Hacking the XBox

Peter Wayner writes: "If you're a handicapped Windows user, Microsoft offers suggestions and assistance -- but XBox users were out of luck until Andrew 'Bunnie' Huang finished his book Hacking the XBox. Don't be fooled by the title. Officially, Huang's excellent book is not about helping the differently-abled. That would be against the law. Huang was forced by the DMCA to hide his humanitarianism under the cloak of 'reverse engineering' because this is one of the few legitimate uses given a small amount of protection by the law. But if you've got an urge to help the handicapped or any other reason to tinker with your XBox, buy this book before the Man sees through this ruse." Read on for the rest of Peter's review. Hacking the XBox author Andrew "Bunnie" Huang pages 288 publisher No Starch Press rating 9 reviewer Peter Wayner ISBN 1593270291 summary How and why to crack the seal on your Xbox.

There are many reasons why you might want to take apart your XBox, but one of the best ones I can imagine is making it easier for people who can't see, hear or move too well to play the same video games as the rest of us. Searching Microsoft's web site for documents containing both "handicapped" and "xbox" reveals only a suggestion for how to change the degree of difficulty of your Zoo Tycoon Game.

Someone who might want to retrofit a new pointing device or some other enabling gadget onto the XBox might start with the chapter describing how to fix a real USB cable onto the XBox. The chapter, like most in the book, is heavily illustrated with step-by-step pictures and instructions for clipping the cables in the right place and soldering them back together. Some of this might seem a bit rudimentary, but the detail can't hurt. In many cases, the real challenge is finding a way to take apart the case or the pack of wires in the right way. Smashing it isn't always an option. This is a book about mathematics, electronics, and taking apart plastic boxes.

Alas, just doing a bit of soldering isn't going to be enough unless you can make the right drivers. To help those who might want to reprogram their XBox, Huang devotes much of the book to stripping away the layers of the XBox security system, a story that is part mystery and part journey through the security layers in the system. The book is arranged in a very roughly chronological order. While it is mainly a book that teaches you how to reverse engineer the XBox, it is also a story of how he overcame the obstacles presented by the encryption. He talks as much about the unsuccessful paths as the ones that paid off. (This is, I think, an ideal model for the scientific community. It's much more educational than the terse papers that present the results as fait accompli.)

This part of the book quickly gets quite complicated, because Microsoft obviously tried hard to produce a secure machine that could provide a fair platform for people to play games. Getting the XBox to run any old software is not an easy task, but Huang describes several major techniques for drilling through the various layers of security. Again, he offers detailed pictures and instructions for construction special tools that snarf signals from a bus. Then he explains how he managed to grab the right keys for decrypting some of the most important data. Although it's a technical book, it unfolds like a spy novel.

The book is also very politically thoughtful. While the clueless will equate the word "hacking" in the title with piracy, money laundering, terrorism, and not phoning home on mother's day, Huang frames every step with a discussion of whether it is motivated by good or evil. He's not interested in building a tool to pirate XBox games and points out that many of the modifications aimed at running Linux on the Xbox do not help the pirates in any way. If anything, they make the games entirely unplayable.

Huang does want to defend the right to tinker, citing Ed Felten and others in a defense of something we're rapidly losing. I've heard horror stories from Army Majors about Windows PCs that refused to boot after failing to find a C drive. Do we really want to build machines that can't be retrofitted or fixed in the field? Many war movies are saved by the young private who (like Huang) is willing and able to tinker.

If you don't respond to pulls on the heartstrings, you might want to read one of the concluding chapters from the EFF's Lee Tien about the current legal climate. There are few exemptions for tinkering and many of them are limited. Reverse engineering is okay if you're a big corporation making a competing product, but that didn't help 2600 magazine when they were accused of trying to help people view DVDs on their Linux machine. I can only imagine what they would do to someone with very bad vision who wanted to enable a special zoom feature on their Xbox.

The book was originally going to be published by Wiley, but the company balked when it realized there were stiff legal penalties for helping handicapped people use computers. Even the Massachusetts Institute of Technology felt that it would be better for Huang to disassociate itself from Huang and his humanitarian efforts. The university only relented after pressure from a few good professors who helped the university understand the value in Huang's mission. Huang decided to publish the book himself with the help of his girlfriend, Nikki Justis. The two of them should be commended for turning out such a beautiful, professional book. If you're intrigued by the xbox, interested in helping the handicapped, or just trying to learn how to reverse engineer things before things get worse, check out this book. It's a wonderful contribution to the literature.

To close, I'm offering a pair of cool projects with the hope that Huang's book will inspire people to tinker:

• Sonic Information -- The sound in games like Quake is pretty good, but what if it was rendered with enough precision to let blind people grok the scene? The echoes from the tapping of a white cane already carry plenty of information to the blind. What if they could compete on an equal footing with the sighted? Who would win?
• Eye Movement Measuring tools -- Tools exist for sensing the position of our eyes. A quadriplegic game could just look in the right direction and shoot. Clearly some work would need to be done to encode all of the shift-left-left-down-right maneuvers from the games. This could help all of us. The thumb you save from repetitive motion injuries could be your own.

Note: Since this review was written, Hacking the Xbox has found a publisher in the form of No Starch Press. The original self-published version will probably be a sought-after collectable ;)

Peter Wayner is the author of Translucent Databases and ten other books. None rely on the DMCA. Hacking the Xbox is due in July at bn.com; you can also go directly to the book's page at No Starch Press. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

What???

[flynt]

Would someone please explain in the "other English" simply what the summary of this article is trying to state? I have unusally high reading comprehension skills, but that paragraph has withstood repeated attempts on my part to retrieve any useful information from it!

Thanks in advance!

Re:What???

[Alan Partridge]

I know what you're saying, but it becomes clear (er) upon reading the rest of the dreadful piece.

More life wasting content from Dashslot.

Re:What???

[travdaddy]

Yeah, the problem is probably here:

Officially, Huang's excellent book is not about helping the differently-abled. That would be against the law.

So, helping the differently-abled is apparently against the law! I wonder if that counts the grammar-disabled? ;)

Re:What???

[sheriff_p]

For those of you who don't have to regularly deal with non-native speakers:

"Officially, Huang's excellent book is not about helping the differently-abled. That would be against the law."

Apparently helping the handicapped to use the xBox would be illegal (because of the DMCA, allegedly). That is why the book is called 'Hacking the xBox', and not 'Helping the handicapped use the xBox'.

"Huang was forced by the DMCA to hide his humanitarianism under the cloak of 'reverse engineering' because this is one of the few legitimate uses given a small amount of protection by the law."

The DMCA does allow some legal reverse-engineering (according to this), which is why Huang's book is meant to appear as a guide to that, rather than as a guide to (illegally) helping disabled people use the xBox.

"But if you've got an urge to help the handicapped or any other reason to tinker with your XBox, buy this book before the Man sees through this ruse."

So if you want to help the handicapped, or do other funky things with your xBox, buy this book, before Microsoft sues the author for helping the disabled.

Re:What???

[jared_hanson]

It is after articles like these that I rejoice when seeing the phrase "The next Slashdot story will be ready soon..." Nothing like the hope of something better to take your mind away from crap like this.

Re:What???

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Yes, that is absolutely true, there is no exemption in the DMCA for reverse-engineering for the purposes of accessibility. If you are blind and the DRM on your new operating system doesn't explicitly allow you to transfer the contents of an e-book to a Braille or audio device, then you are screwed.

This in in contrast Australian version. which I know for sure allows such reverse-engineering, and the European version, which I am pretty sure allows it.

Re:What???

[pkunzipper]

Speaking like a true bot.

Re:What???

[Austerity Empowers]

Then this is excellent, should "Bunnie" be sued we have a good trial case that could get the DMCA overturned or more likely weakened. I really like this "accessibility" angle, it would be very hurtful to be seen as the people standing against him...

Re:What???

[Alan Partridge]

It's just poorly written, not a question of comprehension. Anyway, we all know that Americans don't understand sarcasm...

Re:What???

[Alan Cox]

The european one both allows and disallows it at the same time and even if it explicitly allowed it it isnt clear how much it would help because accessibility companies are small and media companies are large and quite happy to litigate legitimate parties out of existance

Re:What???

[hesiod]

> If people reply like you just did every time they read a post they find uninteresting, this whole site would be a waste of time.

What, and all the normal trolls, flames, 1337 5p34k, political firefights, (the few) religious wars, my-OS/computer-is-better-that-your-OS/computer, now SCO whatever, etc. make you feel like you are spending your time better? A large number of posts on here are just people complaining about something. That's why I read it! To find people who are more pissed off than I am. That's a pretty tall order IRL, but the Internet brings us together like that. :)

Looks like an interesting book.

[Meat Blaster]

Some of the stuff seems alright; putting a green LED on the XBOX instead of the blue one is pretty innocous. But I'm kind of wondering if he's trudging into the grey area with putting a real USB cable on.

It doesn't seem logical that we shouldn't be able to modify hardware that we buy, but from the business perspective these consoles are being sold at a loss -- if we can turn them into PCs, both the console manufacturer and the PC manufacturers are going to feel the hurt. Not that I'm arguing that the DMCA makes sense, but some of this information probably shouldn't be widely known (thinking of the IDE card that could be changed into a RAID card at one soldier point for 1/5th of the cost of the RAID card from the company.)

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[stratjakt]

You can modify hardware you buy. You cant buy something and turn it into an illegal device, though.

You can buy a handgun, but you cant modify it to be fully automatic, for instance.

There's absolutely no law that says you can't splice a USB keyboard onto your xbox controller. Thats just a knee-jerk reaction of the reviewers.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[zedmelon]

The only way someone doing this would be hurting the console manufacturer is by lowering the liklihood of buying more games.

If they truly need to sell more games just to stay "out of the red," they should probably fire the people in their sourcing departments... or raise the console price again.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[realdpk]

All products being sold can and probably will be modified by someone. If the company choses to sell their product at a loss, it's their own problem if they can't make up for that profit - not the general public's. We have no responsibility to them.

With regards to the IDE card - the company made a conscious decision to build a cheap RAID card that could act as a straight IDE card. Someone figured it out. Tough nuts to them - they made their choice. They could have, for only a little bit more cost, made the devices incapable of being both (on the IDE ones, the chips destined for the IDE-only boards could have been physically identical, but had the RAID portion zero'd out at the chip fab).

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Malicious]

That's like saying they shouldn't publish shop manuals for cars, because people might use them to install illegal nitrous kits, etc...
If I bought something, it's mine to do with what i like. If i void my warranty, that's my buisness.
It's when Microsoft starts claiming that you are actually RENTING/Licencing your Xbox from them, that they can claim rights to the hardware.

This is /. we know it'll happen.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

but from the business perspective these consoles are being sold at a loss -- if we can turn them into PCs, both the console manufacturer and the PC manufacturers are going to feel the hurt.

Tough.

If businesses feel that the best way to get your product out there is to give it away for less than actual cost, then that is their shoddy business plan (anyone remember :CueCat?).

Most grocery stores offer what are called loss-leaders, these are the items you see advertised in the weekly newspaper insert that shows 1 gallon of milk for $0.99 and 2 liter Colas for $0.99 each. The stores know that if you come in to buy those items, you'll probably pick up other items while you are there and they can make their profit on those items. Do we really need a law that requires you to purchase X number of non-loss-leaders every time you go to the store for a gallon of milk so the store can continue to sell milk below cost? Nope.

Most groceries (at least where I live) now require a $10 minimum purchase in order to take advantage of the loss-leaders (alocohol and cigarette purchases do not count towards the $10). There - they found a perfectly legal way to ensure they don't take a huge loss without requiring government intervention.

If Microsoft wants to continue to sell $500 computer for $180 under the assumption that you're going to come back to them for more software, then that is their problem.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Marc2k]

That's just not the way the console wars work. This has been going on with many different companies over the last 20+ years. Almost no one EVER makes money on the console, the business plan is always to: try to make a desirable console that both players enjoy and developers enjoy programming, market it like crazy, make a good number of games yourself and directly profit, and license out games that other game shops develop for your system for a good amount of indirect profit. Except for the NeoGeo, the price of a new (as in, just released) is always $150-300, and no one wants to break that, as you make fewer and fewer sales above that mark, forcing money-wise developers to leave for other, more profitable systems. With that in mind, you also have to develop cutting-edge technology that fits in this price range. That's pretty rough itself.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[boredMDer]

You don't have an XBox, do you? The LED on the front panel is by default green, the book teaches how to mod it and replace the green one with a blue.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[zedmelon]

Good point.

Actually, I was hoping to make a more insightful statement like the one made by Oliver Wendell Jones, below (translation: I wish I was cool enough to say what HE said), but I'm too retarded.

That's why I need this mod.
;)

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[xonker]

but some of this information probably shouldn't be widely known (thinking of the IDE card that could be changed into a RAID card at one soldier point for 1/5th of the cost of the RAID card from the company.)

In a word: Bullshit. Manufacturers shouldn't be able to use the law to prop up bogus pricing schemes or to enforce their business plan. If they're selling the consoles at a loss, they take that risk -- the law shouldn't step in to enforce that so a manufacturer can make money. It's the responsiblity of the business to create a workable business plan. If someone can turn a Xbox IDE controller into a RAID controller "for 1/5 the cost of the RAID card from the company" then it means the company is seriously overpricing their cards.

The DMCA is increasingly being used as a way to defeat competition and enforce shoddy business practices -- not to uphold legitimate rights. If it continues, it won't be long before auto manufacturers are including chips to defeat third-party auto parts from working with their vehicles, and you can look forward to seriously inflated prices when you need to get new brake pads or whatever on your car because they'll be suing the competition out of business.

Taken to the extreme, I can see a day when you won't even be able to buy inexpensive replacement parts for household appliances -- motor burned out on your fridge? Too bad, buy a new one. Elements burned out in your oven? Hey, a new one from GE will only cost $300!

When you buy a product, it should be YOURS, period, end of story. If you want to mod your Xbox into a PC, and you have the skills to do it, then you damn well ought to be able to do so. Once you pay your $175 (or whatever they're going for) for an Xbox, Microsoft should cease to have any control over what you do with it -- save voiding the warranty if you decide to take it apart and start modding it.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Laur]

these consoles are being sold at a loss

This is often quoted, but do you have any proof that the XBox is still sold at a loss? I know there was a lot of publicity when it first came out a few years ago but in case you haven't noticed the price for PC hardware has dropped a bit since then. I think it is far more likeley that Microsoft is now making money on every unit sold.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

Yes you can modify it, but under the DMCA you can't tell anyone else how to modify it. You can hack your XBox to use a braille keyboard to help your sister, but you can't post a document telling other people how to do it.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Grab]

Excuse me? If a company is charging $50 for one card and $250 for another card, and the only difference is one blob of solder, that information for damn sure should be widely known! Consumers are being ripped off. So what if the company ripping off consumers loses money on it? That's the principle behind capitalism; you're allowed to spot a rip-off and refuse to buy products when they're priced extortionately.

And from the DMCA perspective, you reckon a company should be able to sue its customers if it chooses a bad business model and loses money?! I hardly know where to start with that one...

Grab.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[pkunzipper]

The paragraph raises an interesting point about how we are losing our right to tinker with things, especially electronic hardware. That market is in sharp contrast to the auto industry, where automakers make more money by letting you customize, tweak, and tinker (think accessories). Why can't thecomputer / electronics industry share this harmony. Rather, its members hides evolution from each other so as to prevent stealing of ideas, when pooling of ideas would bring about much more development. This "hiding", I believe, is a recent trend. Companies are so obsessed with short-term solutions that the profit-while-I'm-CEO mentality is really slowing down the industry. By the way, did anyone else wake up today and hear about records companies threatening to sue for file sharing on thre or more TV/radio stations?

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[tompaulco]

What is the point of replacing the green led with a blue one? My understanding is that the most common colorblindness causes red and green to look alike. I know several people with this affliction. However, they said they can still tell the difference between a green LED when it is on and when it is off. If this is one of those bicolor LEDs that turns red when the unit is off, but power is still supplied, then I understand. And no, I do not own an X-box. I can't justify buying one just for Oddworld. I'm sure it will port to PC some day.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Ignominious Poltroon]

If the company choses to sell their product at a loss, it's their own problem if they can't make up for that profit - not the general public's. We have no responsibility to them.

Like Fugazi says:

We owe you nothing.
You are not what you own.
We owe you nothing.
You have no control.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[lucifuge31337]

That's like saying they shouldn't publish shop manuals for cars, because people might use them to install illegal nitrous kits, etc...

Nirous kits aren't illegal. Nor is installing one.

The only thing illegal is not getting that vehilce re-inspected (which it will fail) before driving it on the public roadways.

Bad example.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Fjord]

The IDE card in particular is the Promise Ultra DMA66 to which you can flash the RAID ROM image and then solder a resitor and you get a RAID card (see here. The reason it's 5 times more expensive is because they need to recoup the cost of the R&D on the RAID software you flash to it.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[hesiod]

> I think it is far more likeley that Microsoft is now making money on every unit sold.

As long as they have started another production run. If they built 20 Million of them at onset for a fixed price, the manufacturing cost-per-unit does not decrease after time. If, OTOH, they have started another production run afterwards, and bought more parts instead of using left-over ones that were purchased at the same time as the 1st Gen parts, then the price per unit WOULD go down.

I do not know which case MS is in, although I would tend to agree with you that they would have done multiple runs with multiple purchases of Hardware.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[boredMDer]

All for the aesthetics, of course. People widely mod their PCs to make them look that much better, so why not an XBox? Or for that matter, any other electrical appliance that crosses a modder's eye.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Qzukk]

It doesn't seem logical that we shouldn't be able to modify hardware that we buy, but from the business perspective these consoles are being sold at a loss

So? Microsoft chose to sell them for the price they do. If thats too low of a price, they should not have sold them for that low of a price. Case closed.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Brett Johnson]

There's absolutely no law that says you can't splice a USB keyboard onto your xbox controller.

But there is a law (DMCA) that forbids you from figuring out how to write a device driver for that USB keyboard.

Re:Looks like an interesting book.

[Laur]

Microsoft HAS done multiple runs. There are several known revisions of the XBox, look on some of the XBox hacking sites to verify for yourself. As an example, I believe the original XBox came with ~8 GB HDD, later ones come with ~10 GB (although the system only uses the first 8) due to the decreaing availability of the smaller drives.

Where do I get the mod chip?

[zedmelon]

Can I get some feedback on good / bad experiences others have had with modding? Where can I get the chip?

I've been waiting for this opportunity to uh... play games with my handicapped brother.

*ahem* yeah...

Re:Where do I get the mod chip?

[Hellraisr]

http://www.xbox-scene.com/ has EVERYTHING you need or want or even don't want to know about Xbox modding. Even schematics on how to make your own homebrew mod chip

Please

[stratjakt]

Couldnt this have been reviewed by someone whos not a knee-jerk reactionary idiot? What a bunch of tripe.

Tip: If you wanted to develop some sort of controller for the handicapped, you can go right ahead - legally.

So all in all, is the book informative? Is there any neat technical information that would be of interest to anyone? Or is it a pseudo-politacal RMS-like diatribe about "big gub'ment and how Micro$oft is t eh suck".

Re:Please

[Voltronalpha]

What exactly do you think is legal?

I for one will never acknowledge any law that says I can't do whatever I want with my possesions in the privacy of my own home NOT hurting myself OR others directly with said item. Forget legality; think ethically.

Re:Please

[untaken_name]

...NOT hurting myself...

What is unethical about hurting yourself? I agree that hurting others with your possessions is poor form, from an ethical standpoint, but why do you put hurting only yourself in the same category?
I'm not trying to contradict you or flame you, I'm honestly curious.

Yeah, blind people playing

[gazbo]

Video games. Uh, huh.

Also, nice to see the general 'hey, lets take advantage of the good nature people show towards the disabled to get our lame-ass X-Box cracks out' theme here. /. hits new low.

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[dr_dank]

Video games. Uh, huh

If you think thats bad, I donated my old car to Federation for the Blind last month.

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[aug24]

The guy makes pretty damn clear it's an obvious blind. Play fair. I have mates who play games using special pointers - obviously it does happen.

Anyway, why shouldn't anyone crack/alter/smash/whatever something they have paid for as much as they damn well like? If MS are selling the X-Box at a loss it's their choice, not my problem! That's why they have made it hard to do, but it's still something I should be allowed to do.

Hell, only the US has a DMCA anyway: rest of the world just goes right ahead ;-p',',',','

J.

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[dgoodman]

I had this next door neighbor once, who liked to come over to my apartment for two reasons: the first was to hit on cute girls, the second was to play our copy of "Punch-Out" on our vintage Nintendo. sometimes he would combine the two.
Invariably, he'd come over, sit himself down, and start playing Punch-Out. No one would really pay attention, because there was always someone playing the nintendo: it was something we were used to.
Eventually he would make it to Mike Tyson. This is where people would start paying attention; a murmur would rise up: "hey, he's about to beat the game again! let's watch!". And he'd beat Mike Tyson. Then whoever hadn't been to my apartment before would be informed that the player was totally blind, and he would either play the game again just to annoy the person, or hit on her if she was cute (how would he know, you ask? well, that's a different story. let's just say my friend was pretty damn smooth...)
Turns out Punch-Out provides lots of audio cues; since he wasn't distracted by the images on the screen, he was actually much better than most. He hated that most games' use of sound was of no use to the blind...

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[k8to]

As the anonymous coward says, Quake has already been made available to blind players with surprising success. I know about this because I read a website called slashdot. You should try it sometime.

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[gazbo]

Wierd - I went to your website, and it had my login name there. Coincidence, or can you somehow detect it?

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[westfirst]

Oh sure. THat proves there's a demand for it. If we can do it for Quake, why not for the XBox games.

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[TimeZone]

what, you never heard of Tommy? That deaf dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball. I mean, sure plays a mean Halo.

TimeZone

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[kavau]

I had this next door neighbor once, who liked to come over to my apartment for two reasons: the first was to hit on cute girls...

What's your address?

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[autechre]

Not only audio cues, but most controllers today have "vibrate" functions for when a player is hit, large explosions, or whatever.

I know that after playing a game for a while, I don't need to look at the menus anymore, and I'm used to using my eyes. I'm sure if some thought were put into a game's design in this area, it could work at least reasonably well.

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[iabervon]

It would have been really funny to replace the TV with just a speaker one day, and see how long everybody else could pretend that nothing was unusual. "Hmm... everybody else really sucks today. I wonder why?"

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[hesiod]

> I think you need a couple of awareness seminars.

I think you need to move out of the nineties and back to reality. I don't care how P.C. you are, blind people generally do not play video games. It's a little difficult to read full-screen braille at 30fps.

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[hesiod]

> I went to your website, and it had my login name there

DON'T CLICK ON THAT LINK! It uses your browser to hack into your computer and then your mind to steal your username and password. It's a sick ploy to post "First Post!!!111!!!!!" as you!

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[Igmuth]

Well true, the rest of the world doesn't (Though I think i remember hearing about the EU working on their own version but I digress...). So as long as they don't plan on traveling to the US for any reason they should be pretty safe. Because if they arrive here they are fair game.

Re:Yeah, blind people playing

[PsyQ]

NetHack for example is perfectly playable by blind people through a Braille interface. I've seen blind people who play far better than me, and I can see.

I do agree that this "let's help the handicapped" thing was a little weird to say the least, but don't you ever underestimate the gaming prowess of blind people :)

Hope I'm not posting something redundant, way too early in the morning to read posts that are below 3.

Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft

[heironymouscoward]

Just an idea.

Many people run Windows solely for the games.
Without the games, switching to Linux is easier.
Now move all the games to Xboxes.

Voila! The desktop is now unencumbered and can
move to Linux easily.

So stop trying to hack the XBox and promote it
instead. Port all those cool Windows games?

Yay, go XBox!!

Re:Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft

[Maul]

Except that Microsoft's goal (IMO) is not to move games to XBoxes. Sure, they want the XBox to sell well as a game console, but that isn't their true purpose behind the thing.

The XBox is, in reality, a "testing ground" for creating a computer that a user has no control over whatsoever.

Re:Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft

[gspr]

Well, selling it at a loss means that MS is slowly gaining a higher and higher game console market share. With Sony and Nintendo out of the way in a few years time, and a continued shift by game developers towards the Xbox platform instead of the PC, Microsoft will have created their own, controlled platform. Yes, the Xbox is just a PC, but maybe that will change... What about the next Xbox? With the ever-increasing popularity of the console, Microsoft is slowly making their dream come true; control of the hardware.

Re:Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft

[Squidgee]

Dude, you best get you tinfoil hat back on before they read your mind! =p

And image, it got modded up..

Re:Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft

[Lord_Slepnir]

The XBox is, in reality, a "testing ground" for creating a computer that a user has no control over whatsoever.

Do you wear a tin foil hat or an aluminum foil hat?

Seriously, though. If it's a testing ground for a computer that the user has no control over, we can breathe a sigh of relief. Only a couple of years after its introduction, and we can hack it to do all kinds of things we shouldn't.

And even if they are developing with Intel a perfect computer, one that you can't hack no matter what, it still wouldn't make a difference. You'll still be able to use your old computer to your heart's content, not to mention that AMD and other companies that Microsoft didn't contract with to make this UberKomputer will continue to make new x86 hardware that will still run Windows. And the bussiness sector will still continue to run Windows, at least for a few years. All of the sys admins that I know where I work would never let in a piece of hardware or software in that they coudn't modify. We have Novell security on our windows boxes, and we get regular hardware upgrades. All it would take is one virus that could target the UberKomputer and only the UberKomputer to convince bussiness that switching is a Bad Idea(TM), and that a diverse system is the best way to go.

Re:Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft

[retto]

Actually, if you look at a lot of the most popular games for the Xbox, there isn't an awful lot of overlap between the console and the PC. Granted, there are some games like Splinter Cell that appeared on both around the same time, but a lot of RTS and RPGs never make it to the console, and many racing and fighting games never make it to the PC. To get your total gaming fix, you will need both a console and a PC. (The question is if the console is the PS2 or Xbox, but that is a whole other thread). With Microsoft having a stake in some game developers, you can be pretty confident it'll stay that way too.

Also if you look at any of the information out there about the Xbox2, even if only half of it is true, there will be a closer relationship between the console and a Windows PC. Streaming Windows Media files is one thing I've heard frequently, which would be motivation for the average user to keep Windows on their PC.

Re:Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft

[drinkypoo]

You're missing something. The market has room for first place, second place... and Nintendo. Sometimes Nintendo has been first place, but back in those days (HINT: NES) there was room for more contenders because Nintendo paved the way for the insurgence of the video game into everyone's homes. Oh sure, you'd think it was the Atari VCS, but the NES was the first really compelling platform. The 2600/VCS brought games home to the wide markets to begin with, but the NES brought them to people of "all walks of life". At least, that's how I see it :P

Sony and Nintendo will not be out of the way. Sony's next-generation console will be competitive - PS2 is after all still competitive with Xbox and at the moment still has more interesting games, though that will likely change soon enough what with the ease of Xbox porting. Meanwhile, Nintendo seems to be excellent at bringing out consoles which attract young and old gamers alike. I do think they screwed up when they brought out the gamecube with no DVD playing support. If you're going to use DVD technology, spend the ten bucks and give us DVD playback, we obviously want it. I think that hurt sales more than anything else you might say about gamecube, especially since all the consoles currently available have extremely similar controllers and are all in the same processing power and graphics ability neighborhood.

Re:Why the XBox is bad for Microsoft

[gamgee5273]

No, he's right. If you look at some of the interviews, etc., you'll learn that the motivation is to get into the living room - not to create great game consoles. They want to create an uber-Xbox that does all soerts of things. Let's look at a few things:

1) "Xbox" is a pretty generic name (about as generic as "iPod" - but I'll leave that where its at). It doesn't really bring games to mind. A "PlayStation" and a "GameCube" definitely do, but an "Xbox?" They chose a generic name for a reason.

2) Both Xbox 1.5 and Xbox 2 are rumored to have PVR capability (Xbox/Ultimate TV, anyone?). There is talk of media center-like uses for the Xbox (yep - like the computers MS worked with HP on...embrace, extend, extinguish...). The Xbox is already a DVD and CD player, and Bill Gates has begun to make noise much the same to Steve Jobs's "digital hub" talk.

3) What's missing? A browser and e-mail...WebTV. Just drop some of that into the mix while you're at it...your Gamer Tag can be your "@xbox.net" e-mail address or somesuch...

With all of that, MS has its hands in your recreational and entertainment activities. They want to do so - just dig around, you'll find it.

MS wants all your base.

helping the handicapped illegal?

[TWX]

I would think that the Americans With Disabilities Act, combined with the many lobby groups for the disabled, would stomp all over anyone or any group attempting to block someone assisting the handicapped...

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[flynt]

Allow me to rephrase what I believe the original author intended to say. He or she did say that helping the handicapped was illegal, but I don't think that's what the intent was. Here is a translation.

Officially, Huang's excellent book is about helping the handicapped, not about hacking the XBox, since that would be against the law. Huang was forced by the DMCA to hide his hacking under the cloak of 'humanitarianism' because this is one of the few legitimate uses given a small amount of protection by the law.

There does that make more sense? It sure does for me!

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[sql*kitten]

I would think that the Americans With Disabilities Act, combined with the many lobby groups for the disabled, would stomp all over anyone or any group attempting to block someone assisting the handicapped...

Sorry, but that argument ranks along side publishing techniques for duplicating PS2 games but claiming it's only a technique for "backing up". You can't hijack a particular group's interests and use them to advance your own like this. Example: you can't steal something from a store and offer as your defense in court "but I planned to donate it to charity". Well, you can, but it won't work. If you want to "hack" your X-box, at least have the balls to do it openly, don't cower behind a person in a wheelchair.

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[kisrael]

Actually, I think a better translation is:

Officially, Huang's excellent book is about reverse-engineering, not about hacking the XBox, since that would be against the law. Semiofficially, it is about hacking to help the handicapped, because while that is still against the law, it makes it sound like a good and moral cause to support. In reality, we suspect it's all about hacking the X-box for fun and cranking up its capabilities, from acting as a generic PC to playing pirated games, but as this is both probably illegal and maybe immoral, depending on your perspective, we won't 'fess up to it.

Actually, I sometimes get vaguely concerned that the ADA could be taken too far...I mean some games are meant to be tough for people with no handicap at all, you can't gear everything for the lowest common denominator.

(Though maybe cheat codes would become manditory? Heh.)

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[stratjakt]

Helping the handicapped is a goal or a motive. You can have whatever goals you want, be it helping old ladies play Halo or killing all kittens.

Reverse engineering is a means to that end. There's no law against helping the handicapped. Thats just idiotic FUD.

It's not illegal to want to kill all kittens, but it is illegal to drive around shooting them out of your car window.

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[autopr0n]

No, the traslation is

Officaly, I am an idiot who knows nothing about Intelecual Property law and the DMCA. I remembered that one of the arguments made by Elcomsoft's protected-acrobat cracker was that it allowed the blind to access protected PDFs. It also let you do other things, like copy the files far and wide. But I ignored that and came to the asinine conclusion that helping the handicapped was illegal under the DMCA.

Now, I'm going to try, and fail, to use sarcasm to make a point about how helping people who are handicapped is illegal by saying that this book is not 'Officaly' about helping the handicapped because if it was about helping the handicapped it would be illegal. In fact, the book has absolutely nothing to do with helping the handicapped. That was a joke. Unfortunately, rather then laugh, everyone got confused.

In conclusion. The book has nothing to do with helping the handicapped. I am an idiot. I am not funny.

I think that about sums it up.

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[silas_moeckel]

Those two things are very different. Backing up PS2 games is one thing and used to be covered under fair use doctorine untill the DCMA. Now making modifications to hardware for the purpose of enabaling the handicapt is allowed under the DCMA one of the few things that is. When you get into things that have significant other uses thats wehre you can get into things the courts need to decide.

Now personaly hack the Xbox make it play nitendo games for all I care. The fact they are sold below cost is not mine nor should it be anybody outside of MS and there compotition. When will people wake up and remember were not hear to support corps if they do stupid things dont bail them out. The fact that the DCMA is protecting corp profit margines is disgusting. Dont want people to be able to copy your games easily use a cart not a CD or DVD.

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[flynt]

Now *that* makes some sense to me, thanks!

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[Chris Johnson]

They're not sold below cost.

The technology is so far behind modern PCs by now that they've gotta be turning a profit, even at not-amazing volume...

and: turning Slashdot into a Microsoft-pimping fan site- priceless.

Re:helping the handicapped illegal?

[silas_moeckel]

That may be true but because so may of the parts are cusom or modifed for the DRM while the CPU is cheap the rest of it is VERY custom and those VERY expensive compared to rock bottom PC prices least thats what I think is happening.

all except for one thing

[ed.han]

ya left out the polls!

[options a-g]

h. [unable to participate] you insensitive clod!
i. [cowboy neal poll option]

Re:All of /. in one post.

[Hellraisr]

You forgot

In Soviet Russia, Item "B" does "X" to YOU!

you forgot some stuff...

[TWX]

You forgot:

Apple R0xx0rs!

Apple Sucks!

Kde!

Gnome!

Amigas aren't dead!

Look, games don't *have* eyeballs.

[kahei]

A quadriplegic game could just look in the right direction and shoot.

This is a good example of the 'hey, I know what I mean, so if I string together a few kind of related words I'm sure you'll know what I mean too' school of self-expression that has done internet discussion so much good over the years :)

That or it's a a terrifying new plan to create games that can shoot back at you, even after you chop their limbs off.

Re:Look, games don't *have* eyeballs.

[pork_spies]

This is a good example of the 'hey, I know what I mean, so if I string together a few kind of related words I'm sure you'll know what I mean too' school of self-expression that has done internet discussion so much good over the years :)

All that is missing from the original posting was an 'r' from the end of 'game'. And, yes, it was making a good point (in contrast to the flame copied over above). Indeed such a game might be something we'd all want to play.

Many war movies are saved

[MrFredBloggs]

"Many war movies are saved by the young private who (like Huang) is willing and able to tinker."

Although most are saved by extensive use of special effects, and bags of red liquid which splish and splash when detonated by small amounts of industrial explosive.

Re:Many war movies are saved

[drinkypoo]

And far more of them are saved by the young pirate, who is equipped with an FTP client, IRC client, or NNTP client equipped to handle multipart binaries.

Re:Many war movies are saved

[retto]

most are saved by extensive use of special effects

And where do you think those brave CGI animators, and the courageous software engineers that support them, would have gotten their experience from? From tinkering with a hacked Xbox of course...

Re: um, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I remember back when the cool thing was to take a celeron 100mhz processor ..."

Sorry.

There was no Celeron 100Mhz processor.
It started at 266Mhz.

Either you meant Pentium, or you're just making it up.

Re:All of /. in one post.

[tomstdenis]

I'm trying to save bandwidth for people. By putting all of the stupid conistent /. replies into one there is no need for others to chime in their pathetic feeble attempts at something new and original.

I'm always looking out for the man, uh, man!

J. Shaft.

no no... too obvious...

John S.

intro blurb

[delorean]

Yes, that introductory blurb couldn't have been more confusing. The author was obviously depending on his implanted 802.11b to transmit what he was thinking instead of what he actually wrote.

You get what you pay for, unless you actually are a subscriber to slashdot. Actually, if you amalgamate the whole 'net I'm not totally convinced it's worth the $50 DSL fee....

Re:intro blurb

[mekkab]

if you amalgamate the whole 'net I'm not totally convinced it's worth the $50 DSL fee....

Oh, nonsense.
What about Tape leg?!?!?

(Actually, Strong Bad is super dope and very much so worth my while. Dragon has become the next AYBABTU. Wether that is good or not is up to you.)

Re:intro blurb

[delorean]

I went to homestar runner once.

I felt even more cheated of my time. What's the point? It's worse than watching a mere clip of Jay & Silent bob, or Dumb & "let me take your money"erer.

Re:intro blurb

[mekkab]

Dude- I was just like you.

Then I accidentally got sent to Homestarrunner again. Of course I had completely blocked out the first time on account of it being so bad and all, so I got doubly cheated out of my time.

And then something strange happened. I got sent (through a blind link) AGAIN to homestarrunner and then I laughed. I then watched every Strong Bad e-mail and became hooked. I don't know man, it just went from dumb to funny.

Okay- one thing I found TRULY funny was strong bad makes this stupid comic- "Teen Girl Squad"- and it sucks, and not a funny way. But then at the end he mentions "Yeah, I could prolly run off a few crappy xeroxes and sell them at a snooty independent music store"-
and when you click on "snooty independent music store" it cuts to a scene with some old vinyl (the Brothers Johnson!), the crappy comic, Sonic Youth playing in the background, and then this HYSTERICAL banter of indie-hipness/cluelessness with a guy coming in and the record store clerk.
So after that, I decided it was worth my while.

Does this mean I should see a doctor?!

Blind beating sighted in quake? Nah.

[siskbc]

"Sonic Information -- The sound in games like Quake is pretty good, but what if it was rendered with enough precision to let blind people grok the scene? The echoes from the tapping of a white cane already carry plenty of information to the blind. What if they could compete on an equal footing with the sighted? Who would win?"

I can see it now in a deathmatch:

...tap...tap...tap.....BLAM!!!!

So what does the echo of a rocket up your ass sound like? Huh! Huh!

I think we can all agree that, while this project may have its uses, you ain't playing quake without actual vision anytime soon. Seeing some poor bastard with a cane getting blowed up ain't funny.

Re:revised /. in a can

[Alric]

You are pretty much right on the money. You even misspelled kitsch.

You forgot one cliche Slashdot component:
Posts attempting humor by summarizing Slashdot.

No diggity.

Re:All of /. in one post.

[Anonymous Coward]

A reader here posted thoughts on /.'s editor in chief and I think he/she is right on. Taco needs to be a member of the community instead of the madman behind the curtain. Here is his/her post:

One of CmdrTaco's greatest flaws is his lack of professionalism and common courtesy. He's generally blunt and rude...but he can be helpful once in a while. Of course, this puts him at a level consistent with normal /. users...but that's not what you want for the head of a website viewed by hundreds of thousands of people a day.

Slashdot reminds me of the crap found in the old .com businesses. A couple of people with no real business skills or common courtesy create a product, without any real plan, hoping to succeed. For some reason, CmdrTaco did. Not having learned enough leadership lessons, he continues to be his old self, taking Slashdot wherever he wants, instead of where Slashdotters want it to go.

To me...it's frustrating. Slashdot has so much
potential. But CmdrTaco doesn't have the leadership to acheive it. He's stuck playing around with the moderation system, managing a horrible story selection routine, or criticizing people in his journal. Slashdot could be so much more. If he let go of his stalled vision of what Slashdot should be, and let people develop their own projects in Slash, Slashdot could be a blast. Remember the BBS's of ten years back? It was a place where a bunch of people who truly love computers hung out. You could chat, play games,
download files, ASCII bomb each other..whatever. There was public forums that were controlled, and private forums that we had control over. Now what do we have today? About 15 crappy articles a day that only get accepted because they appeal to michael or timothy's insanely liberal bias, and journals where somebody posts a thought and we post replies. That's it.

CmdrTaco has so many options staring him in the face to take Slashdot from a stalled mediocre site to a great geek hangout. Here's what I believe he should do.

1) Act more as the owner/manager of Slashdot... instead of an egotistical coder in a basement who works on side projects. This means that he'll manage many projects simultaneously, instead of personally coding a few.

2) Get better staff. Fund them by providing features Slashdotters want and will pay for. (Seeing stories 20 minutes early so you can catch the editor's mistakes is not a feature).

3) Let go of his vision of what Slashdot should be, and openly let others help out

4) Design a system, much like open source
projects, that lets people design and develop their own additions to Slashdot. (CmdrTaco says he wants people to fix bugs and contribute to Slash...but why the hell would others do this if they know CmdrTaco will say "Idiot, your work is useless. We discussed this years ago. It doesn't fit with what we want.")

5) Add extra areas...such as chat rooms, stupidly fun group games, better private options other than just journals....that give Slashdot more of a hangout feel rather than a newsy feel.

Heh, I'm starting to sound like some annoying young business school graduate. "Now if CmdrTaco could proactively change his paradigm to better synergize this approach -- which I will call the B.E.T.T.E.R. -- he can utilize multitasking to provide revenue in a dispered/sharing system." But seriously...I just hate seeing Slashdot with so much potential. I know I could have a blast and find tons of friends here. But looking back at CmdrTaco's past - little common courtesy and his contept for ideas that aren't his own - , it's pretty certain Slashdot will remain mediocre
and unprofessional.

thank you Peter Wayner

[Anonymous Coward]

"humour is just logic dancing", as they say.

thanks, peter. that was really wonderful to read this morning.

Re:join 'Slashdot' on AIM, exchange 4

[pympdaddyc]

Oh yea, that's what we need. Now we can get useless and uninformed while highly opinionated slashdot comments in real time. Rock on!!1111

*mimics shooting himself with a gun*

From the chewbacca-defense-book-reviews

[gosand]

Would someone please explain in the "other English" simply what the summary of this article is trying to state? I have unusally high reading comprehension skills, but that paragraph has withstood repeated attempts on my part to retrieve any useful information from it!

Yes, I can explain this review.

Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, Chef's attorney would certainly want you to believe his client wrote Stinky Britches ten years ago, and they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself. But ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, (pulls down picture of Chewbacca) this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it. That does not make sense...Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor with a bunch of two-foot-tall Ewoks. That does not make sense. But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case?...Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case...It does not make sense. Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense. And so you have to remember when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No. Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, it does not make sense. If Chewbacca lives on Endor you must acquit.

So buy this book. The End.

Re:From the chewbacca-defense-book-reviews

[Mark Clements]

Look at the monkey!! Look at the silly monkey!!

Re:revised /. in a can

[tomstdenis]

wouldn't that get messily recursive though?

J.S

Why I'm glad Wiley didn't can my Hacking TiVo book

[jkeegan]

I'd heard about the Hacking the Xbox book before Wiley dumped it, because Wiley is publishing my Hacking TiVo book and it came up during conversations. When the news hit it was a shock - I was sorry to hear his book got canned, and have been following his story since.

With regards to my book, I'm obviously glad it didn't get similarly cut (since I've spent a lot of time on it), but now Andrew has given me another reason to be happy it wasn't cut.

These pictures from his site
(the links at the bottom of the page)

I can see my wife's reaction now... :-O

Would the real ruse please stand up?

[LostCluster]

Somehow, I think this book is more about hacking hiding under the ruse of helping the disabled than the other way around like the review implies.

The fact is, blind people can't play video games very well and nothing's going to really be able to fix that. I'm not sure what kind of hardware hack is gonna fix that. The avenue of having an first person shooter that can be played having sound give away the locations of other players for those who can't see video is really more of a challenge to the software developers... an off the shelf technology like QSound should make such a game possible, but would it be particularly playable is still unknown.

There's no need to hack the X-Box to make an eye-movement control. Pay your license fees to Microsoft and you can make almost any kind of controller you want, plug right into the front of the box without a "true USB" mod needed. BTW, for those of you who don't know, quadriplegics can't do hardware mods anyway for some strange reason.

The legal contraversy around this book has to deal with the ongoing fight over reverse engineering information from being publsihed. There's nothing contraversial about helping the disabled, and there's no stiff legal penalties for helping handicapped people use computers. The DMCA doesn't talk about handicapped people at all, but it has a lot to say about reverse engineering...

The book is called Hacking the XBox, not Helping Disabled People Use the XBox.

Re:Would the real ruse please stand up?

[westfirst]

Well, it may not say anything about helping the handicapped, but that's the problem. If there's no exemption, then it's against the law . Have you checked the size of the penalties? Those college student who thought they were doing "nothing wrong" by swapping a few files are going to be paying off their debt for a long time. They're lucky they weren't saddled with a million dollars in penalties.

Re:Would the real ruse please stand up?

[autopr0n]

Somehow, I think this book is more about hacking hiding under the ruse of helping the disabled than the other way around like the review implies.

The book has nothing to do with the handycapped. The reviewer was trying to make a joke and failed.

I think it's the other way around

[abe ferlman]

lets take advantage of the good nature people show towards the disabled

Actually, I think their point was that the outrageous laws the content industries have purchased are making some benign activities. That is, the disabled are being written off as collateral damage in the copyright wars.

What you call taking advantage of sympathy, I call exposing the reckless disregard of our laws for the disabled and others to the sympathetic who otherwise might have missed it.

reviewer slant?

[Milkyman]

I was under the impression that this book was about just what the title says, hacking the xbox. where did all this handicapped gamer stuff come from? i never saw mention of this when seeing mention of this book previously, was this just some angle the reviewer put in to make the DMCA look extra bad and like its picking on the "differently abled?"

Re:reviewer slant?

[titzandkunt]

Are you f*cking blind or something?!

Can't you read the frggin' article?

Uh .. sorry ... I didn't realise ...

T&K.

what on earth is this guy on about?

[aderusha]

ok, i preordered this book 3 months ago, and read it cover to cover the day it came in (great book btw).

not once did i notice any mention of accessibility. plenty of info on reverse engineerings, useful soldering tips, insight on IP law, and lots of other fascinating stuff - but nowhere does the author mention anything even remotely close to making the xbox usable to people with disabilities.

the author of this review asserts that "Don't be fooled by the title. Officially, Huang's excellent book is not about helping the differently-abled. That would be against the law. Huang was forced by the DMCA to hide his humanitarianism under the cloak of 'reverse engineering' because this is one of the few legitimate uses given a small amount of protection by the law."

i think maybe the reviewer is reading into the book what he wants to hear, and not what the damn book is about. (here's a hint: i starts with "r" and ends with "everse engineering").

claiming the Huang was forced by the evil minions of the DMCA to "hide his humanitarianism" by pretending that the book is really about reverse engineering is not only stupid, it's doing a disservice to one of the best books for beginning hardware hackers i've ever seen.

If you're a handicapped Windows user

[Phoenix666]

hmmm, "handicapped Windows user." rather redundant, don't you think?

I would hate to be this guys editor

[Emugamer]

Peter Wayner is the author of Translucent Databases and ten other books.

hehe "Umm... I need a translator and 45 cases of red pens?" At least he can sort of spell

Legal penalties for helping handicapped people?

[dmccarty]

The book was originally going to be published by Wiley, but the company balked when it realized there were stiff legal penalties for helping handicapped people use computers.

Surely this is as good an example of FUD as I've every seen. Too bad it's the "good guys" spreading misinformation.

What terrible timing, too! I was just headed to the nursing home to help read some web pages to a blind guy, but now I'll have to stay away so I don't get stiff legal penalties!

Deathmatch

[limekiller4]

From the blurb:
"The sound in games like Quake is pretty good, but what if it was rendered with enough precision to let blind people grok the scene? The echoes from the tapping of a white cane already carry plenty of information to the blind. What if they could compete on an equal footing with the sighted? Who would win?"

My money is on the guy with the stick.

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't just go modding your hardware to help the handicapped. That's not allowed. There are only a few very specific exemptions to the DMCA and even those exemptions haven't been upheld in court.

Consider the 2600 magazine case. They didn't publish DeCSS, they only linked to it. They claimed an exemption for hardware compatability. They were helping people view DVD's on a Linux machine. That exemption is written into the law. Yet, 2600 magazine lost.

So buddy. Do you want to try something that isn't exempted?
Helping the handicapped is NOT one of activities supposedly protected by the law.

A Book, a Statement ...

[Schlacht]

... OR BOTH? Being interested in the inner workings of this 'mysteriously powerful black box' I eagerly voided my warranty early on my xbox. Bunnie, did sooo much more ...

This book is a good read for anyone interested in system architecture, console hardware, or just getting the best bang for your $buck$. I gained more respect for the system once I knew more about it via ,"Hacking the Xbox". I would say that he did a good job putting in content for just about everyone interested. From simple soldering tips to stuff that was just 'over my head' because I don't have the background.

Congrats to getting your publication out Bunnie!

Writing books can *never* be against the DMCA

[autopr0n]

Back when the US had crypto export laws, the book applied cryptography could still be exported. Why? Because it was a book. The first amendment trumped any crypto export laws. It was only when the code was put on a computer that it became illegal.

In fact, the text of the DMCA EXPLICITLY allows you to DISCUSS the circumvention of copyright. It only becomes illegal when you apply the idea to a physical device (or, based on the DeCSS trial, a compiled computer program) and then distribute it.

A lot of people here seem spew random crap (like the completely non-sensical intro paragraph) about the DMCA without actually knowing that much about it(and the GPL, as we've seen in these SCO stories).

I mean, would it kill you people to read the thing?

Re:Writing books can *never* be against the DMCA

[freeweed]

In fact, the text of the DMCA EXPLICITLY allows you to DISCUSS the circumvention of copyright.

So how'd 2600 lose their linking case then? From what I understand, they only DISCUSSED DeCSS.

Re:Writing books can *never* be against the DMCA

[untaken_name]

I mean, would it kill you people to read the thing?

No, but where's the knee-jerk reactionism in actually READING the thing? It's much easier to halfway pay attention to what others are saying (or to vague recollections of what people may have said) and respout it, only slightly more wrong than whoever they're parroting.

Re:Writing books can *never* be against the DMCA

[untaken_name]

So how'd 2600 lose their linking case then? From what I understand, they only DISCUSSED DeCSS

They provided a direct link to the compiled program, as I understand it. Now, do I think 2600 should have lost the case? Hell no. Is providing a link to the compiled executable the same as writing a book? Nope...not yet. I guarantee you that 'content providers' like microsoft are trying to make it the same, though. Then they'll go after the websites, then the forums....it sounds ridiculous until it happens, just like all of humanity's greatest follies.

Re:Writing books can *never* be against the DMCA

[Cyno]

In the case of the DeCSS and MPAA v. 2600 trials Judge Kaplan stated that it was a distinction without a difference whether you link to a file that violates the DMCA or distribute that file yourself. In other words it could possibly be illegal in the eyes of the court to show someone how to copy a DVD. Hey, judge Kaplan said it, not me.

I have lost faith in a 3 branches of the government. The only thing shielding us from all out corporate control is our judgicial system. And I personally believe most of our judges can not be trusted to make the right decision when we put "freedom" v. "money" on the scales. Even blindfolded our judges can always smell the money.

What's wrong with you?

[autopr0n]

it's called The digital millennium copyright act. Not the Digital Millennium Profit act. Putting a USB port on something has absolutely nothing to do with copyright. And thus nothing to do with the DMCA. If Microsoft wants to give away free PCs and dosn't make any money, tough shit. They should have picked a bussness model that worked.

Control over hardware - why it does not matter

[heironymouscoward]

Microsoft may (and this is debatable) be aiming for control over a trusted hardware platform. Applying Occam's razor suggests they want to lock down the Xbox to prevent piracy of their games.

Honestly: does anyone here believe a large company can build a secure system? Security (be it in hardware, software, or bricks) depends on human beings, and the larger the company the more weak links there are.

Microsoft cannot be so stupid as to actually believe a secure box is possible. It is not.

And... if it was... who cares? Hardware is a commodity and there will always be someone happy to build and sell a 'untrusted' platform.

Paranoia over trusted computing is OK, but don't forget that we're talking about corporations that are basically incompetent when it comes to security.

Not true

[autopr0n]

Actually consoles are only sold at a loss when they are first released. Once margins pick up they are sold at cost for a while. Eventually the price of the components needed to build the thing falls, and the units are sold at a profit.

Do you really think it costs the same amount of money to make a PS2 as it did when they came out? Microsoft believed this myth the same way you did and kind of hosed themselves. But they have $40 billion in the bank, so who cares.

After at least a year they do make a profit on the machines, and thats when most of them are sold.

Coming soon... "You MUST buy $200 worth of games."

[HydeMan]

Just because MS sells the XBOX's at a loss should not mean that my freedom is restricted. Nobody told MS to sell these boxes at a loss. They did so at your own free will. This is as crazy as the DCMA saying that if I buy an XBOX, because MS is selling these at a loss, I am required BY LAW to buy $200 worth of games, so MS doesn't lose money on the deal. The law should not force dumb business models on consumers. Business should adjust to the wants and tastes of consumers. That IS the free market.

Re:I think you're missing the point

[indead]

Add extra areas...such as chat rooms, stupidly fun group games, better private options other than just journals....that give Slashdot more of a hangout feel rather than a newsy feel.

The site's name is : Slashdot, News For Nerds. Stuff that Matters.

NOT : Slashdot, A Kewl Hangout Spot - now with Tic Tac Toe!

You left out...

[snatchitup]

I overclocked it, fried and egg on it, now I've got the Power authority tipping the police that I'm growing hemp.

My two cents

[inflexion]

That review sucked, but don't let it stop you from buying the book. I got my copy last week and can say it is definitely worth the money. It's a quick read (~2 nights) but will help you out with a lot of the basics of electronics that you never pick up in school or more formal textbooks. I don't even own an X-box nor do I plan on ever buying one and I still found this book interesting. Take that for what it's worth.

Re:My two cents

[silentmusic]

I'm a hardware engineer, and I was given this book by somebody (Thanks Jimi) who bought multiple copies to support "bunnie."

I basically skipped to the end because that's where he discusses some of the more interesting hardware hacking. I think that it's very well written and he offers some really useful advice. He even mentions details like why you don't necessarily want to use a heat gun to remove a part that has absorbed moisture.

I could offer a few little suggestions here and there (minor things like recommending Metcal soldering irons) but all-in-all he did a really good job.

Anyways I think that it's a good read for people that want to learn how to modify modern electronics equipment. Even if you're a EE major you'll probably learn some practical information by reading this book. If you're a software engineer that doesn't want to touch a soldering iron, then some parts may seem a bit baffling.

BTW: The Slashdot overview of this book is totally bizarre.

Well, it's extreme but...

[Anonymous Coward]

For some time, some Adobe licenses would ban people from reading a book outloud. Why? Well, it can be considered a performance in some situtations and the lawyers wanted to reserve all of those rights (and royalties!) for the copyright owner. They didn't bother to think about the kids going to sleep at night or the handicapped. They just made it illegal with a few words. The penalties for copyright infringement are huge too. It sounds like a joke, but reading outloud can be against the law.

Re:Blind beating sighted in quake? Nah.

[drinkypoo]

I disagree. I think seeing anyone getting "blowed up" is hilarious, provided they're not a friend of mine, and I don't get any on me.

But you're right about one thing; Cane taps won't help with an incoming rocket. Of course, it IS possible to have a sound to let people know when a projectile is incoming... But that won't really help you shoot people halfway across the map. You'd have to implement some kind of sonar that gave you an idea of what was under the crosshairs, and then you'd have to be able to play the game with a mouse. And at that point, just use a fricken PC.

I have read the book

[pommiekiwifruit]

But not the article :-)

Published by Xenatera Press though, not No Starch whatever.

It's great, and relates a bit to what I was looking at recently - I'm a software guy who got sent a few scarey looking boards with FGPAs and stuff on them; I delegated the soldering iron though :-)

There is a chapter on the law which mentions how scarey it is getting these days, but the bulk of the book is about hardware, encryption and soldering, which was much more interesting than I thought the book would be when the girl persuaded me to buy the book. She had a lovely big display of them, and wished bunnie could have sent her a bigger poster.

It certainly filled a few gaps in my knowledge.

Re:I have read the book

[TobyWong]

FGPA is that a french grade point average? Or is it similar to a FPGA?

Product strategy idiocy x Consumers

[zanderredux]

It doesn't seem logical that we shouldn't be able to modify hardware that we buy, but from the business perspective these consoles are being sold at a loss

Customers do not have anything to do with the fact that some companies opted to sell their products at a loss. Why should loss-making companies be protected from customers while engaging on unfair market tactics against their competitors?

Score -1 facutally incorrect.

[Zeriel]

It has been stated many times--Since the original Playstation at least, if not before, consoles have made profits for the manufacturers.

Think about it. There are and have been free PSX development tools, so you don't have to pay Sony anythign to develop games for it. Sony doesn't make their own games.

By your logic, the PS1 is a complete money hole for Sony. Which it isn't. PS1 hardware has turned a profit from day 1.

Incidentally, TurboGrafix16 was around $350 when it came out, as was the 3DO, and Sega Saturn was higher IIRC.

Give me a break

[Shimmer]

IANAL, so I can't say whether hacking an X-Box is legal or not. I can say for sure, however, that it should be.

Helping the handicapped, while theoretically noble, is not the reason why it should be legal. The reason we need to be able to hack our X-Boxes is because... they're ours! We bought 'em with good money and we should be able to do whatever we want with them within reason. This is a fundamental principle of a free society.

What next? Is someone going to tell me that it's illegal for me to invite a friend over to play video games on my console since it doesn't belong to him?

-- Brian

Next on South Park....

[Anonymous Coward]

Timmy's X-box gets modded so he can play quake with the blind people. ...tap...tap...tap....

TIMMMMMMMMAY

Re:"Profit" usually support research and developme

[ivan256]

You are not taking into account costs that are tied directly to manufacturing. This includes the costs of doing research and development on products that don't sell very well and lose money for the company. The ability to generate a profit during good years means that companies have an emergency surplus for the bad years. The hardware business is particularly cutthroat, with many competitors and thin margins.

And he shouldn't take that into account. There are already laws to protect companies that have such problems: bankruptcy laws. If you want to have a loss-leader business model, you better have some patents or trade secrets that will keep you in business, because other laws shouldn't help you. Any business plan is a calculated risk, and if yours can't make it without special treatment then you should go out of business.

There's a big difference between the "razors and blades" business model and the "Xbox, games, millions of lobying dollars and the DMCA" business model, and if you can't see it you have to look harder.

Re:EULA?

[Voltronalpha]

Are You *INSANE* ?
When did following unjust laws become morally correct?

Last time I checked America revolted because of the Tyranny of the British government at the time. You think you should sit and idly take commandments from our governing institutions to not use our god given right to alter our own possession (and to propagate that information) for your own benefit.

Just as it is Illegal to feed parking meters your opinion is asinine like poorly written laws not made in the best interest of humanity but that of profit.

How fucked up is it that IP protections displace freedom of speech and freedom of press.

Write your congressman, Scream in the streets, Piss on your neighbors Mercedes, But Damnit ERASE this attitude that it is all right for these laws to be made and exist.

Ebook?

[Resist148]

The book is under the creative commons license, so you can copy it for non commercial purposes legally. So does anyone have an ebook of it yet?

Re:EULA?

[Zobeid]

You're assuming that the EULA is, in fact, a legally binding contract. I have serious doubts about that. In fact, I was under the impression that most EULAs are simply legal fantasies created to intimidate consumers into doing whatever the seller wants.

EULAs are a completely weird quirk of the computer industry. You don't see cars sold with EULAs, or home appliances, or books, or music or movies. Yet, every guy peddling shareware out of his attic/basement/garage thinks he has to tack several pages of legal mumbo-jumbo onto his product. It's a kind of mass insanity.

Re:"Profit" usually support research and developme

[sjames]

You are not taking into account costs that are tied directly to manufacturing.

That may well be, but it is not the customer's responsability to make sure they see a return on their investment, it is theirs. Once they sell a card, it becomes the buyer's property. The buyer may then use it (for any purpose, perhaps even as an IDE card), destroy it, give it away, sell it, or turn it into a more valuable piece of hardware.

Whoever has the rigfht to say how a thing is used (or not used) is the owner. While I'm sure that many companies would like to 'sell' a product and still own it, that's too bad for them.

If they don't want buyers turning a cheap IDE card into an expensive raid card, perhaps they should break a few links in the silicon rather than on the card where a soldering iron can fix it.

My principles ...

[jayjaylee]

... prevent me from reading a book by a guy who nicknames himself "Bunnie."

Funny watching /. go from Linux to Pro-Microsoft.

[Viewsonic]

There are more positive Microsoft articles than Linux articles in the past month. This is not a good thing. Pretty soon this will be a 24/7 Microsoft XBox site. Man, this is what dreams(nightmares) are made of.

Re:EULA?

[untaken_name]

now, i may well go and mod my xbox, but i realize that I am doing it illegally and realize that legal action against me is possible.

Can I bring legal action against you for trolling?
No reasonable person could ever believe that modding a legally purchased xbox would be illegal, or that microsoft has some sort of powers to declare that it is with an EULA. Remeber, just because it's a contract doesn't mean it's legal, or binding, or legally binding. microsoft could just slip 'and I agree to turn over all monies and property in my posession to microsoft immediately' somewhere in its 543765436 page EULA, and start declaring that all your asset are belong to MS. Obviously that wouldn't fly in a court of law. Don't assume that because something is written in legalese that it is legally binding.

My review

[legrandgramgroum]

I happily own the book since the begining of the week and I have currently read three fourth.

I have never been involved in hardware, electronic or architecture, neither with my personal projects nor with my education. IMHO, this book is well named when it says "Introduction to reverse engineering". The guy talk a langage I can understand and I became aware of fields that I had not a clue (there is only a few book that had this chilling effect to me). For example, I would never have thought that you could "read" a motherboard only with your brain and eyes (The author's expression) but his explanation and the short examples he gave does give a sense to the expression. You get the general idea.

It is an overview, the book is quite short (and quite cheap), the first chapters are really basic and you need some background to take full advantage of the last chapters. Concepts are named, websites, tools and books are cited for further study : "Mais que demande le peuple?".

My opinion : a golden nugget.

PS: For sure, I wouldn't trade it against last wizard's adventures. And the chapter on finding the ROM is a real thriller when ... (Oups, no spoilers :D)

From the original post...

[weeboo0104]

If you're a handicapped Windows user

Isn't that a redundant statement?

Er, what?

[dasunt]

I've heard horror stories from Army Majors about Windows PCs that refused to boot after failing to find a C drive.

Isn't this to be expected? Hell, I don't yank out /dev/hda in my linux box and expect it to boot either.

Computers 101: If an OS expects to find operating files in a certain location, removing that location is going to confuse the operating system bigtime when booting.

Windows does boot from primary-master, primary-slave, secondary-master, and secondary-slave HDD positions. (I'll test with SCSI as soon as someone donates some new hardware). What more do you want?

Next week: Criticizing cars because some refuse to run without gasoline. *Gasp!*

This is a review?

[Doomstalk]

Pardon me if I'm being rude, but this doesn't seem to me to be a review. There is very little commentary on or description of the contents of the book. It seems more like an overview of the history of bunnie's efforts, and the reviewer's thoughts on the government's prohibitive stance on reverse engineering. This is all well and good for a sidebar, but it doesn't quite suffice as a real review.

Re:This is a review?

[Chris Johnson]

It seemed to me to be a bit of Microsoft astroturf, in a big way. "There are many reasons why you might want to take apart your XBox, but one of the best ones I can imagine is making it easier for people who can't see, hear or move too well to play the same video games as the rest of us." Because of course we ALL have xboxen, isn't that right? It's a bit weird when more than half the MS stories on /. are MS pimping. I guess you get what you pay for.

Share MP3s to help the disabled

[flowerp]

Dear author,

could you please describe in detail how I could share my MP3 music collection over the net to help the deaf, the blind and the disabled and to cure terminal diseases? If it requires overcoming sophisticated CD copy protection mechanisms would you please be so kind as to describe how to crack them. thank you.

Tomorrow we shall investigate how to hack the government's bank accounts to help the poor.

Links, no, URLs yes

[autopr0n]

They were still allowed to have text URLs that pointed to copies, as I understand it.

What EULA?

[tkrotchko]

I bought an X Box for my 8 year old son 18 months ago.

I didn't agree to any EULA when I bought it. He opened it for Xmas and started playing games.

Honestly, I never heard of any EULA. How can I be bound by something I never agreed to? Did my Son agree to a EULA? I don't think so, it never asked him "Do you agree, blah blah blah". And even if it did, how could a court hold an 8 year old to a contract that (a) He didn't understand (b) More importantly, he's not an adult.

I don't believe I'm bound to any EULA. In fact, looking at the box right now, there's no EULA on the outside. So what EULA do you mean? There is none as far as I can see.

Scientific papers and fait accompli...

[Goonie]

He talks as much about the unsuccessful paths as the ones that paid off. (This is, I think, an ideal model for the scientific community. It's much more educational than the terse papers that present the results as fait accompli.)

I agree with this, but it's sadly not how it works, and there are reasons why it's true.

Conference reviewers and journal editors don't want to public papers about failing to do things, even if it's useful information. If you've got a surplus of papers to publish, what are you going to do - publish the ones about things that worked, or things that didn't?

As far as reporting incremental failures, you're always submitting to strict length limits. Consequently, you have to edit your work down to the bare essentials and essentially try and sell your genius to the reviewers. Unfortunately, publishing incremental failures doesn't tend to help with that.

Until senior scientists start standing up and advocating a change in the way papers are edited a more informative approach isn't going to happen.

Playing Games with Eyes

[Zeromous]

This review brought up the point of disabled playing games. While there are some features one mentioned is a little far fetched: Qaudrapalegics playing with their eyes. This is just not possible for anything more complicated than Pitfall. And even then... Hangman or word games are probably better suited for this purpose. Eyes get tired much faster than our more robust thumb and hand muscles. More importantly, watch someone's eyes as they play a Mario game (arguably simplistic compared to quake). They wouldn't have a hope of controlling any action. Eyes are input only. I hope researchers stop wasting time with this output paradigm. There are far more clever and subtle ways of relating game input that actually work.... -zeromous