic mode? But, ok let ppl mod their own XBox as much as they want, but I'm all for banning these from XBox Live!. Online playing needs rule just like any other "competition" (no doping at the Olympics, precise car specs in racing, ...).