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Microsoft Banning Modded Xboxen

Posted by Zonk on from the cry-me-a-river dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Since the release of Halo 2 (ed: and just before), Microsoft has been banning modified Xboxes from Xbox Live. Some have even been banned with their mod-chips turned off. Previously many users had been able to use Xbox Live provided they disabled their mod-chip. There are a few theories floating around as to how MS is doing this: from scanning the hard-drive for non-MS material to being able to check if the DVD-drive/Hard-disk serial number is from stock or not."

3 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. xbox connect by Strokke · · Score: 4, Informative
    Although I am a faithful user of xbox live, there is an alternative for people who get banned.

    http://www.xbconnect.com/

    Xbox connect is supposedly improving constantly and adding a lot of features to make it more new user friendly. My friend has a modded xbox and says that it works fine. I think it lacks the useful interface options and stat tracking of xbox live....however if you do get banned (and I know theres a big percentage of users on this site who have modded xboxs), give it a try

  2. same with socom2 on ps2 by apostrophesemicolon · · Score: 4, Informative

    afaik, Sony PS2 uses the DNAS (Dynamic Network Authentication System) to scan whether the game CD is authentic sony product and then checks if the PS2 have been modded..
    the result is (at least for me, using Messiah2) is real difficulty in logging in with modchip turned off..

  3. Re:I can't comment on how they're detecting mods.. by llevity · · Score: 5, Informative

    It doesn't ban based on the mac address. It bans based on a unique number stored in the Xbox's EEPROM. Based on that, you can get someone else who never plans to play on Xbox live to use a utility to get the data out of their EEPROM, send it to you, and you can reflash your xbox with this. This will get you back on Live. Unfortunately, unless you figure out how they banned you in the first place, they'll just ban this new EEPROM. It was a useful trick when the only way to get banned was to forget to switch off your modchip prior to hopping on Live, but no longer.