Hacker Team Releases First 360 ISO

surefooted1 writes "Xbox-scene.com has a brief story on the first Xbox 360 game dump here. A full dump of the game 'Condemed' has been released. From the article: 'The PI group released Xbox 360 game ISOs today. Note that downloading such releases is illegal and you can't do anything with them yet (they will not boot on your Xbox 360). You can find the NFO of one of their releases here. They also released an open-source tool to extract these releases (basicly it's an 'x360-ISO extractor') so you can check out the files in the image. It will NOT work on original discs as a PC DVD-ROM can't read those.'"

Comments

Way to go, guys...

[Otter]

That's really, really classy there, Zonk.

small step

[RasendeRutje]

One small step for a man, but one giant step for mankind!
Where are those modchipmakers? the lazy #$^%-ers

Ilegal eh?

[steveo777]

Note that downloading such releases is illegal and you can't do anything with them yet

Sort of like those funny colored 'sculptures' they sell in the Electric Fetus and other fine retailers. They're "For Display Purposes Only."

Strange that. Usually when people "display" them there's some sort of smoke rising from them and a funky smell in the room... and everybody has that look on their faces like they're about to be hit by a train and they're not sure if they care.

Such News!!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

A 733t! group of Hax0rz have made a duplicate of one XBox-360 game disc. Using mysterious technology know as 'dd' or 'ghosting' the nerarious criminals accommplished what Microsoft engineers had previously derided as an impossibility; namely, the creation of a HD-DVD ISO, which can be used to make countless useless duplicate copies of the game that unscrupulous gamers can stare at blankly or attempt to chew on.

Microsoft spokesmen could not be be reached on this issue as they were too busy not caring. Reports state that Zonk's mouse hand was trembling with excitement as he posted the story, having spent most of the day chucking perfectly newsworthy submissions. Meanwhile, useful links to the open source iso extraction tool were downplayed in the report. In other news the Slashdot Games Section continues to be the fastest growing section, yet the least commented upon one.

Re:Such News!!

[th0mas.sixbit.org]

hah!

go ahead and try to dd it and come back and tell us about how you only got.. what is it, I think 7 megs? Xbox DVD game disks cannot be read on a computer, they need a dvdrom with special firmware to read it because their TOC is damaged.

Re:Such News!!

[Sparr0]

which part of "a PC DVD-ROM can't read those[original discs]" was hard for you to comprehend?

Re:Such News!!

[JF]

Like he actually *read* the article before ninja-flaming... Not unlike whoever modded him up I guess. *shrug*

Re:Such News!!

[HTL2001]

Its a DVD not an HD-DVD that the Xbox 360 uses

Re:Such News!!

[rincebrain]

Why the fuck would dd care about the TOC? It just dumps until the if= spits out EOF. I suppose if it has physical defects, sure, but that's an easy workaround.

Re:Such News!!

[bloo9298]

Go ahead and try it. It will fail. When you accept that you misunderstand what's going on, read "CD Cracking Uncovered" or similar.

Re:Such News!!

[Fred Or Alive]

I'm not an expert, but I think the Xbox discs are kinda weird on a low level - the basically have a small, perfectly valid DVD-Video section, and the normal DVD data says that's all that's on the disc, and therefore a normal DVD drive won't let you read past it (ie: it would tell the OS it's reached the end of the disc), as the disc say's there's nothing there, so you need to hack the drive's firmware to let it read past the end of the data.

Re:Such News!!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

which part of "a PC DVD-ROM can't read those[original discs]" was hard for you to comprehend?

The part where the PC HD-DVD ROM drive becomes available in eighteen months time was right about where I figured this ISO wasn't exactly big news.

So what?

[the computer guy nex]

The 360 security revolves around preventing the use of unauthorized code. Pulling unauthorized code from a game is the easy part. Microsoft could really care less about an image file.

Difficulty?

[Eightyford]

Why would this be newsworthy? Does it take more than regular dvd copy software to do this? Aren't they using regular DVDs for the 360, or is this kind of like the Dreamcast's almost-normal CDs?

Re:Difficulty?

[HTL2001]

no.

you don't even need to RTFA, its in the damn summary
"It will NOT work on original discs as a PC DVD-ROM can't read those."

Re:Difficulty?

[Is0m0rph]

Yes it takes more than DVD Copy software to do this. Xbox and Xbox 360 do not use a file system readable by PCs. They use their own. If you read the article you'll find out the 360 uses a slightly changed version of Xbox's file system(which also required a PC .exe extractor written for the file system). You can't read Xbox or 360 DVD game data in a PC DVD-ROM.

Re:Difficulty?

[Surye]

But that won't stop dd!

Unfortunately

[shoptroll]

Unfortunately the initial launch was enough of a dud that I'm suprised anyone would go through the trouble of caring about this. So which EA sports game or port did they ISO?

Re:Unfortunately

[Delphiki]

They said which game it was. It's an Xbox 360 exclusive, which is not a sequel, prequel or anything else. You're a moron.

Re:Unfortunately

[the computer guy nex]

"Unfortunately the initial launch was enough of a dud"

Do you actually remember any other console launches? Because this is the most successful one ever.

More than twice the amount of consoles available on launch day than any other. More consoles arriving and being sold within a month (PS2 took nearly 4 months for extras to hit shelves).

Re:Unfortunately

[Cheapy]

Shh, he's insulting Microsoft. All facts mean nothing as long as you are insulting Microsoft. It's in the agreement of Slashdot somewhere.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Condemned is slated to come out for the PS3 as well.

Re:Unfortunately

[JFMulder]

Actually the GameCube launched with 700K consoles in the states : http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item &id=1968

Re:Unfortunately

[(A)*(B)!0_-]

"Do you actually remember any other console launches? Because this is the most successful one ever."

I do and this launch is hardly the most successful. Even if you assume the overheating problems are small, they caused a rather loud stir. Also, consider that since the first shipment, I've heard of no retailers getting second shipments. It's great for MS that people want to buy the 360 but since no one can, I wouldn't really call it a success. And furthermore, since Sony still holds the record for most units shipped in a single day (510,000: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2) and we don't even know if MS has matched that number yet (no news is bad news from Microsoft's PR department here) I'd hardly say the 360 launch is, as you would say, "tha b3st EVAR!!!"

Re:Unfortunately

[Have Blue]

If you'd RTFA instead of rushing to troll, you'd see that the game is neither from EA nor a port.

Re:Unfortunately

[shoptroll]

And if they're smart, they'll have more than those numbers for the Revolution launch, seeing as the hardware is probably less cutting edge, one would think the manufacturing process should be cheaper, faster, easier.

Re:Unfortunately

[Gnulix]

Do you actually remember any other console launches?

Yes, I remember plenty...

Because this is the most successful one ever.

In what way? Most of the consoles are broken and need to be fixed. The shortage was probably made up in order to create more PR.

Re:Unfortunately

[shoptroll]

Thank you. I may not have RTFA but I have RTFNFO and got this: "designed for next-generation consoles and game systems". I don't know about you, but I don't see XBox 360 in there at all.

Re:Unfortunately

[RoadDoggFL]

You were credible until "Most"...

I know that bashing MS gets you friends, but understand that the defects are hardly widespread and the PS2 suffered more than its share of problems.

Re:Unfortunately

[Premo_Maggot]

The problems are pretty widespread. Get your facts right, you're obviously an M$ fanboy, I mean come on look at your link.

Re:Unfortunately

[RoadDoggFL]

Red vs Blue? Uhh, ok.

Widespread != Most, btw. My facts are right, yours are obviously not. And personally I'm more of a Nintendo fanboy.

On last thing for you to remember: complaints are now more vocal than ever. Everybody's on the internet and everybody has a voice, and the most damning poll I've seen pins the percentage of defects at 15% (incredibly widespread, no sarcasm) but it's important to remember that an angry person will say he's angry sooner than a happy person will say he's happy. Also, there's no way to tell that all of the votes for defective 360's even originated from people who own 360's themselves. How many people voted because their neighbor had a problem? And finally, how many of these "defects" were the result of morons tossing the PSU on the carpet or behind a shelf? User error still plays a roll, MS product or not.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! The NES was a successful launch. The Dreamcast was a successful launch. The PS1 and PS2 were successful launches. The Nintendo DS was a successful launch.

The Xbox 360 launch was and still is a clusterfuck. That'll all come to an end when Microsoft is forced to relent early next year. That's when the Revolution and PS3 marketing blitzkriegs will hit and Microsoft will be caught as odd-man-out.

Un-DVDs?

[Tom]

So, the xbox DVDs are broken in that "nahnah, you need special firmware to jump across this intentional break" way.

Do they carry the DVD logo? Are these things DVDs or not?

Yeah, it might look like nitpicking, but standards and interoperability are crucial to an info-age society.

Re:Un-DVDs?

[patio11]

>>Yeah, it might look like nitpicking, but standards and interoperability are crucial to an info-age society.>> Its a proprietary console. Did you buy a game thinking it was going to run on your DVD player? I'm all for standards and interoperability, but if I insert a CD-R into my toaster on the theory that one burner is basically the same as another I don't expect my toaster to fix my mistake.

Re:Un-DVDs?

[Fred Or Alive]

Xbox games don't carry the DVD logo, I'd assume that the Xbox 360 ones don't either. On Xbox 1 discs data isn't readable on an ordinary drive, it is DVD based, but it's some sort of custom weirdness. I seem to remember it might be that Xbox games are effectivley DVD-9's written backwards. If you put an Xbox game in a DVD device you get an Xbox animation and a multilingual message that it's an Xbox game that will only run on an Xbox, and that's it.

(My European copy of Xbox Soul Calibur 2 has a CD-ROM logo on the disc itself, but CD-ROM drives don't recognise it, so I think either Namco or EA screwed up the labeling (is the PS2 version on CD?))

PlayStation 2 on DVD have the DVD logo (PS1 and PS2 games on CD have a CD-ROM logo), and you can read them in ordinary DVD drives

(Note when I say "Not readable" I mean trivially, like putting the disc into a PC drive and expecting Windows to be able to read it, I'm sure with l33t h@>0R tools you could read them).

Re:Un-DVDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

(My European copy of Xbox Soul Calibur 2 has a CD-ROM logo on the disc itself, but CD-ROM drives don't recognise it, so I think either Namco or EA screwed up the labeling (is the PS2 version on CD?))

Why would a DVD disc have a CD-ROM logo? And I don't think there are any PS2 games on CD.

Re:Un-DVDs?

[Fred Or Alive]

Why would a DVD disc have a CD-ROM logo?

Well, the European Xbox version of Soul Calibur 2 does, but as it actually appears to be be a DVD-9. I was wondering if this was some sort of mixup with a CD-ROM version for PlayStation 2.

And I don't think there are any PS2 games on CD.

There are PlayStation 2 games on CD - the boxes (on the back) and discs at least even have the appropriate DVD or CD-ROM logos on them so you can see which is which. Check this gallery, and on some of the discs or backs you can see the good old Compact Disc logo - for example Ico, Dynasty Warriors 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Guilty Gear X - most big games are on DVD, but there are some smaller ones on CD, presumably as they can save tuppence or whatever by using the smaller discs.

The Wikipedia article on the PlayStation 3, as well as mentioning "PlayStation 2 CD-ROM" as a compatible format, also mentions "PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM", so it seems that the PS3 will have a similar situation, so developers who don't need more than a DVD's worth of data can still use it. (As it's Wikipedia, take it with a grain of salt but I think it's just copied and pasted from a Sony press release)

Re:Un-DVDs?

[Surye]

Why you can't just "put it in".

Re:Un-DVDs?

[Tom]

I'm all for standards and interoperability, but if I insert a CD-R into my toaster on the theory that one burner is basically the same as another I don't expect my toaster to fix my mistake.

No, but if I put a disc that shows the DVD logo into a DVD player, I do expect it to play it. But since apparently these non-DVDs don't show the logo, it's a non-issue. I was just wondering.

A bit early isn't it?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Extracting an ISO is only step one. How about waiting to publish this news until someone coded an emulator or has a modchip available? This news fits nicely on an emulator site, but isn't much of use to the average /. reader.

So I propose to spend the rest of this comment section on discussing the impact of cute colored toy horses on the mental development of zebras.

Re:A bit early isn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you talking about toy horses as in "toys" like the kind of plastic/cotton toy a child plays with? Or "toy horse" as in some special bread of small horse, similar to a "toy poodle?"

One thing that may (or may not) be important is the fact that I do believe that zebras may in fact be colorblind. If that is the case then does the cute coloring of the toy horses really matter?

Then again, the cute coloring will affect how other non-colorblind creatures interact with the toy horses. That might make the zebras jealous and retard their mental development. Or at least cause them to grow into angry, bitter, maladjusted adult zebras.

This is Step 1 to Modchipville

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact is that being able to copy games is the first step in modding a system; this is why it took so long to hack the Gamecube (its discs, which were a CAV variation on a DVD, took forever to make copies of). Now that the mod-chippers have the XBox 360 they can 'observe' what occurs when a legal game is put into it, and what happens when a copied game is entered into it, and see if they can bypass the security.

Personally, I'm betting that the first mod-chips will be available before the PS3 or Revolution launch.

Am I the only one?

[Rowan_u]

Am I the only one who thinks that the 360 is going to be easier to hack than its predecessor? After all, the 360 already gets a lot of data from network devices, such as streaming audio from media connect, or streaming video from a Media Center. Perfect opportunities for buffer overflows (if any exist). Also, the 360 has been reported to run actual streamed code such as the browser from Media Center.

Re:Am I the only one?

[ego093]

If you reread the article you linked to about the 360 running linked code, you'd notice that it's only a dumb-terminal and that all of the code execution happens on the PC.

That said, when you consider that the original X-Box exploits were FONTS, it's totally possible to imagine that some other form of media will be this box's undoing. It probably won't be a bitmap (already done on the PSP), but something equally cool should be in order. Maybe a MIDI file!

Re:Am I the only one?

[drwiii]

The hypervisor built into the CPU may effectively prohibit that.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Hast]

It seems like they (Microsoft) have actually tried to make the X360 hard to hack. AFAIK it only executes signed code and the certificates it validates code against are stored on the CPU. That will make it quite a bit harder than the Xbox to hack.

I bet someone will manage in the end though.

The smell

[lupinstel]

It smells like Ottos jacket.

If I May Make An Observation

[spudwiser]

The 360 has been hacked, cracked, and now ported and ready for emulation... and the 2nd round of shipping hasn't even arrived yet.

"You know, if you put a little hat on it, a snowball can last a long time in hell." - Dogbert

Encrypted error correction?

[tepples]

But that won't stop dd!

It will if the DVD's error correction data is encrypted, making PC DVD-ROM drives with standard firmware return constant disc read errors.

Re:Encrypted error correction?

[Bill Wong]

There's quite a few apps for windows that can ignore/bypass EDC/ECC.
Or, even better, hack a linux-or-bsd dvd-rom driver to ignore ECC/EDC or any other error correction. That's what open source is for, right?

Tested?

[Taulin]

If these ISOs can't be used, how do they know that they can be used?