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Xbox 360 File System Decoded
slurpster writes "The register reports that Pi group has decoded the file system used in the Xbox 360. They write "Once you get past the protections and down to the raw bits on the disc, its just the standard xboxdvdfs, however the offset and layer breakpoint are different.""
Cue the legal threats in 3..2..
I hope MS DRM in future products is this unbreakable...psshh
I've always wondered how you actually go about understanding a file system with absolutely no documentation. I realise in this case that they just had to circumvent some DRM-style file protection, but that still leaves the question of how xboxdvdfs came to be understood in the first place. Does anyone know how they do this? Little to my surprise, the article offers no details.
apterous.org
Darn. I voted for FAT12!
The article notes that this in an of itself is only a step in the long march towards all those crazy things people have done with the original Xbox.
An important step, but only a step.
Don't get too excited, it will be a few months yet before any underworld homebrew applications are running.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
It turns out the DRM was stimied by putting electrical tape on the disc.
Excuse me but Mr Gates is not stupid.
Piracy sells consoles which in turn sells games = market share.
He wants people to pirate games, simple as.
"Don't get too excited, it will be a few months yet before any underworld homebrew applications are running."
The first xbox took about a year for the first mod chips. Right now people are doing the easy part and deciphering how everything runs.
The hard part is how to get unauthorized code to run. This part involves bypassing systems bios and installing a compatible version over the top that the system cannot detect. This could take a few years.
Will this mean that if processor and read latency speeds are acceptible, that the file system could be encrypted in future versions?
__Adult Funny Video Clips from Laugh Daily
A reliable source from Pi 'research' group later told press repoters that minutes after removing the DRM encoding, 'researchers' were surprised to see that it resembled Dos 6.2 by almost 97.5%, except it occupied 548% more memory.
God created man in his own image, but somehow he evolved into a hairless monkey.
Dosen't really matter, all of the content is still encrypted. It will take MUCH MUCH more time to crack it this time around. MS spent big bucks on the protection.
No, of course you need a NDA.. I'm just saying they can be "had" if you look hard enough. Same with the iPod dev NDA docs. Both are very interesting.
Free stuff without getting the referrals? http://referralaccelerated.com
I hope Microsoft finds an unbreakable piracy prevention system; one that completely stops pirated copies of Windows and Office; one that finaly forces everyone who wants to use Microsoft products to pay for them.
That day, and not before, will FOSS be on the path for 'World Domination': most people, when considering alternatives to Microsoft products, do not take into account license fees, because they have no intention to pay for them; as long as Windows / Office can be easily obtained for free, FOSS will be at a dissadvantage.
Why is the parent post modded at +5?? He's just trying to get ppl to sign up for a MLM scheme.
Jesus, the console is barely a month old and you people are already thinking in doing something else with it? Could we enjoy it til January 2006 before you start contemplating doing OS changes, putting hamsters to roll on a cage, adding fish, dressing it as barbie to play "tea party"... ;)
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Firstly, the Register article (and /. summary) is useless. They're just high-level summaries. The details (the meat, if you like) are here: http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEFuplVllV IYuZHGfq.php
Now, for the problem. Team Pi have released an open-source extractor FOR THEIR ALREADY-DECODED IMAGES. They have NOT released an open-source decoder for turning DVDs into images.
Why is that? I believe they probably haven't fully reverse-engineered the encryption yet. They've just cracked the raw disk driver or some other part of the XBOX360 operating system, so that it performs the decryption for them (MS's code) and saves the result to hard disk.
Needless, it won't be long before there's a public utility to run on a hacked 360 or devkit that does the same thing, then eventually someone will do the hard part - fully reverse-engineering the encryption.
Isn't dumping ISO files of your disks considered "fair use"?
Copy protections on the discs themselves is just one part of the much larger puzzle. As someone pointed out earlier you have to be able to get unsigned code to run on the machine. While this was fairly easy to accomplish on the original Xbox, the Xbox 360 is supposed to be a trusted computing platform. It looks as though there's alot to overcome in getting unsigned code to run.
You can checkout Xbox Scene, or Free60.org for information.
Why is MS in the console market in the first place? Lets not forget that the x-box is directly competing with MS own product windows. Yes windows is a game platform as well and MS itself produces games for that platform. Exclusive games even that are not available on consoles not even its own. They are still doing it now even with the arrival of the 360.
I think the entire reason is that MS is desperate to spread out its wings. Focussing on one or two key products wich make all your money leaves you incredibly vulnerable to changes. Bill Gates probably knows like nobody else how easy it is to replace the market leader in the Word processing/Spreadsheet market or even the OS market. You youngesters may not know this but there was a day when suggesting you buy MS for a business enviroment had roughly the same reaction as suggesting linux a few years ago.
One of MS dreams has been to get a share (the lionshare) of the mythical living room entertainment hub whatever that maybe. At the moment the PC usually stands in the corner if it isn't banned to the bedroom or some pokey hobbyroom. The Internet TV was one attempt at getting the PC into the living room. It bombed but the idea remained and the very popular consoles are now being seen as the next battleground as to who will control the living room.
iTunes if anything has proven that there is a point. How many people here run iTunes because they bought an iPod? Would you have used iTunes if you bought say a Zen instead? Might it be possible that if you owned the living room entertainment center to then put something like iTunes on it and control the distribution of digital media into the living room? Can you say commercial wetdream?
The x-box was not an attempt to beat sony at making a good game console. It was an attempt to control peoples entertainment. The 360 is the same. The battle is on for who own the living room PC, the desktop PC has been won. Why do you think Sony actually sold a linux extension to their PS2? Because they are such nice people who like the whole opensource movement? Or because they are experimenting with turning their game consoles into a more PC like device.
I seen rumours about the PS3 actually running linux as either its core operating OS or at least being capable of doing so for certain tasks. If you look at the design of the cell processor it certainly seems designed far more for multitasking, essential for a desktop not for gaming.
What would happen if people actually could really surf the net (or better a subset of the net filled with your own sales channels) and everything else via their entertainment center? Oh I am not talking about people here but those people who have only got an old virus and spyware laden 98 15" CRT machine in the bedroom and a shiny new PS3/360 in their living room hooked up the a widescreen HD. It certainly seems to have MS worried that it might not be their logo on the software.
So MS doesn't care about profits. Yet. It cares about nobody but them owning this "new" market. Wether they are right or not and wether they succeed or not does not matter. They believe it is a battle to be fought same as for the Internet TV and same as with PDA's and same as with Mobile Phones. Internet TV bombed all around, PDA's MS sorta kinda won and mobile phones is unique because the phone makers do NOT want MS to muzzle in on their business.
Sony too must be smart enough to realize that MS is its true enemy, nintendo is just a competitor but MS is out to destroy it. But sony despite having a far wider customer base then MS is doing very badly. Some people even suggest that the PS2 might have won in sales numbers but it just hasn't made Sony the kind of money it needs.
So MS has the simple opti
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Might be for the benefit of those who turn off signatures.
Except this kind of protection is completly wrong, no matter how much buck you throw at it.
- It's the same as with DVD, etc. : You've got the content, the decryption key and everything required in the same place.
Data may be encrypted in an Xbox, but ultimately, the XBox has to start-up, decrypt, and run decrypted code.
The content virtually exist in an unencrypted form.
Good protection relies on secret.
When you transmit encrypted e-mails they are much more secure because an encrypted e-mail per-se doesn't contain everything needed to decrypt it. The XBox does.
This is only "traing to keep things hidden from user" and is pointless.
It'll get cracked, no matter how much bucks MS spent on it.
Unless XBoxes where to commit suicide and nuke the whole place if they find the slighest error (errors likely to show that somone is reverse-engeneering and trying to feed constructed data to see reaction), it's hard for Microsoft to stop anyone with decent tools to try to reverse-engeneer their conoles.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
can expect the FBI on their doorstep for violating trade secrets.
:-)
A representative said:
"Users don't need to know the details."
"This was clearly done by terrorists and hackers."
"We will find you, and we w_i_l_l kill you"
That all she wrote.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Well, apparently the CPU contains hardware for the "trusted computing platform" on-die which restricts what the CPU will allow to execute. So writing on the disk is probably the easy part.
I wonder if the 360 sends any "help me, I've been raped and pillaged" data to XBox Live?
At which point your $400-1000 console goes tits up.
MS certainly knows how people got inside the original XBox and it seems EVERY 360 game, multiplayer or not, "reports" scores and achievements to Live.
Seems like a cool feature and all, but it could very well be some crafty social engineering.
Given Sony's recent rootkit debacle, it isn't too much of stretch to believe Uncle Bill had the boys put in a "phone home and tattle" capability.
I am my own gestalt.
It may just be me, but once you Buy something you ought to be able to do with it as you wish. Restrictions on use after the first sale are often not legal (if they were, all the gun companies would all have EULA's stating you are not allowed to commit a crime with their product), and any attempts to enforce any such behavior should immediately be thrown out of court.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The man's right. There's a reason why so many people are _still_ getting good use out of Super Nintendos (or SNES9x...). I have _yet_ to find a game that's given me as much satisfaction as Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 3 (VI).
You sure they sell at a loss? Or do they just sell with less profit?
Trust me, I work for the government.
Standard xboxdvdfs, from the makers of Microsoft Works!-)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Well, in this case, it was very similar to the Xbox file system, so there was no work to do.
So, how was the Xbox file system decoded?
Well, in this case, someone pirated a copy of the MS tool GDFIMAGE. They could use that to make test file systems and reverse engineer those knowing exactly what was in them. But really, I don't think that they did either, they likely just disassembled GDFIMAGE. There have been replacement (presumably legal) tools for GDFIMAGE for some time now, as the original is copyrighted by MS and so sites won't post it.
It's all fruit of the contaminated tree, and a bit sad. It would have been nicer if it could have been done clean. But really, I think that's just a lack of resources from the community. They do things in their spare time and so do it in the most efficient way they can think of, instead of they way a lawyer would advise.
And I'm not holding something against the Xbox hacker/mod people, they're a very smart group of people and have done so much great work with the Xbox. Compare the Xbox mod and hacker scene to the PS2 one and you'll see the difference in results and even in organization.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
wow, this happened last Thursday and every techy news page around had it up that day. Good to see that Slashdot is on top of things.
Singapore recently introduced the death penalty for copyright infringement? Surely this is worthy of a Slashdot story?
That's the only thing I could think of but... if people don't desire to see signatures forcing it on them isn't really a benefit either... heh.
Get him!
.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
No this is the fp.
..
>Not really in this case. It is common practice for console vendors to sell at or below cost, for reasons I already mentioned (i.e., game sales)
This is something I've never understood. Why isn't this considered 'dumping' or 'anti-competetive'? In other markets, it's considered illegal (especially when international trade is involved.)
It effectively kills competition from small companies that can't afford to take a $4 Billion hit to come in a distant second to Sony...
FIXME: Add a sig here
I can copy games with a DVD writer and run linux....
:) ;)
I don't particularly care about the file system
Basicly, you make it so that every machine instruction is decrypted as it is executed by the CPU (I know it has been done in the past for a number of arcade machines, some of which have been cracked because they used weak encryption and some of which have never been cracked)
If decrypting every instruction as it gets executed is too slow or otherwise unfesable(which I suspect to be the case), another answer is to encrypt the executable files on disk and decrypt them when they get read into main RAM. In this case, you could probobly use a public key algorithim like RSA. This would mean that unless the secret key (which only the manufacturer would have) is cracked, it would be pretty much impossible to write & run new code on retail boxes that hasnt been signed by the manufacturer.
If fesable, the decryption would be handled by a seperate CPU or ASIC containing the public key embedded in it. (making it much harder for anyone to obtain it and use that to decrypt executables themselves). Also, in order to prevent someone just disabling the encryption chips somehow and running code, part of the non-replacable firmware would also be encrypted and then it gets decrypted into RAM after an executable has been loaded (e.g. this would be some parts of the kernel and essential system calls that the games make)
There will be a homebrew app which will allow you to overheat the power supply even faster. "More Power!, ARGH! ARGH!"
You argue that MS can afford to lose money per X360 sold, but this is no different than Sony or Nintendo. You do realize that Sony is much more than just Playstation. Their consumer electronics, computer, movie, music businesses can more than carry any losses from their Playstation department. Similarly, if you look at Nintendo's most recent financial report, most of their profits have been from Gameboy and Pokemon, not Gamecube at all. Any smart business person is aware of diversification.
IANAL, but I think that it's only illegal when done to sustain a monopolistic position, or when done in collusion with "competitors," aka price fixing. As a result of natural competition, I don't think it's illegal.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
(Only liars from marketing departments use it :-)
I hate to point out mistakes in posts but this one was obvious. The above sentence should have been written as follows:
Only marketing departments use it.
This is a common mistake. It is generally accepted that marketing = lies.
The other day, I got a sledgehammer out and smashed my XBOX 360, in order to get inside it and retrieve the hard drive to use as a bookmark, and now MICROSOFT IS TOTALLY DISSING ME AND TAKING MY RIGHTS AWAY BY REFUSING TO PROVIDE FREE PHONE SUPPORT ON HOW TO GET IT TO WORK AS AN XBOX 360 AGAIN! Those FRIGGIN' NAZIS!
- Eat it.