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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."
Thanks for not reading your own site, CmdrTaco
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
The title of a seminar held on the Redmond, WA campus.
Just because some text is available on a Wiki, it's not automatically so on Wikipedia, y'know?
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
the slashdotrix adjusting itself... Pay no attention to that cat.
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.
So it seems someone doesn't know the difference between a page with wiki technology and Wikipedia.
You'd expect "editing" to catch something like that...
Advice: on VPS providers
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.
512b of space. NExT ON SLASHDOT!
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
The thing everyone needs to remember is that slashdot is akin to Norman Bates, a lot of them are confused, a lot of them crossdress and are very often psychotic.
So, the next time you see a dupe.. remember, be quiet.. or you could be murdered by a crossdressing psychopath.
Is that over or under Microsoft's par?
Not only that, it's also certainly not a Wikipedia article. Not every Wiki is Wikipedia, for crying out loud.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
It would seem that this article has nothing to do with wikipedia either (except mentioning the name). Correct me if I'm wrong, but wiki != wikipedia.
Maybe the chain of Anti-Trust?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Easy. Just put one bug in every 170.666666666666667 bytes and you will be done.
Spoken like a true person who hasn't seen a modded xbox.
Have you metaroderated recently?
At least Microsoft provides the same level of security to it own hardware as its does yours. You can't accuse Microsoft of playing favorites.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
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.
Duplicate story, duplicate link.
The previous article linked to the same page on xbox-linux.org, which is a wiki; not part of "The" wikipedia. Taco is asleep at the switch again.
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.
Are you serious? Put down the kool-aid for a sec and consider this. If I buy something (a physical something), I own it. It's mine. If I buy and X-Box and am of the ilk that likes to know what makes things tick, it's my prerogative (and certainly within the bounds of morality) to tear it apart and put it back together. If I can make my X-Box boot Linux (which, contrary to your implication can have a very significant and useful purpose) then more power to me. I will certainly share my knowledge with others who wish to do the same. When it comes to stealing games (copyrighted works of "art"), you are dealing with an entirely different issue. That is akin to me being able to throw my buddy's X-Box into a replicator, push a few buttons and voi lah! 2 X-Boxen. Don't confuse the two concepts. Now, commence kool-aid drinking.
Posted by CmdrTaco on Friday August 12, @10:32AM
from the stuff-to-read dept.
Oh the irony...
http://stoploudness.org/
If I had the points, I would. Precisely what I thought when I read the GP's comments.
Until you see xbox media center play media off a remote samba share, or you sit down and enjoy playing all your old console games in similiar environment (tv/couch).. you would say things like the GP. Afterwards you would shut your mouth and learn to mod your xbox.
twitter.com/gravitronic
Please show me where they trounced Nintendo in the market place. And when I say market place, I consider the entire world where Nintendo and Microsoft have basically been neck and neck in hardware sales since their respective releases. Sure, Microsoft is doing surprisingly well in NA, but Japan is a different story.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
That's why I always rub bacon on the shrink-wrap and let my dog open it. Then he's bound by the EULA, not me.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
"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.
I suspect that they spend most of their time finding all the non-duplicate, insightful articles that have been submitted so that they can reject them.
The Xbox lockdown was always about pirated games. MS knows that only a small fraction of the audience cares about homebrew or Linux.
how many times slashdotters can say both "dupe" and "just because it's wiki doesn't mean it's wikipedia" for the same article.
Neeeeeeoooooobody expects the Slashdot editors! Our chief weapons are laziness, laziness and corporate shilling, our *two* weapons are laziness and corporate shilling...
oh, I give up.
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.
Or you could just rub Beggin' Strips on the shrink wrap, and your dog would still open it because he can't tell it isn't bacon!
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I see no philosophical problem with Microsoft locking their BIOS down, using trusted computing to prevent unauthorized code.
What I have a problem with is the law that says I can't try to break the lock on something I own. I have a problem with the law that says I can't talk about this activity.
Now, I prefer to buy robust, user-modifiable devices. I will spend my dollars on my preference. I worry about the marketplace being dominated by TCPA devices, but I don't have a philosophical objection to those things existing.
The DMCA is just beginning to effect our lives. Give it another ten years to poison "intellectual property". If people own ideas, enforcement can only come in the form of thought control.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
What are you talking about? The security stops everyone who does not have a modded xbox from playing copied games. Infact, the security is decent enough that you can't copy Xbox DVDs on your computer, you have to ftp from the DVD drive on the Xbox (which you can only do on a modded xbox). Sure, with a modchip you can bypass the protection, but what percent of xbox owners have a modchip or softmod? Likely the number is low enough to be insignificant. So it accomplishes exactly what they want it to do: stop the majority of users from copying games. By the way, anyone with a modded Xbox should check out the OSS (I believe) Xbox Media Center. It takes the Xbox to a whole new level.
Playing with electronics is not wrong. And as long as it is your there is no problem.
"Alter Relationship" is the alt text for those buttons. The image might not have loaded :)
If I guy a house is it immoral to add on a room or to tile the floor?
Dude, I don't know what "guying a house" is, but I'm quite sure it should be immoral.
So, I have a question actually relevant to this article. The article says that the CPU was supposed to jump to address FFFF_FFFF, turn off the ROM, then roll over to 0000_0000, where the CPU would throw an exception thus halting the CPU. However, says the article, the CPU does not in fact throw an exception in this case.
So my question is, how did the hackers who reverse engineered this code conclude that it was supposed to trigger an exception? It seems hard for me to believe that the MS engineers would base their entire security mechanism on a feature of the CPU that didn't actually exist.
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.
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.