Hackers Happily Hacking The 360

m3lt writes "Hackers have purchased the XBox 360 so they will have generation 1 models, which are more prone to security flaws. At hackaday there is an article about Xbox 360 First Impressions. More importantly though, it looks as if homebrew browsers are already showing up for the Xbox 360." Additionally, geekylinuxkid writes "It looks like another bounty is being offered for linux on a console. This time it is for the xbox 360 and is provided by the guys at free360.org. Join in, donate, and contribute to the community."

Comments

Xbox 360

[m3lt]

i didnt wait for one, though even though it would be cool to hack

Re:Xbox 360

[Meagermanx]

Dude, it's a totally great investment. If you do manage to hack it, you can make, like, $20.86 (Fees not subtracted).

Re:Xbox 360

[marcello_dl]

Well if hacking gives you personal satisfaction, go for it by all means. But a bounty to help improve the geek factor of a M$ product? I say it's time Microsoft and many other acknowledge that there is a percentage of consumers that don't like artificially limited hardware. Else xbox hackers are just providing people the functionality they should have gotten from Microsoft itself for a little bounty.

Links

[wlan0]

Two links are broken. The main one and the "free360.com" one, which is supposed to be free60.com.

Re:Links

[rbarreira]

I think you mean free60.org - not .com...

All the links are already broke

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Anyone have google's cache or a mirror...

Early adoption

[Sancho]

It's true that early consoles are more likely to have security flaws, however I'm just not willing to early-adopt a 360. The cost is a bit high, in my opinion, and there's really no indication that there will be a good selection of homebrew apps for it.

One of the things that made the original Xbox so great was that it is based on the x86 architecture. Porting applications to it is very easy, and as such, you got great software projects like XBMC for considerably less work than if you had to port it all by hand. What's more, codec support is improved because of the architecture. Emulators for other systems was also a bit easier for this same reason.

With the new, incompatible architecture, porting existing projects to the 360 will likely take quite a bit more effort. Emulation in particular, which often makes use of assembler instructions, may be a long time coming. We also don't know enough about the security on the 360--it may be that mods will have to be specific to each unit, making said mods more costly and possibly more dangerous (easier to screw up the installation).

I'll definitely be following the scene and watching the progress, but for now, I can't justify that kind of expenditure for this gamble.

Re:Early adoption

[MorgyTheMole]

Well, all of the FAST emulators tend to use assembly and have assembly cores. However, there are plenty of emulators for most systems out there with all C or C++ cores. I think that the 360 should run most of these emulators just fine, given it's speed. What will be more interesting to see is how homebrew apps try to take advantage of the ability to run six 3.2 Ghz threads at once.

Re:Early adoption

[Sancho]

The multiprocessing development aspect will certainly be interesting to watch. I hope this propels game developers into utilizing SMP more than they currently do.

Re:Early adoption

[dwandy]

The cost is a bit high, in my opinion, and there's really no indication that there will be a good selection of homebrew apps for it.

Depends on how you count cost.
The shop where I work paid many times more for each CPU in our servers than the entire 3-cpu xbox retails for ... the admins tell me that it's the same cpu...
I suspect that there will be some good efforts into clustering these things -- they are sold below hardware cost!

Re:Early adoption

[geekylinuxkid]

With the new, incompatible architecture, porting existing projects to the 360 will likely take quite a bit more effort. I understand your concerns, however IBM has opened the source to some Cell libraries. IBM has also a site devoted to the cell processor that includes kernel patches for the cell processor. We also don't know enough about the security on the 360--it may be that mods will have to be specific to each unit, making said mods more costly and possibly more dangerous (easier to screw up the installation). We also didn't know about the security of the original xbox, however look how far we were able to get with that. :)

Re:Early adoption

[Sancho]

Well I said in my opinion :)

If the homebrew scene doesn't take off at all, be it through architecture changes or security measures, then the machine has less value in my eyes. The only reason to buy one now, at the highest retail price it will ever be at, is to avoid future security measures that could prevent modding. I'm just not willing to take the chance that the homebrew scene will be big enough to warrant owning one AND that the security will increase later on to preclude modding altogether.

Incidentally, that I have these opinions sort of exhibits the fact that I'm not interested in piracy. A pirate would want a first generation box because anti-piracy measures will probably be less robust. And piracy will almost certainly exist even if the homebrew scene itself never really takes off.

Re:Early adoption

[Slow Smurf]

It's 3 cores, not CPU's.

Re:Early adoption

[TheRadioMan]

Why don't you try just playing frickin games on it. It's fun. Dweebs.

Re:Early adoption

[stoph ct]

I suspect that there will be some good efforts into clustering these things

Imagine a beowulf cluster of Xbox 360s!

Re:Early adoption

[gabebear]

"The shop where I work paid many times more for each CPU in our servers than the entire 3-cpu xbox retails for ... the admins tell me that it's the same cpu... "

Wow!! must be a slow server...
The 360s CPU is definately not meant for servers. The VMX(Altivec/Vector) units are next to worthless for server; IBM's Power4 and Power5 CPUs don't even have VMX units. The lack of branch prediction and OO execution will make the 360's CPUs rather slow at running pretty much anything that wasn't optimized for them.

Re:Early adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

Cell = PS3

Re:Early adoption

[grub]

Porting applications to it is very easy, and as such, you got great software projects like XBMC for considerably less work than if you had to port it all by hand.

Don't forget the emulators! Look for the "Bad Ass Emulation Disc". 14 emulators, over 14,000 ROMs. We spend more time playing Dr. Mario on the Nintendo emulator than we do playing xbox games.

Re:Early adoption

[jimi the hippie]

I would like more info on this BAED...

Re:Early adoption

[grub]

1) Go to favourite xbox torrent site.
2) Look for BAED torrent (~4.5 gigs, full DVDR)
3) Click link
4) ???
5) Profit!

Re:Early adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

"than the entire 3-cpu xbox retails for"

It's not 3-cpu, it's a single-cpu with 3 cores. It's a significant difference.

Re:Early adoption

[KDR_11k]

Wait, you're putting a CPU meant for embedded systems into a server?

Re:Early adoption

[apoc06]

the cell processor is used in the ps3 not the xbox360. you might want to copy your post somewhere for a few months and use it in the obligatory ps3 post mentioning how easy it will [or wont] be to hack.

thanks for the links nonetheless. im sure someone here can start getting acquainted with the cell architecture now and have the homebrew already brewing once the ps3 rolls around.

Trouble brewing

[voice_of_all_reason]

I'm pretty sure the revised EULA allows Microsoft to draw, quarter, and finally vivisect your body in full view of the town square for license violations.

Re:Trouble brewing

[patio11]

I'm pretty sure the revised EULA allows Microsoft to draw, quarter, and finally vivisect your body in full view of the town square for license violations.

That was the XBox license. 360 mandates vivisection for the first offense.

Seriously, though, they're never going to go after anyone for homebrewing unless that person is also a pirate. Unfortunately, anything which enables homebrewing also enables wide-scale piracy, so there you go.

Fair Use

[Chayak]

I'm certain it will violate the EULA for the 360 but they don't hold much legal power anymore as fair use allows you freedom to do what you want with your machine. I know more than a few people who considered it an evil act to mod my old Xbox and PS2, but I'm very well within my legal right to do so.

Free60.org

[Matilda the Hun]

For the record, it's www.free60.org, not free360.org.

Re: cpu cost

[L0k11]

in terms of "bang" for buck, the cpus you get for an xbox now may be cheaper than for your server, but by the time this thing is hacked and running linux the price of cpus will have fallen.

the original xbox cpu at 733mhz (similar to a celeron) was well and truly an antique years ago

Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[Deathlizard]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought that this was the entire reason MS made the Xbox Marketplace, So that independent Dev's could make a game/program and sell it over Xbox live.

What's stopping any Dev from making a NES emulator for example, and selling it on the marketplace for 100 points? Is there restrictions on what you can and cannot sell on the marketplace?

I know linux is a different story, since it's an OS replacement, but I don't see any reason why the Mozilla Foundation for example couldn't make a 360 port of Firefox and sell it for the points equivalent of $0.25 over Xbox Live.

Re:Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[snuf23]

I don't think that's how it works. Executable for the Xbox 360 needs to be "signed" to run on the hardware. This means it has to be Microsoft certified. I don't think you can just post a game for sale. Any programs being made available via Live will have to go through Microsoft for licensing and certification.
I believe the items end users can sell are more like cosmetic changes for games such as skins.

Re:Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[EvilSporkMan]

Also, don't forget the (now rather literal) Microsoft tax, which they'd be "crazy" not to put on. Either that or points won't be redeemable for cash.

Re:Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[blincoln]

I know linux is a different story, since it's an OS replacement, but I don't see any reason why the Mozilla Foundation for example couldn't make a 360 port of Firefox and sell it for the points equivalent of $0.25 over Xbox Live.

Where are they going to get the 360 dev kit and development license? That kind of thing tends to be really expensive. Not to mention the signing issue brought up by another poster.

Re:Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[Deathlizard]

Now that I think about it, you bring up a good point on the Dev kit. So far MS hasn't shown any Dev kit for the 360 when it comes to the Indy Scene outside of the commercial Dev kits the big Dev's have. Sometime down the line they may make some SDK available for VS2K5 (even make it compatible with the express versions) to allow you to compile code for the 360, but MS has been relatively silent about the role of the marketplace in general when it comes to independent gaming outside of it's PR hype.

The Code Signing is a gimme, but if there trying to attract Indie Dev's into making small games for the 360, it cannot be too expensive to obtain a licence and signed code, and its not like Mozilla for example couldn't recoup the loss by charging a micropayment like fee to download it. Again, without any official word from MS where the marketplace is headed it's a moot point, but MS might surprise us there, especially if the Revolution is as open an architecture as the rumors have been saying for a while.

Re:Isn't Homebrew Encouraged?

[Jonny_eh]

Sure, download an NES emulator, and make your own ROMs?

Would they also let you download an xbox media center that makes their Windows MCE obsolete?

I think it's going to be not free for a while

[WebHostingGuy]

Current Bounty Amount: $9.14

That's not much of an incentive and actually is more insulting than inspiring.

Re:I think it's going to be not free for a while

[the_humeister]

Where's this money coming from anyway?

No homebrew browsers. It is MCE

[Anonymous Coward]

The "homebrew browser" screenshots are because the 360 can act as an extender for a MCE box. They're not running on the 360 itself.

What happens?

[ozTravman]

What happens to the bounty if the goals are never achieved? Does it just keep growing for ever, gaining interest or will it be put to good use if the goals are not reached be a certain deadline?

I sense another Westoning

[Professional Heckler]

20 bucks says this artice is Westoned Anyone? Anyone? Prof

XBMC mostly coded from scratch

[Anonymous Coward]

XBMC is mostly coded from scratch. The pieces that aren't are very much platform independent anyway (mplayer, ffmpeg etc.)

The main thing that will hinder open source development is a decent development environment - XBMC is built using the Microsoft XDK (xbox developers kit) - if the 360 devkit isn't leaked, then that will slow things down a great deal.

Well, nice to know...

[patio11]

... that Slashdotters are just as succeptible as anyone else to sending money to a random page on the Internet, because the page asked them to and promises they'll get something for free later.