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Behind the Xbox Boot Code

Posted by Zonk on from the bowels-of-the-machine dept.

NiteStar writes "The Xbox-Linux team has up a new article about The Hidden Boot Code of the Xbox. The Xbox console contains a 'chain of trust' to allow only legit Microsoft signed code to run on the Xbox. The hidden 'MCP' boot ROM (just 512bytes) is the link between hardware and software in this chain of trust." From the wiki article: "The Xbox, having an external (reprogrammable) 1 MB Flash ROM chip (models since 2003 have only 256 KB), would normally start running code there as well, since this megabyte is also mapped into the uppermost area of the address space. But this would make it too easy for someone who wants to either replace the ROM image with a self-written one or patch it to break the chain of trust ("modchips"). The ROM image could be fully accessed, it would be easy to reverse-engineer the code; encryption and obfuscation would only slow down the hacking process a bit."

1 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. remember slashdot, that site that got taken down? by Khyron · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    OH NOES! This article contains a description of how one might circumvent a copyright protection mechanism. WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP! DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!

    It's funny, I've seen patently illegal topics discussed on Slashdot before but I'm not sure I've seen federal law violated within an article's content. Even the times I've seen DeCSS implementations posted (like the famous one in PERL) it was in comments.

    This really raises the bar in audacity. :)