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The Hidden Boot Code of the Xbox
Device666 writes "In order to lock out both copied games as well as homebrew software, including the GNU/Linux operating system, Microsoft built a chain of trust on the Xbox reaching from the hardware to the execution of game code, in order to avoid the infiltration of code that has not been authorized by Microsoft. The link between hardware and software in this chain of trust is the hidden "MCPX" boot ROM. The principles, the implementations and the security vulnerabilities of this 512 bytes ROM will be discussed in this wikipedia article entitled
How to fit three bugs in 512 bytes of security code."
Not only is this a dupe, but the summary claims that the link is a Wikipedia article. Guess what--not every site running MediaWiki is WIkipedia. In fact, I'm pretty sure that only Wikipedia is Wikipedia.
English is easier said than done.
Of course what is really going on here is a massive competence violation on the part of Commander Buritto
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Spoken like a true person who hasn't seen a modded xbox.
Have you metaroderated recently?
What is morally wrong about doing whatever you want with something you paid for and own?
What's morally wrong is anyone arbitrarily dictating what you can and cannot do with your personal property.
Wow. Was it something in the coffee this morning?
First of all, it a dupe with another article in the games section.
Then it's wrong. The article isn't from wikipedia.
Finally, nice sensationalist terms:
- Oh noes, this code locked out GNU/Linux! Bad Microsoft!
- Hah, Microsoft can't even write 512 bytes of code without bugs!
Oh, and that last part was only the subtitle of the article, not the real title. But no thanks for pointing it out.
Read the interesting linked article, or the comments on the original post on games.slashdot, but this article here is exactly what I don't like seeing on Slashdot.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
If you own it you can modify it. The company that made your car isn't obligated to insure your car will run with aftermarket parts installed, though.
Folks should vote with their wallet. If an MS product doesn't meet their needs, don't buy it - but if they're howling because it doesn't do something it wasn't designed to do it seems to me the proper thing to do would be to stfu about it ;-)
"But damn can't we at least brand the people who are breaking the EULA's and such for these "hacks." "
What EULA? When I bought my XBox I did not sign anything?
"At least I am not the unscrupulous individual who is taking the time and effort into doing something that is morally wrong."
Okay why is it unscrupulous to hack a product I own to do what I want to do with it? If I guy a house is it immoral to add on a room or to tile the floor? If I buy a book is it wrong for me to make notes in the margin? If I buy a CD is it wrong to skip the tracks I really do not like? If I buy a model kit and us those parts to make a different model is that evil? If I buy a car and then put in a new stereo system and better shocks am I dammed to hell? Just how is any of this unscrupulous or immoral?
If their is a bug in that boot code that has security issues then how bringing it to light any more immoral than reporting that flaw in a car publicly?
Your concept of what is moral and what is not is odd at best. If you just want to play games on your XBox then to play some games.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Why cant people cook over fire like ogg instead of hacking it?
I build fire, I cook over fire. But Ugg over there has to mess up fire by changing it and adding stone cover over fire and slate door in front of fire to make fire do things it was not intended to.
now Ugg is spreading this evil change to fire and giving away this really evil "bread" he cooks in his "oven" that is against the EULA of fire.
Cooking over fire is quite simple and those chaging fire are only making it more difficult for others wanting fire.
others should do as OGG does and stick head in sand to avoid change and innovation.
Hmm, sounds ALOT like what you just said. if we all had the silly attitude you did, we would not have computers now. HACKING and hackers brought you everything you have and enjoy now from your house to your car to your food to your precious Xbox.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Good news everybody! Apparently according to the new editorial standards set forth by CmdrTaco himself, every site that runs on slashcode can now be referred to as Slashdot! This should help line his pockets further so he'll be able to pay even less attention to his own site (as if that's possible)...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
I guess he just got confused because the Wiki is a MediaWiki, which is the Wiki developed and used for Wikipedia (and all other Wikimedia Wikis), and it's obviously also using the default stylesheets (or an only slightly modified version of them), and therefore has the same look and feel as Wikipedia (which is clearly different from the look and feel of most other Wikis).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
how many times slashdotters can say both "dupe" and "just because it's wiki doesn't mean it's wikipedia" for the same article.
Well you may have a valid point about your ability to turn the XBox into a better media player, but your describing this this as "hacking out of necessity" is completely laughable. You need a media modded XBox to live or something?
That's debatable. By buying XBox games, you're giving financial support a convicted monopolist. To me, there are some moral issues with that. I resolve them by using neither the XBox nor other Microsoft products[1].
Eivind.
[1] Exception: An inherited Windows PC at work. It runs putty, Firefox, Acrobat Reader, Eudora and Open Office. I see no point in doing a reinstall for a box that works and where the license has already been paid.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Playing with electronics is not wrong. And as long as it is your there is no problem.
WTF? It's "morally wrong" to try to figure out how things actually work, then tell other people? So science is morally wrong then, we should just beleive what are leaders tell us, and never question anything? Well, at least you and Al Queda agree on something! Man, people making assinine statements like that about things being "morally wrong" is the best argument I've seen yet why creationism should NOT be taught in the schools... you've got it backwards; intentionally remaining ignorant is the most morally wrong thing a person can do... but that is apparently the path you have choosen.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Just a theory...IIRC, the Xbox processor is slightly customized, right? It's not the generic off-the-shelf Celeron? So I suppose that when MS was asking Intel to make Xbox processors, Intel asked the MS guys, "Do you need it to throw an exception when the instructioon pointer overflows? We can make the chip slightly cheaper by removing that feature." MS thought for a second and said, "We're putting security on all the code that goes in, so we can watch for that feature. Besides, the users can't do anything if the CPU halts in a commercial game; it may as well overflow and crash that way. So no, we don't need that feature." And they forgot to ask their security team itself, who was relying on that feature, which was present in the development systems only.
From the article:
Apparently the i386 CPU family throws no exception in this case, Microsoft's engineers only assumed it or misread the documentation and never tested it.
Does anyone know which CPUs actually throw exceptions? I have a feeling the security team tested their code on one that did.
Well, this is the first time I saw this article. I can't believe they made a virtual machine to handle cpu init only! I found this very insightful into Microsoft.
I used to have conspiracy theories that when MS was going to release a build, they ran an obfuscation script to inject random code. Like copying values around in memory, values that were never used for anything, etcetera, as reverse engineering-quelling techniques.
After using Unixes for a while I began to think that it would be just too much work to reverse engineer Windows, so such techniques were just unnecessary. If you can't buy Windows or run CE for your platform, just use another toolkit and OS.
Reading the amount of work they did to break running normal x86 binaries on their custom PC, the conspiracy theories are coming back.
I also think it's insightful that, instead of say more OpenGL optimizations or more security work, they paid engineers to develop these obfuscation techniques. What does that tell you about them?
Their still grudgingly trying to sell black boxes, whether software or hardware, that buyers will be helpless to work with without them. How can you still think that will work?
When people are using Nokia devices with Linux or whatever the future holds, Bill 'Monty Burns' Gates will still be refusing to get entangled in building or selling anything that he doesn't have total lock-in on. And the tar pit will swell up around him, and he'll join the other dinosaurs.