Slashdot Mirror
Aussie Company Releases Xbox Mod-Chip Designs
An anonymous reader submits: "According to an article in the Australian Financial Review, An Australian computer chip designer will this weekend risk the wrath of Microsoft by making its sophisticated Xbox mod-chip designs freely available over the internet.
This release is the second and most advanced design to date that has been released by this company, the earlier release of a much simpler design was covered by a previous article on slashdot.
Go get'em while they're hot everyone. When you consider what has been happening to companies who irritate console makers, these files might not be around for long!" The AFR article requires subscription, but the AussieChip site has more information, including a link to the terms under which the designs may be downloaded -- looks like they're looking for some dedicated amateurs ;)
Release the DMCA dogs, Smithers ...
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
"When I buy my xbox I should be able to do whatever I want with it, yada, yada, yada...."
seems the past few articles involving Australia on /. have been about them restricting rights.
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
Whoever controls the language of the debate controls the debate. (see "sharing" vs. "stealing")
Can we start calling these "linux-enabling" chips or something equally positive, something that shows that they are NOT primarily designed to circumvent copyright?
Slashdot will surely keep this site down for a while to come!
SecondPageMedia - Wha
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------------
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An Australian computer chip designer will this weekend risk the wrath of Microsoft
Naah, who would risk going after those Ford Falcon driving weapon-carrying reckless Aussies, hey ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Slashdot away: http://www.hysma.com/xbox/
Got some spare cycles and want to piss-off billg? Follow the link in my current sig. (The site is running outside DMCA-land, no worries.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
But Sony lost a case in Australia where they were seeking to make mod-chipping illegal. I would guess it's probably perfectly legal to sell them here.
:wq
So if the reason behind making these consoles not work between different countries is to increase sales, has it been successful?
Have people bought more than one X-Box or PS2 because they weren't able to play their favorite game on the unmodded box?
I have been pwned because my
OH man that shit was hilarious. Whish u didn't post anon so I could put u on my friends list. haha still laughin about that pissing in the clothes hamper.
If Microsoft doesn't want anyone to see these designs, they need only bring the site to its knees with a flood of traffic, generated by a well-placed article on highly-viewed website.
oh... wait...
What a way to piss in Bill G's morning coffee.
Great timing too. I just got my copy of "Hacking the XBox" from "Bunny" Huang in the mail.
Now...where'd that bottle of Ferric Chloride go?
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Anyways, I am writing you today to inform you that your wonderful copyright protection and region protection schemes have been broken. I request that you save the entire community some time next model and just forget the entire copyright idea all together. We want to play with our X-Box's the same as we want to play with our toasters, but you don't see GE breathing down our necks when we do it.
Sort of a word to the wise if we buy it, and we're bored, we're going to screw around with it. Anyways I hope you have a wonderful day monopolizing the Operating System industry and ignoring the supreme court.
Lots of love,
Everyone.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
"When you consider what has been happening to companies who irritate console makers, these files might not be around for long!"
Not true. Thanks to one of the benefits of the Internet, now that this information has been released and has been covered by the major geek media, there will be enough people who will download it so that the information will live on for a long, long time.
The site said PROTel.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
I think its obvious what course of action needs to be taken: Ban computers. Computers are responsible for almost 100% of DMCA violations: These tools of outlaws come in several categories:
-Personal computers:
these remain the no.1 tools of criminal "hackers" allowing them to propogate virii and pirate material and to violate the DMCA
-General purpose processors and microcontrollers:
these are used as mod chips, clearly tools that are used to violate the DMCA
-The internet (another by-product of computers):
is responsible for allowing numerous DMCA and copy right violations including the spreading of mod-chip plans, pirate material, and George W. Bush jokes.
Im serious, i can guarentee that once personal computers are banned there will be atleast an 80% drop in the number of DMCA violations! If you dont think banning personal computers is a law that can be enforced then think again: There exist large databases of computer owners sourced from retail shops, online stores, credit card transactions, software licenses and ISP's. Personal computers also emit an EMF at the frequency of their internal clock, these can be detected and categorised - higher frequencies usually denote more powerful and therefore more illigal computers. Its true that there are legitimate uses for computers, but in this case they should be restricted to government use only.
Let me leave you with a thought: Terrorists also use computers!!!!!!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
As long as someone posts a bittorrent link after (preferably before) their site is /.'ed, I'll be happy.
There are some other tales here
(Up the top, under J-Dogg)
Feed me a stray cat.
AHAHAHAHAA
Holy fuck man, that shit is hilarious! I'm so glad I read Slashdot tonight! Rofl!
Ah am not a crook! (\(-__-)/)
Look at all them mice and keyboards!
You'd think if he could afford that many monitors that he could afford to buy a data switch.
Yeah but how do you use them on Linux??
Windows not spoken here...
Here is a clue boat for you (in easy to understand baby talk):
1 - Microsoft is manufacturer. They sell box to stores. Store sell box to you.
2 - Microsoft make same amount of boxes whether you buy one of not. All the Linux geeks in the world couldn't affect demand enough to change that.
3 - When you buy a box your money goes to the store you bought it from. They actually make a profit.
4 - Microsoft sells games to stores. Stores sell to other Xbox customers.
5 - If Xbox does well then stores stock up on Xbox games. Microsoft gets paid whether you buy the game from the store or not.
I am tired of typing like that. The point is that you are a moron if you think that you are getting a good deal at the same time you are wripping off Microsoft. For the same amount of money you could build twice as good of a box and not have to hack it.
"these files might not be around for long"
you can't unring a bell.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
oh my god I couldn't stop laughing. best off topic post ever!!
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
I have put a BT link on my webserver you can find it Here
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Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
If anyone actually gets ahold of this, despite the inevitable heavy slashdotting it will receive, please mirror it on Freenet! It's very hard to censor a network with no servers, no administrators, and no controlling entity. ;) If the Powers That Be don't want you corrupting your mind with impure knowledge, then such material belongs on Freenet!
If you're not familiar with the Freenet project, take look: Users donate bandwidth and space by running a "node", and the network's content exists in the collective datastore shared by thousands of nodes.
Data is duplicated as it's retrieved, so popular content gets more redundantly distributed. Node-to-node communications are encrypted, and so is the content in each datastore. You don't know and can't control what's on your own node.
The usual interface to Freenet is a web browser, since web pages and images can be easily inserted into the network. Other types of data (music, movies, programs) are common, and front-end programs exist to facilitate large uploads and downloads.
Check out Freenet, run a stable node, and play with it! The more you use it, the faster it gets. Bandwidth is more important than space; if you can host a node on something faster than a dialup it would be nice.
Oh, and here's the cool thing about Freenet that makes it perfect for things like modchip designs: Once inserted, content cannot be forcibly removed. Even the creators of the network can't delete something from it. The only way content falls out of freenet is if everyone ignores it.
Look around the site. Look for any info they may be an industry standard gerber file.
Gerber files are what is sent to a photoplotter to make the masks for etching printed circuit boards. They are standard across the industry, coming in two flavors, RS-174D and RS-174X, which differ mostly in how the aperture tables which define pad and trace sizes and widths are implemented.
Protel's software is a graphics editor for making and editing printed circuit board manufacturing files, so there may be other editors that might be able to read it.
If you are unable to open the PCB files, most likely you may have to lay out the circuit board yourself if you wanna make one.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
ARHAHHAHAHAHA
The bloodninja was the best....HARRRRR!
I believe the correct term is "statistically improbable".
Cracking keys amounts to trying lots of random valid keys to see if they are correct.
This is an upper-bounded (we know the size of the finite set of possible keys) NP-complete problem, which means that it could take a really long time to complete. Or it could find the right key tomorrow. The problem is that we don't know how long it'll take, but it's likely to take a LONG time.
The point of good crypto systems is that despite knowing the public-key, crypto-code, plain text and encrypted text, you cannot determin the private key used to encrypt it easially.
A mod chip is a lot easier to produce, because the xBox by design uses mostly off the shelf componants that anyone can buy. MS replced one chip (the BIOS) with one they modified to require some encryption (amoung a lot of other thing different from a normal bios). Take their BIOS out and put in a standard one and you have a standard PC. (More or less, MS used a lot of parts not normally on a PC, and in any case a BIOS has to be changed for each different chipset)
eminemBNJA: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: What the fuck, I told you not to message me again.
Sweetheart: I take your hand and kiss it softly.I'm reaching back undoing the clasp. The bra slides off my body. The air caresses my breasts. My nipples are erect for you.
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Thanks for that. You made my day.
Person B said,
Lemme get this straight. Their genes are from folks who were not mean and who happened to be down on their luck? Their genes also have the "spilled off" hedonistic parts of the ancient British aristocracy? Sounds like my kind of crowd, that is, after having mellowed it all through several generations of practicing democracy. For that matter, if you mix in a dash extra of respect for private property and some education and healthcare subsidy, well geez--that sounds like my kind of political party. Sigh. Remember when rich American Democrats used to party and when the poor ones used to know how to vote? ::::mumbling incoherently about reversing roles::::
Hmm. Say...
You don't suppose that Aussie genetic thingie explains Nevada too by some connection? (Area 51 isn't all that far away from the center of American hedonistic gravity, and the last time I checked, hypnotized Australians stacked up almost as efficiently as cordwood in spaceships for quick trans-global transport, but half of 'em started whining about "abduction" and such after coming to in the desert at night, mah-yeet. Know what I mean? It's like those fuggen union pilots just won't stop their indulgences--oogling at the humans half the goddamned night as if earth were their private zoo! They wouldn't even hide their faces either, the little green morons. I get so mad sometimes... Anyway... Then the press would get wind of it... seems like every fuggen time--and it got to be such a PR hassle that we finally just got FedEx and said hell with the rubbernecking pilots and all their bullshit but I digress...) :::::doing vain things to maintain my pompadour::::
What! ::::blink blink::::: Oops. :::::hurrying::::: What I meant to say was...
Now on freenet at CHK@c1gWOutxO-0ebPP73wrutNLkIKYQAwI,k3w3C0mvMsBzec KB2oDZEw/AussieChipModChips.zip
you guys do know that this is old as hell, right? it's all over the web like here and here.
Check out this
http://warmcat.com/milksop
Thats the REAL creator of the CheapMod, Andy Green.
This news is NOTHING new as cheapmod information has been around for more than a 8 months.
If your going to post an article of this maginituted, do some research first.
I'm not a gamer, but I just don't see the point of modifying an Xbox. I know Fry's isn't everywhere, but there's one near where I live that's selling a Linux box (sans monitor) for $229 right now. That's in the ballpark of an Xbox, and I know which one I'd rather have. Since a cheap PC is about the same price, why not just buy a cheapie and run Linux (or whatever you want) on that instead? But like I said, I'm not a gamer, so maybe I'm missing something.
IAAL
HAARRRRRR!!!!! I'm changing my sig to this, wayyy too fucking funny.
Kip Hawley is an idiot.
Gee, I really want in on this video-game publisher thing if this is the case. I mean, I can just make games, and stores will just buy them, and keep buying them, and I can keep making more and always have a garanteed person to sell it to, even if stores arent selling what I sell to them.
Fuck-yeah, where do I sign?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Actually, I'd say your thinking of RS-247D, and RS-247X. The X version has the apeture table embedded in the top of each file.
.pcb files, perhaps there is one.
Given that the files are provided for personal use, I don't see a huge requirement for gerbers. Aside from gerber being a standard. Protel is almost a defacto standard here in Oz.
*alot* of pcb fabricators will accept the Protel files.
But if you're doing it your self, you'd probably be best printing the copper layers on a laser printer using transparency film.
The lucky pcb hobbist might have a Satcam or similar routing maching, which is free from the icky chemicals that you need to etch the board. Gerber files would probably work better here.
You can generate your own gerbers using Protel or their 30-day evaluation edition. www.protel.com
I don't like your chances of getting the Protel trial to run under Wine, it's windows software.
I don't know of a linux based CADD/CAM package that loads Protel
Can we apply this to other things? Wouldnt it be great if instead of wasting time trying to tell people that guns are bad, we just told everyone that they should buy guns?! Gun stores would soon run out of firearms, AND THEN IT WOULD BE JUST LIKE NOBODY HAVING GUNS AT ALL!!! YOU ARE A FUCKING GENIUS, MAN!!!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
To the guy who wants to see them on Linux ... good luck. Do you know any decent (ie usable) Linux PCB editing software? If so please post details!
Dmitry Sklyarov was charged with breaking US laws *in* the US -- selling his company's software while physically the US.
May we never see th
The reason for regional restrictions is to allow the companies to impose price discrimination. The idea is that you want to charge any one person as much as they are absolutely willing to pay before going someone else. Normally, you have to set a single price -- if you charged the wealthy citizens of the US more for Super Mario Brothers 5, someone would just import Indian copies sold cheaply. However, if you can break up the world into incompatible regions, you can charge a much closer value to what people are willing to pay in each region. Basically, this tends to be a good thing for very poor countries (as long as the game/movie actually comes out in their region), since they have to pay less, and bad for wealthy countries. It tends to irritate customers, who are directly impacted by compatibility issues, and don't directly see cost differences.
Also, AFAIK, region coding has not been successfully argued in court to be considered a form of copy protection, and hence is not covered under the DMCA. The reason region free hardware DVD players aren't commonly sold in the US any more is because the DVD Consortium can exert pressure on their licensees, not because it's against the law.
May we never see th
So which company bought Senator Alston?
1. The Xbox is a cheepo PC with an excelent output to TV display. I'm not up to date on current video cards but when looked at TV output before, they were all shite. I had to invest in a mpeg decoder card to get decent output. I'll have to check out my new vid card when i'm not so lazy.
2. The Xbox is a tiny PC, making it perfect to put on your entertainment stack. Nice for AV, possible additional application of car mount system (not sure about car mount xbox to be honest, it would be something worth looking into). While I do own a couple full towers for expanation, i'd consider an x-box just to stick on my entertainment center stack to watch movies and such.
---
In short, the xbox is a decent gamming platform but it's *computer* features are locked out of common man's reach due to a choice at microsoft. They are after all selling you a game box and not a computer. If I owned one, the first thing I'D do is get a mod chip and the ability to run Mozilla on my TV, check my e-mail and such.
But I'm just quoting off the top of my head, I don't know exactly how advanced the current linux project is for the x-box, and how viewable diffrent codexs are. But if it's half way decent for divx4 vids, well it's a serious consideration, given that most DVD players are limited to mpeg-1 or mpeg-2, and you can't exactly upgrade them to other standards.
But hey, not your bag? NO worries. I don't own one, and won't till they drop in price to like $75.00. But that's just me.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
http://gael.sourceforge.net/
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
I must have been thinking of that little coax line I use all the time.. RG-174.. its tiny and flexible and I use it a lot for general purpose shielded line..
I googled around and I see I meant to say: RS-274D . I include the Google hotlink while I had it up for verification so the rest of you can look at the gerber formats and specs if you are so inclined.
Incidentally, AC... I note PADS PCB ( Power PCB ) also uses .PCB suffix.. do you know if the files are interchangeable between Protel and PADS?
( I still use PADS PCB for DOS.. It makes Gerber files. I really like that old proggie.)
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
The CheapMod design was based on the original work done by Numbnut (Andy Green)
They give credit. I agree though that this story was totally pointless. Cheapmods don't work in v1.3 Xboxes - it would've been more newsworthy if someone had released their own LPC-periphial program and design which didn't need LFRAME.
it's in my head
He didn't sell one copy of his software while he was in the US.
Maybe a webtrader that has a contract to sell his employer's software, sold some copies in the US while he just happened to be visiting the US, but that's a completely different thing altogether.
I've got the PCB layout and the bom... But where's the firmware??
The files were created with Protel Advanced PCB, a program
to design printed circuit boards (PCB). You can probably
forward them directly to a board house and have them made
(such as http://www.pcb-pool.de/us_index.htm ). Note that
they will produce a blank board without any components on
it. With a bit of practice, you can solder them yourself.
http://www.farnell.com is a company that sells electronic
components. If you still have no idea on how to proceed,
it's probably better to order a ready-made board from that
aussie company. It will save you lots of hassle, and when
you have your girlfriend order it for you, you won't even
end up in their customer database.
Theoretically, with enough computers, it could be done in a few years.
:)
Or a few minutes on Peter Jackson's new set up
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
So her point is that she wants to make it clear that she is decended from the ones who were both criminal and stupid enough to be caught?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.