Two Xbox Anti-Hacking Patents Published?

theodp writes "The USPTO published two interesting patent applications late last week, both apparently from Microsoft. Architecture for manufacturing authenticatable gaming systems is designed 'to prevent hackers from easily obtaining valid credentials for purposes of cheating or other improper uses'. This is done by placing pre-established secrets on game systems during console manufacturing. Network architecture for secure communications between two console-based gaming systems establishes links using secrets derived from authentic game consoles running authentic game titles." These were both originally filed back in late 2001, but is this just convoluted syntax for what the Xbox already does, or is anything interesting going on here?

Comments

another set of dumb patents?

[hectorh]

Wow, talk about two patents that are close to other existing technologies.

For example, there is the Zero-Knowledge-Test (ZKT) used for authenticating peers without actually transmitting a shared secret.

And a "Network architecture for secure communications between two console-based gaming systems"??? Haven't they ever heard of the SSH or SSL protocols?

What a waste of time and effort. Why would they bother to file this patents?

Are patents useless in the software world? I mean, as a programmer, I know that there is more than one way to solve a problem, so what kind of protection do you get with a software patent?

So...

[Goldberg's Pants]

The cheats thing... How the hell does that work? The wording implies something as mundane as game cheats! As in L-R-U-D-R2 type things...

Xbox is appealing due to it's hard drive, but it seems MS are hellbent on preventing people from doing what they want with the hardware they paid good money for.

Of course, this is Microsoft, so hardly a surprise...