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Microsoft Banning 360 Firmware Modders?
arcon5 writes "After several months of silence it was more or less accepted that Microsoft wasn't going to do anything about the firmware hacks that allow Xbox 360s to play backups. Rather surprising, considering the 'inventor' of the hack confirmed in March already that the mods are easily detectable, and the reports that piracy is running rampant in countries like China. It appears that Microsoft is finally taking action against them though, although they may be hitting the wrong persons." Best part of that article is the firmware chip encased in epoxy.
... is also known as "market share." Fighting it is shortsighted as heck.
You want to get 500 million not-so-Red Chinese hooked on your product, and then tighten the DRM screws.
That's a lot of modders, but it's not really that big compared to their entire subscriber base. Wonder why they bothered.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
How naive must someone be to think that silence on the part of a corporation equates to a tacit approval for people to circumvent a piece of hardware's embedded security system in order to run pirated copies of software?
http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/69b71551e68f857a8 843f883e9d1c330/index.html
Seems like the modders are always one step ahead.
Future ruler of a small Asian-Pacific island
That article is filled with conjecture. They get a reply that doesn't either confirm or deny that the account had been flagged and assume this is the official word...
Get some more facts and come back.
After several months of silence it was more or less accepted that Microsoft wasnt going to do anything about the firmware hacks that allow Xbox 360s to play backups. Rather surprising, considering the inventor of the hack confirmed in March already that the mods are easily detectable, and the reports that piracy is running rampant in countries like China. It appears that Microsoft is finally taking action against them though, although they may be hitting the wrong persons.
This thread on the official Xbox.com forums was started by Furydog, who posts with a completely empty gamer profile:
I have two xbox 360s and since Friday October 13 2006 I have not been able to connect with my two 360s. According to MS customer support my status codes indicate that I have MODDED 360s which I dont. I have contacted several different people and I only one person (GreenJohnny) has responded to me but he was not able to assist me. Although, he did confirm that the status codes I received indicate that my systems Mac addresses are banned because their supposedly MODDED.
Xbox Support stating there are status codes that indicate a machine was banned for modding? Thats a new one. To further confirm the story ILBCNU from Xbox Support Staff responds to his post stating they are investigating the issue and apologizing for the problem. No denial or anything, so yep, your modded Xbox 360 is now officially in risk of getting banned from Live or worse.
HackerThe fundamental problem with the firmware hack is that its a so-called Man in the Middle attack on the systems security. Imagine a phone call between 2 English speaking people, and youve got control over the line in between. By cutting in at the right moments, you can make it appear to one of the participants that the other one is saying something to him, but its actually you saying something else and making him believe that its a valid response. Thats a simplified explanation of how the hacked firmware works: it lies to the 360 kernel about what the disc is saying about its authenticity. Now imagine if both the speakers on that phone line suspected you were in the middle, and switched to speaking a slightly modified dialect. If youre still breaking in with the original dialect, its easily detectable that youre trying to fool around. Back to the 360, since Microsoft still has absolute control over disc contents and the kernel code, they can simply change the dialect on both sides and thus detect firmware hacks. If they wish, they can take any action they want upon detection, ranging from the simple Xbox Live ban to even bricking your 360 or disabling it to run any newly released games.
There is something slightly fishy about the report though, being that it says the 360 is banned based on MAC address. Those of us familiar with the OSI model and common network implementations will immediately know this is not true, because MAC addresses are part of the Ethernet protocol and live on Layer 2, and never get routed over the internet. In simple terms: your 360s MAC address is not remotely identifiable. An option could be that the Xbox Live login code sends the MAC address itself to the Live servers to be able to uniquely identify the 360, but that would be plain silly since MAC addresses are known not to be unique: they only need to be unique within their physical subnet. A far more obvious solution on Microsofts part would be to use the console serial number for this, which is embedded in the system anyway and truly unique.
Drowning firmware chips in epoxy didnt stop the modders
Whatever the details, we can probably consider it a fact that MS is currently acting against modded Xbox 360s, and you should start worrying if youve got a firmware replacement in your concave box: the Empire is Striking Back.
Many thanks to Puma81 for the link!
They've got billions of dollars, we all know that they're hard hit for money.
Someone will blame Sony for this somehow. "OMG I can't pirate the games. It's like a rootkit LOL."
"Bring it on."
...the webserver so that it can handle Slashdot traffic!
this article was already proven fake... just ask anyone who is REALLY in the firmware modding scene
nothing to see here, move along
that he questions the use of the MAC address. It's not far fetched, and considering some of the sloppy code we've seen from MS in the past, wouldn't be out of the norm even.
Whoever wrote this doesn't have a understanding of how this hack works. Their simplification doesn't accurately portray how this hack works.
From the article:
The fundamental problem with the firmware hack is that it's a so-called Man in the Middle attack on the system's security. Imagine a phone call between 2 English speaking people, and you've got control over the line in between. By cutting in at the right moments, you can make it appear to one of the participants that the other one is saying something to him, but it's actually you saying something else and making him believe that it's a valid response. That's a simplified explanation of how the hacked firmware works: it lies to the 360 kernel about what the disc is saying about its authenticity. Now imagine if both the speakers on that phone line suspected you were in the middle, and switched to speaking a slightly modified dialect. If you're still breaking in with the original dialect, it's easily detectable that you're trying to fool around. Back to the 360, since Microsoft still has absolute control over disc contents and the kernel code, they can simply change the dialect on both sides and thus detect firmware hacks. If they wish, they can take any action they want upon detection, ranging from the simple Xbox Live ban to even bricking your 360 or disabling it to run any newly released games.
Wrong. You are completely compromising the one end of the conversation. it doesn't hijack the communication at all. The dvd drive has been completely compromised and it can speak whatever dialect you make it speak.
The way of authenticating a disc is already set and can't be drastically changed without significant changes to the dvd drive and all currently pressed discs. Its like trying to change away from CSS after you already have a ton of DVD players sold. The hack has been upgraded alot since its initial release and is much more difficult to detect. In its latest form you can't even read out the dvd firmware using the chipset commands.
Ha! Wouldn't that be interesting if after n hours of use the epoxy would become conductive? Whether this is possible or not is another story, I haven't seen pictures of it either so it may not even be touching the contacts on the chip (haven't even read the article...it appears to be /.'d already.). I'd love to see the smug look on MS execs' face as it just melts right off...
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
if you read the article, it said that he didn't mod his xbox, so him not being able to get on doesnt prove they are banning modders, it doesnt prove anything
ms dont really care about pirates, because the consumer buys some part of their family of products. allow people to copy 70% of the system and you sell 30% to a much wider audience.
Why UNIX?
My open source XBOX-360 Web Browser doesn't render Flash yet.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Here's the Original Xbox.com post about it. It seems very fishy for a few reasons:
First, he's hiding his played games. That's a very very rare thing to do, because it's just not necessary. Who cared what games you've played, unless you've modded something?
Second, he's got a Gamerscore of 77103. For those who don't have a 360, each game is given a budget of 1000 Gamerpoints which can be unlocked however the game publisher wants - usually it's points-per-level, or for unlocking things in the game. Xbox Live Arcade games get a budget of 200. Gamerankings.com gives me a total of 66 games released for the Xbox 360. That's 66,000 possible points if he finished anything and everything - and most of the games are nigh impossible for any mortal to get all 1000 points on.
Lastly, he's currently playing Cars online as I type. That game is not scheduled to be shipped until tomorrow the 31st, in-stores probably November 1st. If this were the only thing odd I'd just attribute it to a broken street date, but considering all the factors it sounds like he is using a not-quite-ethical way to play games in a way Microsoft didn't intend.
http://live.xbox.com/en-US/profile/profile.aspx?pp =0&GamerTag=Furydogg
He has 77103 gamer points and his profile shows no games played?? WTF over?
-W
Reading the article cached at mirrordot
Amusing that the article has the word "backup" with a handy little tooltip thing which pops up and defines backups as meaning "Pirated games downloaded from the internet or sold cheaply"
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
Microsoft is banning 360 firmware modders
Posted in Xbox 360, Hardware, Xbox Live by Curry on October 29th, 2006 at 18:13
After several months of silence it was more or less accepted that Microsoft wasn't going to do anything about the firmware hacks that allow Xbox 360s to play backups. Rather surprising, considering the 'inventor' of the hack confirmed in March already that the mods are easily detectable, and the reports that piracy is running rampant in countries like China. It appears that Microsoft is finally taking action against them though, although they may be hitting the wrong persons.
This thread on the official Xbox.com forums was started by Furydog, who posts with a completely empty gamer profile:
I have two xbox 360's and since Friday October 13 2006 I have not been able to connect with my two 360's. According to MS customer support my status codes indicate that I have MODDED 360's which I don't. I have contacted several different people and I only one person (GreenJohnny) has responded to me but he was not able to assist me. Although, he did confirm that the status codes I received indicate that my systems Mac addresses are banned because their supposedly MODDED.
Xbox Support stating there are status codes that indicate a machine was banned for modding? That's a new one. To further confirm the story ILBCNU from Xbox Support Staff responds to his post stating they are investigating the issue and apologizing for the problem. So yep, your modded Xbox 360 is now officially in risk of getting banned from Live or worse.
The fundamental problem with the firmware hack is that it's a so-called Man in the Middle attack on the system's security. Imagine a phone call between 2 English speaking people, and you've got control over the line in between. By cutting in at the right moments, you can make it appear to one of the participants that the other one is saying something to him, but it's actually you saying something else and making him believe that it's a valid response. That's a simplified explanation of how the hacked firmware works: it lies to the 360 kernel about what the disc is saying about its authenticity. Now imagine if both the speakers on that phone line suspected you were in the middle, and switched to speaking a slightly modified dialect. If you're still breaking in with the original dialect, it's easily detectable that you're trying to fool around. Back to the 360, since Microsoft still has absolute control over disc contents and the kernel code, they can simply change the dialect on both sides and thus detect firmware hacks. If they wish, they can take any action they want upon detection, ranging from the simple Xbox Live ban to even bricking your 360 or disabling it to run any newly released games.
There is something slightly fishy about the report though, being that it says the 360 is banned based on MAC address. Those of us familiar with the OSI model and common network implementations will immediately know this is not true, because MAC addresses are part of the Ethernet protocol and live on Layer 2, and never get routed over the internet. In simple terms: your 360s MAC address is not remotely identifiable. An option could be that the Xbox Live login code sends the MAC address itself to the Live servers to be able to uniquely identify the 360, but that would be plain silly since MAC addresses are known not to be unique: they only need to be unique within their physical subnet. A far more obvious solution on Microsoft's part would be to use the console serial number for this, which is embedded in the system anyway and truly unique.
Drowning firmware chips in epoxy didn't stop the modders...
Whatever the details, we can consider it a fact that MS is currently acting against modded Xbox 360s, and you should start worrying if you've got a firmware replacement in your concave box: the Empire is Striking Back.
Many thanks to Puma81 for the link!
I'm just surprised they didn't take anti-mod actions right from the start. After all, they do lose money on hardware from every Xbox they sell (presumably to be made up in profits from games) and it's fairly safe to assume that people modding their Xbox would be the most likely to not buy retail software for it.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
This sucks for the two of you who ACTUALLY WOULD use this to back a game up (understandable, they're pricey at $60 a pop). However, the mass majority of people interested in this hack are pirates who don't want to pay for games. MS is still selling these machines at a hefty loss, so I can't say I blame them for this one.
Well, if gamerscore is greater than whats possible, I'd agree thats a pretty good clue that something isn't right. I won't argue that issue, and given the "Cars" bit when its not yet released in addition, I won't argue that the guy is probably modding.
But don't bash the guy because he decides not to share what games he owns. Some people don't feel that is any of anyone else's business. Your argument (Who cared what games you've played, unless you've modded something?)is much like the arguments about encryption, searches, etc. You know the one. "Why not let $them do $thing if you have nothing to hide." It doesn't work in those cases, and it doesn't work here either.
You've seen what is happening with sites like facebook and myspace and people having real-life consequences (company A looks up applicant B and sees them doing activity C that HR person D doesn't like, so they don't get the job). I can't wait to see the outrage when people are getting passed over for jobs and such because they play Game XYZ. Or when the likes of Jack Thompson gets ahold of the fact that Politican Bob owns Bully! or some other over-hyped game he doesn't like.
at the pawn shop, newspaper ads, Ebay, and such? I expect the shelves to be full of modded 360s in no time.
Don't get scammed.
I regret that I only have one mod point to give per post.
Also, way to spead some anti MS FUD. I've dealt with MS support on a few different occasions (mostly due to one of the faulty launch boxes). MS support was helpful and easy to work with.
How much does astroturfing pay now-a-days?
I like the 360 because network play isn't ruined. Keep it that way. Punkbuster MS way. (and yes, if you can pirate the games people can do other things to them for there own advantages..)
Xbox live was offline October 17,18 and part of 19 to 'implement' just this. Kicking modders off. Honestly though most of the online community that's vocal about this likes it because it kicks off cheaters.
Now the problem is that they're banning IPs so if you have one modded and one unmodded box you are SOL for both of them,
I have, in the past, mentioned seeing PC software being sold at very low prices, this doed not hold true for Xbox sostware. The reason for this is simple. Not only in comparison is there little Xbox software, I have seen no Xbox software, at all, in China. I do look in the electronic shops, and there is no software or consoles.
I have asked over 250 college students about where I can get gaming consoles and software and not only do they have no idea where to go for them, they have no idea, or concept, of what a gaming console is. There is simply no market penetration whatsoever. This makes sence considering that the middle-school and high school students live in school dormatories (at least the ones whose school finances make them potential buyers of game consoles) and do not have unregulated access to televisions.
I this case, I think the scare mongering about software theft in China is just FUD.
As long as they stick to DVD there's no way to discourage Chinese pirates, DVD-R are readily available in China and they can import Japanese Xbox 360 for cheaper than the US version. Paying for XBL and playing online mean jack for them.
MS is still selling these machines at a hefty loss, so I can't say I blame them for this one.
Shouldn't I be allowed to pirate the games? Microsoft seems to be allowed to break the law continually and get away with it...
Uh, its one thing to present a click through EULA that takes away your purchase and gives you a license, but how do they get away with what's effectively the same thing when you've paid for physical hardware??? Is there a shrink-wrap contract you have to agree to before opening the box?
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
I did as you mentioned above. I had read about the bannings for the HD checksums. Fortunately I was able to find a felow that modded Xbox's for a private school with no broadband access. He would extract the EEPROM from somewhere (over my head) and "lend" it to others on the internet. The transaction was based solely on the faith that the particular xbox the EEPROM was extracted from would never be connected to the internet. Anyway, it worked for me and to this date I haven't had any problems. This isn't terribly difficult with the right research...I consider myself pretty technically competent but I'm no programmer or code junkie. I do networks and desktop support. Fun stuff though!!
On my old xbox I used to play a lot of custom halo maps with my friends that were imported from halo ce. One day I wanted to sign up for xbox live and as soon as it had charged the credit card I got banned for having a mod chip. There are other way of stopping cheaters other than banning all modded xboxs.
Two wrongs don't make a right, unless you live in Melbourne where three lefts make a right turn.
Bullshit. If the 360 can identify its own MAC address, and is capable of sending game and system related information to M$'s Live service, then what's to stop it from sending its MAC address as straight text? M$ may not be able to identify it remotely from Redmond, but what's to keep a sophisticated machine like the 360 from identifying itself? I've personally written Windows scripts that parse a system's MAC address and submit it to a database; its ridiculous to think the 360 is any less capable.
The article itself said that MAC addresses are known to not be unique (anyone that owns a router knows that); a far more likely scenario is that someone spoofed your MAC address with a modded Xbox. Oh well... personally I think M$ would be better off banning China
How long till they make WGA for xbox to check the validity of your games?
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Hmmm... I seem to recall having visited a few websites which immediately posted in HTML/on-screen my IP and mac address as a routine anti-maliciousness measure.
I could be wrong, but I can almost swear I saw my MAC...
Nevertheless, should it not be a violation to pull a MAC from someone without interactive approval to do so? Nevermind the subnets. Just imagine if every time you go to Starbucks or Borders or to a hot-spot and your MAC is recorded along with bits and pieces of your traffic. Talk about fingerprinting people. WHO knows where the so-called fingerprints get databased....
DS
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
d00d, I hacked my XBOX360 and I'm running a modified OS and everyth*#&(#$&(&$##$^^^^^^
+++ NO CARRIER
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
I dont understand. If I buy a machine, I can do everything to that machine. Is mine. Microsoft has nothing to do with it. Maybe can block me from enter his online services, but even that is doubfull.
:I
Or maybe people "rented" the machine to microsoft??
That story is scary, has these drm terror tales
-Woof woof woof!
From the article;
There is something slightly fishy about the report though, being that it says the 360 is banned based on MAC address. Those of us familiar with the OSI model and common network implementations will immediately know this is not true, because MAC addresses are part of the Ethernet protocol and live on Layer 2, and never get routed over the internet. In simple terms: your 360s MAC address is not remotely identifiable. An option could be that the Xbox Live login code sends the MAC address itself to the Live servers to be able to uniquely identify the 360, but that would be plain silly since MAC addresses are known not to be unique: they only need to be unique within their physical subnet. A far more obvious solution on Microsoft's part would be to use the console serial number for this, which is embedded in the system anyway and truly unique.
Oh my god, are these guys thinking about this too hard or what?
Boot system. Find serial number. Modify MAC address in PHY configuration to match serial number. This number is now unique on any network and is not in any way limited to building ethernet frames. You can pull the number back out and send it.
Every system we ship has it's serial number encoded into the MAC address. You start with our IEEE vendor code - 0x0002bf in our case - and the last 6 digits (that's 16.7 million permutations) are the serial number permuted through some clever algorithm.
More than 16 million XBoxes in the world? Well that's easy! Get a new vendor code. The IEEE are perfectly happy to give you a new vendor code once you exhaust your first 16 million network cards
For any system on any network, the MAC address is almost guaranteed to be unique in the world. When it is not, this MAC address has been modified by a user - not the hardware vendor. 3Com, Intel, any other network chipset company that ships NIC devices do not ship cards to different parts of the world with the same MAC address; each one is different and it is usually written on the damn card. Every motherboard you buy from ASUS or Dell will usually be encoded to match the above encoding (some serial number added to their IEEE code).
So, no, it's not stupid to try and identify a system by it's MAC address. And the MAC address is not some scary limited-to-ethernet value. It's just 12 bytes at the end of the day.
Submitter is a crack whore? Slashdot has jumped the shark? I'm an Internet tough guy?
The vendor and I had a good laugh about that.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
It's a good thing that I do not own an xbox.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Microsoft could not get it working. Plus, they wanted to charge me $35 for the support call, so I said "no way" and returned the 360 to the store.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
They just need to randomly ban a few users until the word gets out and scares people away from the mod.
Your Computer Is Broadcasting Your IP Address!!!
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
And then Windows branded frogs rained from the sky, right?
You're either embellishing or leaving out an important part of the story. This is completely contrary to any of my experiences with Xb360 support. It simply doenst make any sense.
Slashdot might eat up anything Anti MS, but lets be serious.