Slashdot Mirror
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.""
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.
There will be always more clever people out there then those employed in various corporations...
:-)
:-)
The motivation is the key. Salary is a motivation but the fun is bigger motivation.
The word "unbreakable" should not be used anymore. (Only liars from marketing departments use it
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
It starts like 3.14...
"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.
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.
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.
Its probably becuase they only had 30 minutes at a time to work on it before it overheated ;)
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 ]
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.
Q:Isn't dumping ISO files of your disks considered "fair use"?
A:Yes, it is. Which means you won't be sued for copyright infringement, you will only be charged with circumvention.
Q:But it's fair use???
A:Fair use is not a defense to circumvention.
Q:But how can I exercise my fair use rights then???
A:Fair use is not a right, it is an affirmative defense. So if you can't do it without breaking some other law, you can't.
Q:But... it's all copyright isn't it???
A:No. Even though it is called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, only some of the paragraphs deal with copyright. Others deal with circumvention.
Q:So my fair use right are...?
A:Effectively gone, yes. Also you can't touch circumvention tools or talk about how to make one. Depressed yet?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There will be always more clever people out there then those employed in various corporations...
Yeah, that's what I used to think as well. These days I think differently.
Sure, the world is full of clever people. However, the clever people who work for the technology companies have several advantages over those that don't:
I think people have been misled by the ease of breaking pure software copy protection on x86 computers. Compared to dealing with custom hardware like the Xbox pure software solutions are very easy to attack because many people have the required tools and knowledge (typically a debugger and fluency in assembly). Comparitively few people have tools to look inside microchips and figure out what they're doing - and of course, physical things are far harder to change than software which is just a series of numbers.
And even then, it's possible to make very tough to crack pure software solutions if you get enough smart people on the problem. For instance, Windows Media DRM has had remarkably few exploits given how high profile it is: the last was back in January IIRC and it was rapidly patched (so it no longer worked after a few weeks). Even then that crack didn't let you decrypt any arbitrary file: you had to actually purchase a license first. The current generation has remained uncracked for nearly a year.
For games, some programs protected with StarForce encryption have never been cracked (and some have, but StarForce lets the developers decide how much effort they'll put into protecting their software so that's not really surprising).
Anyway, if you look at the actual technical details of how things like Xbox and DVD protection were cracked, they mostly relied on massive flukes that were only found after years of searching and typically a 3rd party had to screw up somewhere first. With each successive generation of these technologies they've been iteratively improved and I see no reason why console protection won't follow the same path DirecTV/NDS satellite security followed: a few generations in, no more cracks have become available even after many years and despite the potential profit.