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The Hacker Behind "Hacking the Xbox"

Posted by michael on from the fear-the-bunny dept.

chromatic writes "ONLamp has just published an interview with Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, author of Hacking the Xbox. Bunnie discusses the effect of the DMCA on his work and the state of Xbox hacking as he sees it."

6 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Just go to Fry's by Atario · · Score: 3, Informative

    In case you haven't seen it yet, they have low-end machines that are comparable, already running Linux, for about $200.

    IANAFETG (I Am Not A Fry's Employee, Thank Goodness)

    --
    "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
  2. Can someon answer this question I've been having? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Andrew Huang hacked the x-box over a year ago, and managed to find the key to sign software to run on the xbox isn't this the key that the linux for xbox community has been looking for? Even though Huang has said he wouldn't share the key with anyone, presumably people can reproduce Huang's method for extracting the key. please someone clarify... I'm confused.

  3. It got picked up by NSP. by toothfish · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't know when this interview was actually published, but I think it must have been a while ago-- "Hacking the Xbox" was picked up by No Starch Press, and it appears to be still published by them...

  4. Re:Uh...... by gearheadsmp · · Score: 4, Informative

    Part for part. No variation between XBoxes.

    Erm, MS has made Xboxes v1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. Read about the differences.

  5. Re:I don't get it... by cr_nucleus · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you want a cheap home server build a small, fanless (silent), low power consumption (cheap in the long run) VIA mini-itx (small and quite cheap) box.

    It's actualy cheaper to mod the xbox than build a mini-itx pc. Sounds like a pretty good reason to me. Plus, your xbox is already there sitting in the living room so it reduces the device count in the living room.

  6. Re: Can someon answer this question I've been havi by rarose · · Score: 3, Informative

    MS uses a layered crypto scheme...
    1. At CPU reset a hidden ROM image inside the chipset decrypts the main BIOS flash image. This is the key Bunnie found.
    2. The BIOS image then decompresses and decrypts the extended BIOS image using a key different from the one used in step 1.
    3. This extended BIOS then loads the kernel from disk and validates it using yet another different key.
    4. The kernel then uses yet another key to validate the games loaded off DVD-ROM. This would be the key everybody is after.

    --
    --Rob