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Microsoft Bans Modified Xbox 360s From Xbox Live
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has now officially started banning Xbox 360s that have had their DVD drive firmware modified from Live, possibly using information brought in by the Crackdown-originated Halo 3 beta downloads. Scene site forums have already collapsed under traffic, and Microsoft has officially confirmed that they are banning modded Xbox 360s to keep the online playing field fair and level."
I don't think there exist any unofficial mods for the PS3 yet. You can install Linux on it, but that is officially supported and the hypervisor stops you from meddling with data to which you shouldn't have access.
Exactly. And this was their policy on the original xbox as well so I don't see why this would be a surprise to anyone. One of the strengths of xbox live is that you know the playing field is even. Its a closed network with no way a person can cheat via hacks or mods. They can't determine the nature of your change. Maybe it was something harmless, but maybe it allows you to see through walls in halo, or you're using your own drive with your own code that you can trick the xbox into executing. You can do what you want to your console in your living room, but they won't let you get it onto their sterilized network where your changes can impact other. Seems reasonable to me.
The firmware hack did not allow you to do this. Since all code on the Xbox 360 (and PS3 for that matter), is signed and run through a hypervisor, for you to run a backup it needs to be identical to the original. Altering any of the code for wall hacks in Hallo 3 for example will change the result of the signing algorithm and the 360 will refuse to run it. The hypervisor was briefly compromised a while ago on the 360 but quickly patched (6 days I believe, so quicker than the file copying bug in vista). Using back ports of the previously hacked Xbox motherboard firmware it is possible to get a few things running such as preliminary XBMC and emulators (I'm not 100% on this maybe someone can confirm). However it is still not possible to run unsigned games.
Incidentally the method Microsoft used to detect the hack this time is very interesting. It was believed that the DVD drive firmware hack was un-detectable as well as un-patchable since Microsoft had no way of remotely upgrading or checking the firmware. A few weeks ago it was theorized that Microsoft could possibly pick up the difference in DVD read jitter between DVD-R media versus printed originals. You can kinda make out jitter by listening to the extra work a DVD drive does when reading a DVD-R compared to a printed DVD. Anyway a firmware patch was released for this purpose. It appears to not have worked however since reports are coming in that people are getting banned even with this latest patch. Currently its being theorized that possibly Microsoft are checking the read speed difference, between DVD-R and pressed DVD's. Data rates tend to drop slightly to my knowledge when reading DVD-R's, so this could be detected from the main 360 software. Others are speculating that Microsoft have just been data mining for the past few months and have just banned those they have picked up until the jitter patch was released.
Finally it is also interesting that Microsoft have only banned the detected Xbox console and not the Live account. They clearly want the hackers to spend more money buying more hardware off them. An interesting way of getting some lost revenue back.
But they cant use auto-aiming sniper that shoot through walls because unsigned code wont run on the 360
Take a moment to check out cod2 hacks on youtube. The hacks are so ubiquitous, you'd have to be a fool to _not_ use them.
p.s. I don't play cod2 for that very reason.
Please show me on which planet Live costs $15/month. If you are going to take swipes at least try to have some facts right.
They run some kind of proxying software on a computer situated between the xbox360 and the live network. Changing the firmware flash of the dvd drive does not allow you to run unsigned code.
They could modifiy the textures which aren't signed to say be transparent(wall hacks).
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
This is the description they give for it "The NME 360 v1.3 is a universal chip for all Xbox360 DVD drives. It will patch the firmware of the drive on-the-fly. The original firmware on the flash of the drive remains untouched.
The chip will recognize independently which media was inserted and switches itself to the corresponding mode. That also means you will not have to install an external switch on your Xbox 360 to put the chip off."
It will also turn the network card off when it detects a copied media so you cannot connect to xbox live.
Specifically, we're talking about modding *the DVD drive*.
One reason to install hacked firmware on the drive not at all related to game play is to be able to use it as a region-free DVD player. IE: allow you to watch a DVD regardless of which country it was marketed for.
Conceivably, once someone successfully manages to port it, it will be possible to run Linux on your 360, as well... but I'm sure that will require a modification to the system board.
As someone who has a 360 and had a silver account (the free one) then got a gold let me give you some facts:
,etc. Don't complain cause you get banned because you are no longer on the same level, doesn't matter what the "hack" is, want to play on live it costs 50 bucks a year and you can't mod your 360. Don't want to follow the rules then don't play.
1. Console updates are given to anyone.
2. You may download free stuff with either account
3. Some content (free) may first be only available to gold members then to silver.
4. You must have gold to play multiplayer.
5. You can buy extra content without having a gold membership
Look playing on xbox live has a set of rules. Like playing in the NBA, NFL, Nascar, etc
Dumb analogy complaining sports have substance abuse rules. Why not let athletes who have been loaded up on steroids compete against those who trained without them?
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Cheaters would rather claim that they were unfairly banned than admit to their cheating. Additionally, there are tons of Nintendo/Sony zealots that will say anything to defame the consoles they don't own (not saying that there isn't 360 zealots, just that obviously they wouldn't be involved in this). There probably are a few false positives...but not nearly as many as people claim.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
First, you need to step a way from that pipe, get sober and calm down.
Second, if you actually listened to yourself, then you would realize how ridiculous your argument is. There is a clear contract when you sign up for the Xbox Live service. It says, if you mod your box, you are not eligible for the service. Case closed.
For a comparison, if you buy a car and you make a modification that is not authorized by the manufacturer, your warranty is null and void. And that is a rule that has been tested many times in the court of law.
Good luck trying to get a lawyer.
The point is that we, in software development studios, pay a lot of money to get the rights to develop on a console- we spend ~$10,000 a devkit- and Microsoft gets a certain percent of the profit from games. It's what pays for the system. It's about piracy-
Everyone gets screwed when you steal a game. Let me give you a real world example:
First off, it's not just suits that you're stealing from- everyone in the company, from the programmers to the testers get bonuses- and that's based on the amount of time they put in. They all profit off of the sales. So yes, you are stealing from the developers as well as the producers.
Second- an example with our game was when a European review magazine put a (slightly) pre-release build on bittorrent. It had the same title-ID so it worked, but it was slightly different than the final releases. When we released a patch, it destroyed a bunch of peoples' games (binary difference)- because the BT copy was wrong- but still technically worked until then. Our troubleshooting system gets flooded with complaints- and we soon find out its all people who stole our game that demanded we waste our time (and we did- we put in long hours figuring it out) to help them fix it.
My thoughts: If you modify your console to steal games, you can go to hell. MS has every right to kick you off- when you buy the hardware, you buy the hardware- but if you're going to *use* the system, play by the rules. Games are expensive to make and we work really hard on them. You are welcome to put linux on it- but let's not kid ourselves- You're not 'backing up' games.