Xbox 360 Backup Discs Bootable

An anonymous reader writes "The firmware of the Xbox 360 DVD drive has been hacked, allowing users to boot backups of games on the new Microsoft console. A group of hackers on the xboxhacker.net forum managed to trick the DVD firmware into reporting a recordable disc as an original Xbox 360 disc. This means that it will not allow booting of unsigned homebrew code (like Linux), as the signature check is not bypassed. This hack will just trick the Xbox 360 into thinking you inserted an original Xbox 360 disc, so it'll only boot unedited executables. A video has been released, the hack has not been released to the public (because it will be mainly used for piracy), but all the research of the last few months is publicly viewable."

Comments

"we don't want to support piracy"

[Quick Sick Nick]

yeah, and I read playboy for the articles.

Re:"we don't want to support piracy"

[Anonymous Coward]

I read Playboy mainly for the page numbers, and the index. I mainly enjoy looking up a random page in the index, and then finding it in the magazine by binary search. I've written a program in Perl that helps me train; I type in the number of pages, and then it selects a random page for me, following a gaussian distribution (I don't want to have to find the index! lol!) and then I navigate to it. After a few years practice, I've got down to an average of less than two seconds for any given page number. I've got my girlfriend doing it now as well, we can sometimes spend entire evenings sitting down with my Linux box, seeing who can get to page 58 first! Its absolutely fantastic.

Re:"we don't want to support piracy"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Playboy articles are pretty good, providing good analysis of all the hot topics, like global warming, politics, religion, law, freedom, etc., etc.

Re:"we don't want to support piracy"

[Anonymous Coward]

You are winner of Slashdot!
This website can now close down.

better video

[Quick Sick Nick]

If you don't want to wait 30 seconds to download the video, stream it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyZQ4k7Bi-8

Re:Morality

[Haeleth]

It's clear that the submitter of the article doesn't think the moral case for this type of thing is strong enough to stand on its own. He has to help it along, and slightly mislead his audience despite the fact that the vast majority of the copies this is used for will be pirated copies rather than backup copies.

Huh? The submitter wrote, right there in the summary, "it will be mainly used for piracy". I really don't see how he could have been any blunter about it. It does not look to me like there is any attempt being made to mislead readers in any way whatsoever.

But I'm not surprised to see a response like yours. However someone phrases it, there's always someone who thinks they should have phrased it more strongly. I expect that even if the submitter had opened the article with "Filthy bloodsucking terrorist pedophile pirates have raped America's freedom once again in a savage assault on the copyright protections that keep our children safe", then someone would still have complained that he was being too sympathetic to them... ;)

Re:Ability to boot non-Microsoft code more useful

[Aranth Brainfire]

The DMCA always means something, even if it's just "Haha, boy am I glad we don't have a law like that here"

Re:drm sucks

[GlassHeart]

DRM is a stupid idea. It never stops hackers but it stops the average consumer from having the full use of the device they've legally bought.

I don't like DRM either, but one fallacy among opponents is the distinction between "average consumers" and "pirates". The problem is that average consumers can easily become pirates if various conditions are ripe: the original seems expensive, copying is easy, nobody is ever punished, etc. There are entire countries of "average consumers" who almost never buy original software or music.

Re:One small step

[Anonymous Coward]

to hack a disc? this is the entire disc authentication system completely reverse engineered with little or no understanding of the inner working of the 360 kernel. this is a complete sidestepping of what was probably 3 years of complete tightening of all of the 360s internal communication, integrity checking and copy protection. no one made any claims about it taking a day, and when a loose community does this in 4 months it IS god damned impressive since it is more than most people on this board could do in a fucking lifetime.