Sad news this is

Vaguely related:

I sold a PSP on eBay the other day, and the guy who bought it complained because it had up-to-date firmware (you need older firmware if you want to run homebrew apps because Sony have fixed most of the holes in the latest one).

He COMPLAINED because he wanted to BREAK THE LAW :/

Wich moron want’s his xbox360 modded? You can forget all the live features. Atleast it doesn’t go up for the firmware hack, but once your banned you lose your xbox live possibilities, and that’s where its all about on the 360.

So listen. Don’t try to mod your x360, would it be worth the money? spending so much on a very very good machine, and then loose the live options? nah…. think before you handle.

Actually such a hack would go unnoticed becuz all it does is remove the mediacheck. Without this check, only unmodified gamedata (which are the RAW gamedumps) can be booted. The 360 wouldnt know the difference. And live wouldnt either. It is impossible to change gamedata on the discs because it will corrupt the key with which the data is signed. If you do that, the software wouldnt even load up. So no xbox live cheating however i guess only more people on live (and very sadly, with backups yes)

Yeah that figures but I’m pretty sure MS will make a mandatory firmware ‘update’ just like Sony does with their PSP’s.

I modded my Xbox 1, but do not plan on ever modding my 360. I was all into my modded Xbox for a couple months, but quickly got passed it.

“The 360 wouldnt know the difference.”

It wouldn’t, because the firmware can always lie about it being authentic. But as TheSpecialist says, Microsoft can be a major pain in the behind by distributing updates that void the firmware, forcing users to reflash to a new version. Considering this requires a hardware chip writer and the fact that dashboard updates are released every 1 to 3 months, a modification based on these findings would currently be only usable by a very very small number of experts.

You know, the closer the hacking community gets to hacking the console, the more time Microsoft’s staff has to work on creating patches to stop them. In turn this is slowing down development of key items that actually bring progression to the system.

I really hope that Microsoft can keep those hackers from breaking the machince. I bought almost 60 Xbox games legally. I want to see the machine succseed and the hackers failing.

“Wich moron want’s his xbox360 modded? You can forget all the live features. Atleast it doesn’t go up for the firmware hack, but once your banned you lose your xbox live possibilities, and that’s where its all about on the 360. ”

I have two modded xbox’s in my home, one of which has been on live for well over a year now. The 360 will end up being the same way bud

I have a modded xbox1, but like Hoffer said about a month of it, its no fun. Plus you cant get online, so I say sure spend $600 on a 360 and then another $200 for modds then you just got one exspensive DVD player…

yo studley (if that is your real name),

it is not illegal to run homebrew, and you are an idiot for upgrading your psp. the 1.5 psp is a work of art. it can do infinitely more than just play isos. keep up with the scene, and you won’t look like an idiot next time.

– mu

Damn dude theres no need to flame someone just because they dont share your veiw on freakn homebrew.

Running homebrew makes baby Jesus cry.

The PSP also constantly has upgrades by Sony preventing previous hacks, but every time shortly after it is hacked for homebrew software again.

Expect the same for the 360 in time.

I don’t care actually. I must say my old xbox is modded also, with a modchip. That is nice, because I have a full Media Center without the stupid restrictions what it should be. I hope I can have the same with the 360, a standalone MC without the boring PC setup. Just simply because the hardware is capable of it!

Furthermore, I think that persons playing backups with a modchip also buy original games. I even think that way they end up buying more games then without the mod, because the games they really play often they want to have original so they can also play on XBOX Live. With a modchip, you can play also Live when in original bios mode.

Modding my 360 or not, it depends on the method, the possibilities and the costs. For a complete MC I would do it when it’s safe for sure!

your right, but modifying a system doesn’t make me the devil. once i own a system i have every right to modify the mofo. it will blow my warranty, but i can do what i want. modifying a system removes limitations. but hey, like walls? box yourself in.

– mu

Jail cells have plenty of walls

that last remark was toward ponder by the way,

and to the M.A.R.T., the XBMC on my modded xbox runs all of my media from my pc (over a terrabyte), and it does so with a degree of quality that so far surpasses the “media center” on the 360 that it is almost worth laughing about. do what you want, y’all, do what you want… but yeah, sorry studley, i didn’t mean to bite so hard…

– mu

jail cells have plenty of walls? please, for your own good, don’t be a tool.

– mu

Granted, you do have every right. But then to go online with it, is against the code of conduct…and the law.
Modding machines is pure lame, kind of ruins everything, but hey - what ever floats your boat.

Most of the features on the xbox 360 dashboard have been taken directly from the homebrew scene from the original xbox.

So for all you people who think the homebrew scene are ruining the 360 then think again and look further than piracy

well, i will try to give you an example.

if you have an xbox 360 and an original xbox, there is a whole universe you could open up on your xbox without much of a sacrifice. granted, with two copies of the same game and two live accounts you could get both machines online on an original xbox game. however, if you mod the xbox, and put linux on it, you basically have a pc with a 733mhz processor at your diposal to do with as you will. and not only that, but it is already hooked up to your entertainment system with 5.1 dolby (presumably), and maybe even hd. so you could toss a 300 gig hard drive into the xbox, and have a stand alone media center that will play 500 hours of video, AND 500 hours of music. STAND ALONE! or you could network it with your pc, and have all of your media available. this can all be done in five minutes with a soft mod, and if you own legal copies of the media you are playing, then everything is legit, except maybe the fact that the xbmc uses some xbox devkit stuff. you could also surf the web, and run a ton of other linux crap on there. all legit.

my point is, it is not all bad, and maybe if you check it out, you won’t be disappointed.

– mu

“I have a modded xbox1, but like Hoffer said about a month of it, its no fun. Plus you cant get online, so I say sure spend $600 on a 360 and then another $200 for modds then you just got one exspensive DVD player… ”

so in other words, you failed at modding your xbox??

Like I said, I’ve been on live for over a year WITH my modded xbox. There are absolutely no negatives to modding your xbox, only positives.

“There are absolutely no negatives to modding your xbox, only positives” you’re joking right? Are you saying that screwing the industry by stealing your games instead of paying for them like you’re supposed to is positive? Damn, some people…

nino,
just because a box is modded does not mean it is necessarily used for illegal copies. it is the individual that makes the decision as to what to use the device for. not everyone is bad. and according to industry experts, m$ and their failure to launch the 360 in a timely manner is what is doing the industry the most damage right now. yes, it was the right decision for microsoft, and i personally am glad to have a next gen system, but the industry has suffered horribly from this botched launch. as an industry, we are in limbo between next gen and current gen systems, and that is crushing us. i think we both know this deep down. and as pointed out by the m.a.r.t., all games on live must be originals, so if you want the real play, you have to pay.

– mu

and asd is right, there are dual boot soft mods available now, so you can do it yourself, chipless, and still get on live, with a retail copy.

– mu

“Are you saying that screwing the industry by stealing your games instead of paying for them like you’re supposed to is positive? Damn, some people… ”

So what you’re saying is that it’s negative for the industry, I’m talking about the person who modified their xbox… So yes, it is still a positive

Besides, like others have said, it’s not only used for downloading xbox games. some examples :

- I can stream ANYTHING to my tv via my modded xbox, with no hassle. I connect to my pc in a matter of a second, and browse it to play whatever I desire, no restrictions at all.

- I can burn legally purchased games to my harddrive and no longer deal with switching discs. Plus, I get faster load times, and can do coop/system link amongst both my systems with one game disc

- I can play all of my favorite old school nes, snes, genesis, arcade, etc. games on one console

- Don’t have to worry about any region crap for movies/games

You get my point. It’s simply amazing, and extends the systems life beyond belief.

even with a chip though, which is what I have, you simply turn it off and you can be on live without any problems.

Why does everyone cry wolf at being able to play backup games?

Does anyone here have any children? Never had a DVD or a GAME in their hands??

If you did, you would appreciate having backup copies of stuff.

Ever tried getting a new copy of a game you destroyed because of scratches??? good luck!!

I game companies had some sensible way of getting back the stuff when it’s in a bad state, it wouldn’t be as bad, but as it stands, the only way I can make a backup of my stuff is to have a modded version of the console!

P.s. I only have original backups, no copies of any games/dvd I don’t own.

‘So what you’re saying is that it’s negative for the industry, I’m talking about the person who modified their xbox… So yes, it is still a positive :)’

No because when people start stealig their games rather than buying them they’re screwing theirselves. Ofcourse I agree with you that homebrew software is great, XBMC is a great app and all but most of the people that mod their Xbox do it to play backups, not to use homebrew.

JohnD ; just store your DVD’s better, noway children are getting near my copy of GRAW, never had any problems with damaged discs.

This was the problem with my modded xbox; I take really good care of my stuff so I didn’t see any reason to keep backing up games. And the fact I like to keep buying bigger book shelves to see my collection grow. But unfortunately this is a free country so do as you please.

Both parties are right here.
You shouldn’t fuck the industry by running games you haven’t bought legally.
On the other hand, MS is a pain in the ass itself with restrictions on what to play and what to refuse (for example in the 360: no .avi, only .wmv).

If a hack became available I would probably install it to enjoy the pleasures of playing .avi and some other features mentioned above, I would however buy original games, or download and testdrive em before I buy.

I don’t download many games for xbox, and the ones I do download I wouldn’t have bought anyway, so no harm done.

One game I’ll never regret downloading, The Red Star. If anyone remembers this title, it was supposed to be released by Acclaim, and was finished right before they got canned. the game was never released officially, but available to download. One of the greatest games on xbox in my opinion, game was pure arcade action, and insanely hard. I swear even after beating this game, I’d probably still buy it if they released it because of how cool it was.

I sure know there are a lot of people that only bought the xbox for the mediaplayer capabilities. Its a sweet looking black box. So that’s the positive of homebrew. But i’m sure 70% of the other people that mod there xboxes are using it for playing illegal copy’s that they not own. I hope microsoft is going to ban xbox live accounts (and lose there gamerpoints) when they detect there is an other firmware installed.

It’s very very very close, TheSpecialist even says the following:

“Well as you can see, not everybody wants to release the FW and a lot of people have good reasons not to release it. So it’s just a rough guess when a hack will hit the street, but again, i would be VERY surprised if you’d have to wait more than a month …”

Just have to chance the Firmware of the DVD drive. It’s the first step to a full mod unlocking all the power of the 360! I say cheers

“I hope microsoft is going to ban xbox live accounts (and lose there gamerpoints)”

rofl… oh no, not my gamerpoints!! Whatever will I do!?!

Guys i have bought Xbox because of the nedia capabilities..i dont want to be so rude…but media center sucks, integration sucks, best u can do is to see some photos…streaming videos sucks..u cant read divx,,u cant read mpeg..and so and and so on media center complain with everything which is not wmv…sucks..and now…guys, well i also work in a big american corporation, as we have the ethics..yes we can crack…our company…what to do..
1. Buy PS3, linux 60 gb , upgradable, open media system
2. Mod Xbox 360..or
3. Microsoft solves these issue i hope you guys give these feedback in microsoft before its too late.
oks lets be honest so we have 2 things mod and crack…games…so we need mod…if microsoft does not give us a media player open..guys we should not stick to wmv…piracy..and bla bla bla..
1. So modding we need it…Extender hangs…firewalls are crazy with media extender and so on a hard disk…guys seen ur answer 100 gb notebook is expensive…guys..its my problem…i just want to have it available how much it should be 150 Euros??? then you say i dont need it..of course i need, i have 10gb photos, plus my movies, and so on, 0,5 tera media..let me put something in my xbox disk…show it to the friends..or should i connect a massive external hard disk in the top of my beatifull lg 37 inches, and my nice xbox..and say to my friends ..u know if have to get a external hard drive ugly one in my tv room..forget it, consumer does not want it. and few other extras that we like to change..wallpaper ..and so on…
2. Crack and Piracy i am against, but again guys…Europe ok.., hight Taxes, 60 Euros for a Game makes it around 70USD, i have bought already 4 games…but for a family…come on…make it 30…Euros..make it cheap make it a dollar…everyone in europe will be looking for a crack..cant imagine in the 3rd world…china, and so on…seens somes opinions some guys say, its a false question the price…but beleive me..its not…do i buy chinese bateries cracked ones..no i dont, buy duracell well made in china..:) like xbox…but i am willing to pay…but dont joke 70USD for a game in Europe…my wife gets crazy…
In resume 2 messages for Microsoft:
a) Listens to consumers (i know u have principles and ethics and corporation values..and so on..)…but listen to themm they want media player on the box…with codecs and the consumers should place the codecs…are u listening them….zzzzzzzzzzzz
b) ok ok no piracy..:) we should be ethical…everyone as to get money..i know but 70USD take it to your board…please it should be 30 Euros..listens..listen..them everyone want a crack..why…they cant afford 20 games…makes 1200 Euros…+ the 50 euros for the gold live..i can pay u the gold…can pay even a little bit more u u give me some games…but listen….listen..we want them cheaper…..:)…zzzzzzzzzzzz
See guys and thanks for these suberb blog… (sorry the mistakes i am from Portugal…:) )

Modifications like this increase console sales, I feel this is coming a little bit to early though.

————
http://www.playstationteam.com

[…] Word is out on the street that a flaw in the Xbox 360 DVD firmware may allow a hacker to install his own custom firmware in there unchecked, and as such gain full control of what the DVD will or will not accept. In practice, this would mean that the drive could gain the capability to boot backups of original game DVD’s by flashing a self-built firmware in there which ignores the mandatory disc signing. Full Story. Related Posts;Sony planning major move into digital distributionEverything 1UP Know About the PS3PS3 to debut on auction siteMedal of Honor : Airbourne First TrailerAnalyst Predicts November PS3 US LaunchJapanese Amazon Lists Playstation 3 top^ - Home - Forum - Features - Reviews - Cheats - Contact - ^top www.playstationteam.com copyright of playstationteam.com […]

~~~DIGG~~~

Personally I see the damage in people stealing games, although I’ll admit I have done it, anyways I want to say that I think it is rediculous that they are trying to make it illegal to modify your xbox or 360, once you buy a product it is yours, so you should beable to moddify it any way you want. The question here is that don’t want more government control, and this madness of all these new laws needs to stop!

The laws in the Netherlands are all just fake things. They say one can only have the backup if one owns the original.

Fact is that in real life, even a policeman copy’s the software. They won’t even care about it untill one starts selling backups for money and advertise with it on the net or otherwise.

I don’t say anyone should copy or use illegal games. The statement that I would like to make is that I think when one plays a copy that one really likes, the person is going to buy it (also because of the fact for the old xbox that with an original Live can be used, with a copy one can’t) and most of the things that stays with a copy normally wouldn’t have been bought anyways.

I think sales are boosted by the possibility of modding and playing backups first!

what would be a great idea is for ms tom make a open stystem for people to make addons for the xbox so then they could improve it but why becuase
1. microsoft can say once somethings subbmited they own it and thus free stuff to add for them
2. people can use the addons and improvements could boost popularity and flock in aspiring game develpers/programers

lots of complaining about the lack of divx support. for thos who don’t know, there is an easy gui divx (avi) transcoder for the 360 (plays the movie on the pc, see it on the 360) it is still in beta (no fast forward/rewind), but there should be an upgrade very soon… it works well, but uses a busload of your pc’s processor.

http://www.runtime360.com

also, the 360 supports mpg and wmv for those who don’t know that.

– mu

hey, ASD and MULTIGEN,

if i give you guys my s/n or whatever, would you/one of you be able to tell me how to get my box modded/set like yours both are since you both seem quite skilled. the linux thing too…?

CaptJ

Not everyone who modifies their XBOX will ultimately commit piracy. I like how some people assume that the majority of people who modify their system do it for piracy. Most people I know who have modded their XBOX, never pirated a game. They did for the sole reason to run homebrew applications like XBMC.

I’m sure there are others out there who actually make legitimate backups because of the fear of destorying the original game and obviously there will be others who use modifications for illegal purposes.

TheSpecialist has said that he is more interested in the challenge of hacking the 360, not for piracy. Afterall, real hackers just do it for the challenge, crackers are the people who enjoy dealing damage. People can get angry at the hackers for trying to do this, but in the end, Microsoft should be at fault. You don’t leave the debugger intact and leave the firmware unsigned.

” illegal modification of consoles ”

This is an oxymoron. its my property there is no such thing as an illegal modification. now USING said mod to run pirated games. thats illegal. the actual modification is not illegal and I will never recognize or acknowledge any law that says otherwise for PROPERTY that is owned by the end user.

I dont have an xbox 360 but unless yiour RENTING your xbox 360 its your property to do with as you please.

Hey Studley
“He COMPLAINED because he wanted to BREAK THE LAW”

Please pratell. what law might that be ? Home brew is not illegal and can not be illegal. Sony does not own the PSP. you do. they own the IP but not the hardware. that is the property of those who purchased it.

Now if he wants to run pirated games THATS illegal but that has nothing to do with wanting an older firmware. I have 1.5 on my PSP. I dont recognize sonies right to infringe on my right to do anything I want with my property.

If I buy a game and it does not work because of firmware I return the game. If they object I make it know what I am getting my money back. this is not negotiable. You can give it back here and now or I will take it back by force when I legitimately dispute the charge on my cerdit card. I have only had to return one game and it was taken back without further argument. ALWAYS use a credit car BTW

DRM is immoral and in my book illegal since it violates my right to my property. DRM is theft plain and simple.

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

I have to point out the fact that if the 360 is ever successfully hacked, you will see the number of system sales double or triple. And I guarantee you that for every 4 or 5 games downloaded that the person will actually buy one. I’m not really for piracy, but just playing devil’s advocate here. Piracy DOES help sales for a new platform trying to get some recognition, like it or not…

“Piracy DOES help sales for a new platform trying to get some recognition, like it or not…”

Piracy of games is for the most part bad for consoles especially when you sell the console at a loss…

Piracy for Performance media is almost always a bonus. the reason for the fight against piracy is soely to support DRM and the sole reason for drm has nothing to do with piracy.

its to steal our legally purchased property (music movies etc..) and to inhibit competition.

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

Hey, just to let you guys know I’m one of those people that has modded thier Xbox but has never downloaded a game (and truthfully I never plan on it) I just use it as a media PC. It works great, fits into my TV stand, and has a nice remote.

My brother recently got an Xbox just to mod it so that he can do the same thing, I don’t even know if he’s played a game on the thing, I’ve also got another friend that is interested in making the $100 leap.

SO that idea that all modding leads to piracy is just plain false. I’m sure some people do it, but I KNOW that not all people do it.

Wow, most of you should be in prison.

to captj,

the easiest way to softmod your box is to get the latest auto-installer. if you are on the bit torrent tip, google xbox-sky. they have a wide selection of tools in their apps department. if you are not hip to the bit torrent scene, use your favorite peer to peer, and search for xbox soft mod auto installer. slayers-evox is going to be everywhere, but the wizard auto installer i believe is dual boot now (boots to original xbox dashboard for live play, and whatever your choice of hacked dashboard is (XBMC)), so if you want to stay on live with a soft mod, i think that is the way to go. there is TONS of info on soft modding. check xbox-scene.com for some very accurate and up to date tech info.
basically for the soft mod you buy a retail copy of mech assault, and load a save campaign called “run linux” (which is included in the auto installer). after that your xbox can read dvd-r so you drop the auto installer dvd in the xbox and it will install Xbox Media Center (i use this as my dashboard) and a ton of other apps per your spec. the hardest part is getting the mech assault save file on your xbox. you need a usb to xbox memory card converter (super cheap (comes with gameshark and crap)) to put the save file on the xbox memory card from your pc.

good luck…

– mu

justin,

your soul is black, and your breath smell like your moms ass…

– mu

Mutigen, Justin and the rest; keep it friendly ok?

Mu -
nice comment, everyone else that think Box Modders are pirates, take a leap off you mom’s fat ass. I work in a fairly decent sized support center, there are 6 or 7 of us that modded the box, on average we each spend approx. 100 to 200 dollars every six months on games. We all own originals, we all work hard for our toys and time to watch/play. But because we own a modded box we are pirates, no I dont think so. So again Frak off and find a board game to play with …..

Hack the Planet —–

[…] It was bound to happen eventually but apparently hackers found a flaw in the xbox 360 firmware that gives you the ability to install custom firmware . I don’t think it will last to long before Microsoft do what Sony did with the PSP and just release another firmware without the flaw. For more info jump over to XBoxic Website. […]

All Microsoft would have to do is update the 360 code (which they can do via a forced Live update) to automatically checksum the DVD firmware on boot. Everyone is assuming that they don’t have the abilitiy to detect changed code on boot (and that they’re not able to remotely implement that).

Sure, if you never connect to Live, you may manage it, but then you’re missing the biggest benefits of the console.

“But unfortunately this is a free country so do as you please.”

Heh, well said. Now run along to Little Green Footballs; don’t forget your fascist fan club member card.

“” illegal modification of consoles ” - This is an oxymoron. its my property there is no such thing as an illegal modification. ”

Very not true. There are legal kinds of modification, such as casemodding the 360, making windows in the case or painting it pink.

Reverse-engineering software in order to modify it and then release it without paying due royalties to the original developer is a severe breach of copyright. As such the firmware hack violates Microsoft’s IP on the firmware and is as such: illegal.

“All Microsoft would have to do is update the 360 code (which they can do via a forced Live update) to automatically checksum the DVD firmware on boot.”

And how did you imagine they check the checksum? The firmware is not memory mapped, so only accessible via the interface connection which is controlled by…. the firmware. Which can reply with any checksum it wants obviously since it’s custom built.

If they had included a good media center I wouldn’t even consider modding it. But since they decided to include a media center that is useless to me because I regularly use XVID and Linux for my backups…

But anyway it make’s too much noise to be really usefull as a media center, it’s like a boeing aeroplane.

[…] read more | digg story […]

ok please just explain what this hack does
make it as simple as possible

Miles;

To explain simple: Normally when u put in a burned disc, the drive detects that and sends it to the core of the xbox360 and the xbox360 rejects the disc then.

With the firmware flash the drive detect every disc as an official xbox360 disc, no matter if its a dvd-r or a cd-r.

So when u have a RAW dump from the original disc, and burn it to a new dvd-r disc, the xbox360 will accept the disc, and starts playing your iso.

Someone though I had a hack, sorry guys just meant if there was a hack.

UH where did you get this misinformation - that hack is for the original xbox not the 360. sheesh

Here is the proof and it is even old news from january.

XboxHacker.net

http://xbox-scene.com/xbo...ews-archive-29-1-2006.php
scroll down to Xbox DVD Firmware Hacked

Dummies hehe

AlphaMRE;

That’s right, the hack already succeeded for the xbox1, but the xbox360 is vulnerable for the same flaw. There are some more protections, but its still has the same flaw.

If you read on the forums from xboxhacker.net you will see the same hack almost works for the xbox360

“UH where did you get this misinformation”

Well, websurfing for beginners, lesson 1: those green thingies in the text are called “Links”. They are the glue of the Web, since they link pages together in an organized way. Most news sites use these Links in their news items to Link to their sources. Incidentally, we call “news sites” that because they are Sites, and they bring you News, which is something you didn’t know before. If you’d bother clicking the Links you might understand why this is News, because the Source is all about the Xbox 360.

*sigh*

OK, if Microsoft sees the hack, and produces a new version of the firmware, you DON’T need a chip programmer to update the firmware in your drive. It’s as simple as removing the drive from your box, and attaching it to your PC, and running a “Firmware updater” program. After which, you plug it back in on the 360, and you’re off an running.

As for MS being able to DETECT it, one of the previous posters was correct in that the only way they have of this, would be to ASK the drive what it’s checksum is. This goes through the firmware, which could simple parrot back the correct value. It COULD be more complex, as I used to deal with a checksum routine that provided you a seed, and you had to checksum your ROM(s) within a certain time window using that seed, and return the correct value. Of course, this could be faked with a lookup table, but I’m just saying that there ARE ways that it could be done, but hackers will prevail.

Always have, always will.

[admin-edit] bullshit comment removed

although it is nice to backup your games, that is not the point. the days of modding your console to play copies went out with the blockbuster game pass. it just doesn’t matter anymore. i pay for games because i CHOOSE to pay for them, to support work that i feel has produced something great. but to not mod your xbox1? well, you’re denying yourself so much, why?

– mu

Oh, and for the record,

Modded Boxes also permit resource Hacking in two ways :

1- To cheat in games. That one I utterly hate. I wouldn’t cheat at Halo2 to score gamerpoints even if I wanted to. That’s just… bad.

2- Game extensibility. Now THAT’S a kewl one.

About point 2, how many of you know that Halo1 and Halo2 are very popular in the scene because of said extensibility? Many have made additional maps, additional resources… Hell, someone even made a resource explorer for Halo2 and I could very well use that resource explorer to coax in every audio language as to have a multilingual text+audio halo2! Oh, and for the record, I am also known as one of the guys who made a resource extractor for DDR Ultramix 2 and Ultramix1, and I have a resource INJECTOR/Howto for DDR Ultramix 3. I like taking songs off and adding some. Ultramix 3 is a great DDR game, but lacks good music, so I removed songs and added others. That’s console hacking for you.

And for the record, I OWN Ultramix 1, 2 and 3. And I’m known by Konami. Somewhat.

what about moding 360 for games that havent made for the us. Anyone have a problem with that?

Who cares about being kicked off live? For the most part, Live sucks anyway, and I only have to copy 6 games and that pays for an Xbox 360 and an original game to play on Live anyway. Face it folks, the Xbox 360 is well and truly open now, and about time too!

it is not open. as has been stated repeatedly, it still will not run unsigned code.

– mu

and xbox live rules…

– mu

God, Talk abvout a bunch of fuckin whiny twats. Long live Piracy and breaking that law. Fuck the man and you stupid fuckin idiots that are afraid to mod your systems…what fuckin bollocks….studley, congrats on the gayest name ever, you must be a fuckin American with your righteous bullshit about law breaking? what a fuckin loser…cant get over it…why post stupid shit like that on here? No one cares about your psp exploits on ebay. get fucked you yankee fuck!

personally im all for modding………prices of games is so extoritionate!!! 30-40 quid a throw– sod off!!!!. Roll on when its ploited ill buy one then but no until. ill stay with xbox1 atm and me pc.

[admin-edit] several bullshit comments removed

BORING!!! IT doesn’t run linux yet, so I don’t care

Hey admin, buy yourself a mod chip http://modchipsource.com/, get a 300 GB hard drive, google for slayers 2.6 iso and mod chip bios. Cheers! now you can copy your “legal” xbox games to your hard drive and play them without the dvd.

read more at www.xbox-scene.com

No need to thank me.

Thanks “bill gates jr.” I am going to mod my xbox.

“Reverse-engineering software in order to modify it and then release it without paying due royalties to the original developer is a severe breach of copyright. As such the firmware hack violates Microsoft’s IP on the firmware and is as such: illegal.”

Sorry we disagree. the console is property. property of the OWNER of the console ie the end user who BOUGHT IT.

as my property I can and will do anything I want with it. Copyright only comes into play if I BOTH make it non personal (share it) and #2 if I require the use of there code for my mod.

so if my mod is all MY COPYRIGHT ie my own code and I share that I violate NO copyright (I own it) now if my mod INCLUDES in its source proprietary code from microsoft NOW I “MIGHT” be violating microsofts copyright. but if my mod contains no microsoft code and simply modifies microsoft code when its activated NO microsoft copyright is violated.

the ONLY leg they have to stand on is the DMCA which has NOTHING to do wit copyright and for which I do not recognize or acknowledge as law since it violates fair use which has not be overturned and is still legal law and since it came first I choose fair use which to me nullifies the DMCA when it conflicts with fair use.

This is why emulators that are totally custom are perfectly legal. no copyright is violated in fact the writers owns the copyright of there emulator.

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

take that doppelganger!

nice one chris…

– mu

I say down with buying and up with hacking. Bill Gates is rich enough, even though thats not the point. But still, if you’re smart enough to get anything for free and not get caught, you deserve it. And we’re not talking about somebody’s else possessions, its damn videogames for sake. Actually, it would be smarter to allow backups of videogames because that way if you break the disc or scratch it, you can run out and just copy the same game. The more you break the more you pay. Thats bullshit!!! I’ve paid close to $450 for the console, so MS have made their money. Some things in life should just be free, especially games for a console that ate up $450 big ones. Plus I strongly agree with this statement from Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor said,

on March 17th, 2006 at 12:58 am

“Reverse-engineering software in order to modify it and then release it without paying due royalties to the original developer is a severe breach of copyright. As such the firmware hack violates Microsoft’s IP on the firmware and is as such: illegal.”

Sorry we disagree. the console is property. property of the OWNER of the console ie the end user who BOUGHT IT.

as my property I can and will do anything I want with it. Copyright only comes into play if I BOTH make it non personal (share it) and #2 if I require the use of there code for my mod.

so if my mod is all MY COPYRIGHT ie my own code and I share that I violate NO copyright (I own it) now if my mod INCLUDES in its source proprietary code from microsoft NOW I “MIGHT” be violating microsofts copyright. but if my mod contains no microsoft code and simply modifies microsoft code when its activated NO microsoft copyright is violated.

the ONLY leg they have to stand on is the DMCA which has NOTHING to do wit copyright and for which I do not recognize or acknowledge as law since it violates fair use which has not be overturned and is still legal law and since it came first I choose fair use which to me nullifies the DMCA when it conflicts with fair use.

This is why emulators that are totally custom are perfectly legal. no copyright is violated in fact the writers owns the copyright of there emulator.

@TheMan

You say a whole lot of things that aren’t so wise I must say.

So just because Bill Gates is rich enough it gives you the right to play illegal copies? That’s a strange kind of strategy! So if Bill Gates would be poor, you would buy games because otherwise you wouldn’t feel good about it

So you paid 450 dollars for the console. Which is worth more then that, you paid less than it cost to make, so how can you ever say such stupid things. The price is about the same for a good GPU for a PC. Only the GPU would have cost that amount… MS has made no money on you buying the 360 under the costprice of the thing let stand alone all the other cost made for the total 360 project, the overhead cost that also need to be covered somewhere, somehow. With the old XBOX they lost a lot of dollars already, and this time on the hardware they aren’t winning again.

And how would you like your free games furthermore sir? You really sound as stupid as a pigs ars, games cost a lot of time and money to make. The game studios that invest in such games won’t get paid by the money that MS receives from selling a 360.

The console is your property. Hacking the Firmware of the DVD isn’t the same as copying illegaly and play them through the hack. A backup of media ones own playing through a possible FW hack is a different story.

I must say some people really post strange and stupid things. For all non believers about The Specialist (and others who worked on the DVD FW hack), go and read the 42 pages about the original DVD FW hack for the old XBOX and some of the info about the 360 DVD FW hack at this page:

http://www.xboxhacker.net...;Itemid=33&topic=76.0

i hope they will hack it soon
and about the live comments!
you can play online trough KAi !

Im so close to buying XBOX 360…

Under American law, there are provisions for fair use. Corporations are systematically work towards the destruction of this right. Even teh DMCA allows for some ‘hacking’ to enable interoperability, and I would argue that the ability to watch AVI files on an Xbox 360 is an example of working towards this end.

Have any of you considered what the Xbox 360 is capable of? Do any of you look beyond the media’s representation of the typical hacker, to see what they are really about? Many of you have accepted the ‘black hat’ definition - That hackers are evil people who lie and pillage their way to stolen good. A good number of these hackers have tried to justify themselves, but still many of you cry out against them, placing them in prisons.

Just as you spent your $500 for your console, so did they, but most hackers were not happy with the box they got. maybe it is because it scratched a DVD, causing a lcoal rental parlour to enforce a draconion policy where they had to buy a broken copy of a game due to poor engineering on the part of the Xbox 360’s designers. Perhaps it was to extend the media features beyond that which came with their console.

My point is that many hackers are not pirates. Most are simply curious, but unlike the majority of people out there, they were able to act on their innate curiosity. They are beacons of exploration and free speech.

Consider that these hackers have already told Microsoft where the problem is, and that they fully intend to release all the information into the public domain. Had they left out the bit about the debug routines, it’s likely that Microsoft might leave them in for future updates or even generations of consoles. They came clean, and now Microsoft will know what to fix up… or else they will remain lazy and leave the documented flaws in. The ball really is in Microsoft’s court now with regards on how to proceed.

Consider the PSP example: a consumer-level portable with a very small library of ‘must-have’ games. Nintendo has the portable market, yet people are buying the PSP to play, suprise, Nintendo games! Many of these games cannot run on a GBA or Nintendo DS and the PSP provides the power required to run many of these classics. Many emulated classics are unbuyable AND unplayable in their original formats, and even less so on the road. This is a potential market that no one has tapped into and so the community has filled this void themselves. I don’t advocate ROM piracy myself; I own a large library of NES and SNES cartridges, of which I have backup copies on my computer.

Pirates and cheaters are the real enemy. They divide communities apart and give legitimate reverse engineers a bad name. They are dishonest jackasses who don’t deserve to access Xbox live as well as a boatload of other communities. They are the infringers of copyright whi should be punished. The hacker ‘problem’ will never go away but pirates and cheaters who exploit the work of hackers deserve to be stopped.

Please, target your anger appropriately.

Whimsy, you are breaking the law. You can not have ROM’s of your NES or SNES games unless you backed them up yourself. I know that you downloaded them of the internet.

I won’t deny that I may have downloaded the ROM copies of games I own. That part is not in dispute.

I don’t agree that my entitlment to a backup copy of my games is overridden by an ‘agreement’ I had no access to. No respectible video game shop will allow me to return opened software in any format, and if I buy the game used, I have had no access to the agreement in the first place. I have no way of discuss the terms, and I never signed anything.

To be clear, I buy many of my Nintendo treasure second hand. buying them in new condition makes a rather expensive hobby, and it’s not what I’m interested in.

I can’t find the individual terms of any of my game’s contract unless I specificially try to locate a reproduction of the game’s manual, and to my knowledge, there are no sites that provide copies of the manuals. Ironically, probably illegal to do.

[…] A hacker who calls himself  “TheSpecialist” stated that he has installed his own custom firmware into the Xbox 360. He claims that with the custom firmware, he is able to create directly bootable backups of original DVD games. The firmware, claims TheSpecialist, circumvents the Xbox 360’s content checking by ignoring the required disc signatures that are present on retail games. However, TheSpecialist states that he will not release his firmware due to obvious piracy concerns. […]

I’m not in favour of pirating software, it has implications on the Industry as a whole.
But i personall would love to see linux running on the Xbox 360. Im into 3D design and the 360 is a powerhorse. Imagine all that rendering power put to use as a fairly cheap PC, i could set-up a Multi-CPU render far, for less than £500. The potential of mods without the insensitivity of pirating is still quite huge!!

thanks multigen

honestly who cares….hack…pirate games….these are huge multinational corporate giants…who cares if someone has downloaded every nes game ever and plays them on their psp…if youre that much of a pussy that you are too righteous to download some bloody nes games for a psp then youre a complete idiot…by that same logic though, if you only download nes roms for your psp that you actually own on nes cartridge then youre a bigger pussy…my advice to you idiots is to grow a pair of balls and stop acting like a pussies…i mean honeslty there are bigger things to be worrying about than whether nintendo and sony will be pissed at you if you dload some fuckin games from the net…i think i may have came across a bunch of rebels here eh! downloading games from the net, but only ones that you actually own….you guys are fuckin badasses! Id love to go for a few beers with you guys, im sure it id be a mad fuckin night, anything could happen!

“You can not have ROM’s of your NES or SNES games unless you backed them up yourself”

I am sorry Rick but you are dead wrong. Fair Use SPECIFICALLY allows for the backup of your content INCLUDING having someone else do it for you !! Its even permissable to CHARGE for this service.

What this means is its PERFECTLY legal for YOU to download roms YOU legally posess though it is likely STILL illegal for the person who offered it to you. THEM breaking the law does not mean YOUR breaking the law.

As of now if you download a rom you legally own it is PERFECTLY LEGAL regardless of what nintendo or anyone else might try to say otherwise.

In fact Section 108 of the copyright law MIGHT EVEN LEGALISE rom sites for OUT OF PRINT games.

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

Seadog:
it has nothing to do with us being “pussies”. It has everything to do with the ethics involved.
You are example of the pirate that makes hackers look bad. Your kind fuels the debate in favour of locking up hackers, and for you, it doesn’t matter. You didn’t originally duplicate the ROM, so what does it matter to you if the dumper gets caught?

Pardon the digression, but lets get off the NES debate. The topic is more towards whether modding the Xbox 360 is a good thing, or an evil thing. I mentioned the PSP and NES ROMs because it’s a good example of modding a console to work above and beyond it’s abilities.

youre exactly right mate, i dont care if the dumper gets caught thats his problem and his risk. I man it wouldnt be a good thing, but as i said its his prerogative if he wants to up shit to torrent sites etc. As far as Xbox goes of course its a good thing, the first xbox with xbmc installed was and is one of the best media centres around. Mine is 500gb full of games, movies and music. My whole house is wired to the thing! its a beaut. Progess is what hacking is all about, like it or not. And as i said before, who gives a flying fuck about these huge corporations? 50 euro/dollars for a game is way to fuckin expensive, lets be realistic for christ sake. Take king kong for example, a bloke I work with bought the game (dont ask me why) and finished it in 12 hours…is that worth 50 euro? No chance. Not everyone is made of money. Ethics? Yeah thats something these big multinational companies dont know much about, and if they dont care about ethics why that fuck should people like me? Long live the net and the spread of free information.

Ok wtf moddinng your xbox wont take you to jail atleast not here in canada. And for the ass holes saying that modding your xbox is like having a big expensive dvd player heres what i tell you…….FUCK YOU!
Fuck i payed $ 250 for my xbox1 so its MINE i can do what ever the fuck i want with it. For the dumb people who still havent moded their xbox 1 then man your missing the fun. Also downloading roms is not illegal you can keep them on your pc for 24 hours and then they have to be deleted. XBMC rocks its the shit!!!!

why is it that canadians always seem to be the people talking sense on the internet! ksteiner i totally agree with you man. Whats the discussion in aid of anyway? Rehtorical question, of course its a good thing that people have nearly hacked the 360!

Microsoft needs to be hacked shut down and stepped on they suck dick. I mean they suck a lot of motherfucking dick. FUCK YOU! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seadog:
If your entire arguement hinges on the evil, multinational corporations, then I’m afraid you have absolutely no idea how the video game industry works. Here, I’ll draw you a map…

It begins with an idea. Corporate identities cannot form ideas, but they can own them. Who, then, creates the idea? People like Miyamoto, who created Mario, or Donkey Kong. They are paid royalties and awarded contracts for more ideas. Nintendo then takes ownweship of the idea. When you copy a game, the people that made the original iteration of the idea are ripped off, however slightly by you.

Can you provide sources that state that all multinational corporations as having no Ethics? How can you possibly compare Nintendo with Wal-Mart or Starbucks? If your assessment of corporations, did you consider that some, such as Honda provide their employees with health and fitness programs? American Apparel is the only clothing company I know of that pays their exclusively on-shore American employees wages that exceed the minimum level.

$50 is expensive? Lets examine what are you’re getting for $50.

First, if your friend bought King Kong, then he wasted his money; It’s a rent at best and nearly every review site blasted it to smitherines. There is a saying: Buyer Beware. It’s not so much about making sure a product works as it is about warning you to research what you buy. Before I buy a game, I check out a few reviews on it. I might even read a bit of a gamefaq entry, not so much as to spoil the plot but to learn about how the plot may progress. Most movie-goer’s do that, and any computer freak worth talkign to will do it for computer components. Google makes it easy, so there really is no excuse.

Lets find ot how much it costs you to play Chrono Trigger is a popular critically acclaimed example, so I feel it’s appropriate; Feel free to substitute your favourite game.It takes about 20-25 hours to complete, depending on how you play it out. Say you paid even $80 when it was new. That means you are paying $3.20/hour to play it. Consider that most movies cost $8-$10 for 2 hours, I’d say you are getting a fantastic deal, plus CT’s innate replay options make it even more compelling.

By contrast, what do you consider a good time? Hitting a pub ($4 - $7/glass o’ beer)? Hitting an amusement park ($10 admission, plus rides and exhibits)?
(This is Canadian pricing, based on the lowest prices for a movie. Min. Wage is $7.45/hour. By the way, I get paid Minimum wage. I still buy my games. That means, each month, I roughly spend an entire day worth of wages on a game.)

I also want to clarify for you that I agree with one point: Hacking is all about progression. It’s a two way street, though. Hackers are more than people the exploit code so assholes can pirate in a more efficient manner. Hacking is also programming. By effectively annoucing that you are boycotting “large corporations”, you propose to systematically leave programmers without jobs; It also offers justification for more draconion ‘protection’ systems, or harder laws to punish hackers.

This is why your kind is passionately hated by most hacker circles.

Consider a better way, and buy games you like. Rent if you have to, but in the end, vote with your wallet.

ksteiner:
ROMS are illegal unless you own the original cartridges. There is no magical 24 hour ‘demo’ period. Whichever download sites you read that from are deluding you.

HA3K3R:
I’M LOLLING SO HARD, THIS MUST BE LAWL SCHOOL!

self self self…

righteous righteous righteous…

[…] http://www.xboxic.com/news/455 […]

the main problem i would have is if it allows people to cheat on xbox live.

say whatever you want but if it contributes to the downfall of online competition & fun, it’s bad. but let me be clear—if this happens, blame falls on the xbox 360 team, not the hackers. they chose to not have hd-dvd built in which would help against back-ups or piracy, so if it turns out bad (cheaters online-imo), they have only themselves to blame.

otherwise, i don’t see a problem. it’d be neat to see a hack to allow an HD-DVD drive put inside.

[…] Xbox 360’s Firmware Hacked?: “A hacker who calls himself ‘TheSpecialist’ stated that he has installed his own custom firmware into the Xbox 360. He claims that with the custom firmware, he is able to create directly bootable backups of original DVD games. The firmware, claims TheSpecialist, circumvents the Xbox 360’s content checking by ignoring the required disc signatures that are present on retail games. However, TheSpecialiststates that he will notrelease his firmware due to obvious piracy concerns. […]

you are:
Who are you calling self righteous? Would you kindly explain why? People can’t defend their positions unless they know what is being attacked.

[…] A hacker who calls himself “TheSpecialist” stated that he has installed his own custom firmware into the Xbox 360. He claims that with the custom firmware, he is able to create directly bootable backups of original DVD games. The firmware, claims TheSpecialist, circumvents the Xbox 360’s content checking by ignoring the required disc signatures that are present on retail games. However, TheSpecialist states that he will not release his firmware due to obvious piracy concerns. […]

to whimsy: (just cause you asked)

“if your entire argument hinges on the evil, multinational corporations, then I’m afraid you have absolutely no idea how the video game industry works. Here, I’ll draw you a map…”

that is a pretty self righteous statement…

“By effectively annoucing that you are boycotting “large corporations”, you propose to systematically leave programmers without jobs; It also offers justification for more draconion ‘protection’ systems, or harder laws to punish hackers.”

and you certainly have taken some liberties with that one (you have taken too big a turn to be telling that gentleman what HE proposed, and then to say that basically he deserves harsher penalties for his actions… seems a least a little self righteous)

and as for you defense of the “ethics” of M$, i don’t think i have to remind you the judicial system had to basically dust off some serious anti trust laws and come down hard on those vampire thugs.

the entire tone of your statement seems uncanadian to me, and to be honest, i am a little surprised and disappointed…

and whimsy:

here’s a link to ign review of king kong giving it an 8 out of 10.
everybody gets bit on the ass…
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/670/670474p1.html

I simply took a statement that described all multinational corporations as “evil”, and corrected them.

On a personal note, I consider myself very ‘left leaning’; I am against DRM in any form, and I agree that Microsoft still abuses their position. I make an active effort to buy ‘home grown’ goods, and I try not to support sweat labour.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand…
You found a review that gave it 8 out of 10, but did you read the part where they finished it in 6 hours? That’s half the time it took for Seadog’s friend to finish it, which was his primary reason for disliking it. The review clearly states that it’s a short game with little replay value. Additionally, the “Another Take” section of the review amplifies areas that were skimmed over, specifically citing game-breaking bugs in the retail copy.

Here are some notible quotes from the various articles I read on it:
“…King Kong is a short but memorable game…”
-IGN
“King Kong is short… really short. The average player will finish the game in about six hours, and for $60, that’s not exactly a great value.”
-G4TV.com
“It isn’t quite as impressive looking as its console counterparts, and it’s a short ride, but there’s still a great time to be had with King Kong on the PC.”
-Cnet, review for the PC version.
“…it may only take seven or so hours to complete, which is on the short side for a $50 video game…”
-CNN

Many reviews rate games beyond the length, such as for graphics and overall production. They all seem to agree that King Kong is fantastic. I get my reviews from Internet forums, where users, such as Seadog, rented the game, and judged it based on that. From time to time, I’ve written reviews.

I will concede one point: I took a major librety by saying that there is a whole industry at work. In the context of a debate, it’s generally not appropriate to use that kind of tactic. I was tired, but that’s no excuse on my part for approaching it the way I did. Thanks for pointing that out.

[…] Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was considered hacker-proof, but its firmware has now been opened for modders A hacker who calls himself  “TheSpecialist” stated that he has installed his own custom firmware into the Xbox 360. He claims that with the custom firmware, he is able to create directly bootable backups of original DVD games. The firmware, claims TheSpecialist, circumvents the Xbox 360’s content checking by ignoring the required disc signatures that are present on retail games. However, TheSpecialist states that he will not release his firmware due to obvious piracy concerns.TheSpecialist tells that Microsoft did not sign the firmware that allows him to gain full control of the console’s internal hard drive. On Microsoft’s original Xbox, casual modding is not as prevalent as it was before, thanks to clever thinking on Microsoft’s part using its Xbox Live! online service. The company uses its online service and routinely sends updates to the Xbox, which detects if non-original hardware or software is in use. Many are expecting Microsoft to perform similar updates on its Xbox 360 console. […]

[…] Some further info can be read on this bog and also on this earlier article. […]

i am sorry Chris Taylor. According to the EFF, RIAA , ETC…. you can NOT download files (ie roms) even if you have bought the legal NES game. You have the right to backup the rom yourself. This is called fair use. People who have been sued and lost to the RIAA made your same claim and lost big. Why do you think they are trying to shut down torrent sites?

Either way, i still love a modded xbox that has the ability to play all roms.

I am sorry Rick but you are mistaken. you are either misinformed or outright lying (show me case law please)

The Law specifically allows you to make a backup yourself OR HIRE someone to do it for you. So I could legally offer a service where if you bring your NON DRM’d (DMCA) Audio CD’s to me I could make backup copies of them or convert them to mp3 for you (free or for a fee) and its perfectly legal.

The same applies to roms (off course they will tell you otherwise but thats irreelevant you only need to read the law)

Now Like I said and you apparently did not read (glanced through my post did you ?) the UPLOADER the one PROVIDING the files IS in fact breaking the law. there is no question about that and hence why they are (and rightly so) trying to shut down torrents of them etc..

Please educate yourself about the law before voluntary giving up your and my legal rights.

If they take you to court with a list of files you downloaded all you have to do is furnish proof of rightful ownership (original carts will do nicely reciepts will probably also suffice if you happen to have them) and quote the copyright law itself and your off the hook.

but if you have roms and DO NOT have a legaly ownership of them (ie an original etc..) your screwed and rightly so.

copyright law also allows you to backup your DRM’d content but now you have a NEW possible violation. the DMCA (which is not copyright law)

Since the 2 conflict I am very interested in seeing it goto court. I dont think it ever will because I am confident that the RIAA MPAA etc.. know they WILL LOOSE if they try to resolve the conflict.

ie if they sue someone for having a backed up copy of a DVD and that person also owns the original and they try to challenge this on DMCA grounds the DMCA will loose since it violates existing law.

That is why you are not likely to ever see THAT kind of situation get to court IE where a legitimate end user is sued under DMCA

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

You are a complete dipshit Chris Taylor. If you can justify download illegal roms, that you claim to have “hired” someone to do it for you. Then be my guest. But when the RIAA sues your ass, i will be laughing so hard at you!

Rick you are certaintly acting like a dipshit. ie you clearly have reading comprehension issues ? your either sound retarted or are under 15 years old

Just in case I will try to explain this in more simplistic terms for you in case your are just a young little punk and not retarted.

if you legally posesses (now note I said LEGALLY not ILLEGALLY) content such as Super Mario Brothers for the NES

You then DOWNLOAD a rom of this same game. TECHNICALLY your are not only NOT breaking the law but are fully within your legal rights to do exactly that.

NOW this does not mean the whole transaction is legal. but YOUR END of it as the downloader is perfectly legal. Once again just in case your mind does not grasp this all of this rest on your LEGALLY posessing copies of the roms in question.

if you download XYZ rom and have NEVER legally owned XYZ game then you are definately breaking the law by downloading that rom.

all the above is only DOWNLOAD side.

Now lets talk UPLOAD side. under NO conditions is any current rom download site that I am aware of legal. They upload the roms (not in an dof itself illegal) but make them available to ANYONE coming buy. THIS is illegal.

Think of it this way. I make a COPY of a magazine I purchased and leave this on my dinner table.

This is perfectly legal.

I make 10 copies and drop them on the coffee table at WORK. this is NOT legal.

I make a copy and LOAN it to a close friend or relative. LEGAL

I let my friend or relative KEEP the copy while I still retain posession of the orignal NOT LEGAL

See the differences here ? the only way for a ROM site to be legal is to password protect every single file in real time and when I ask for a rom and provide PROOF of ownership the rom person gives me access to the rom that I have proven ownership of. For the purpose of the rom provider a picture of the person with the rom and a drivers license would probably be sufficient to protect them legally (though I certaintly would not want to deal with that issue at all)

if they did this it would technically be totally legal.

NOW the problem we have here is that we have BOTH a LEGAL ACTION and an ILLEGAL action happening at the same time.

An illegal act does not make a LEGAL any any more illegal than a legal act making an illegal act legal.

A good example of this is if a photographer enters an office uninvited and takes pictures.

HE is tresspassing that is illegal.

The Pictures though are LEGAL (with a few exceptions) he is perfectly withing his right to publish sell etc.. those pictures if they are otherwise legal.

the pictures taking does not make the wrongful entry legal but the wrongful entry also does not make the pictures illegal.

NOW we off course know that most people who download roms also download roms they DO NOT have a legal right to.

but this does NOT negate the absolute inarguable correctness of what I said.

IF YOU DOWNLOAD A ROM YOU ALREADY OWN YOU ARE NOT BREAKING ANY LAWS OR RULES AND WILL NEVER GET TAKEN TO COURT FOR FIT IF YOU CAN PROVE AS MUCH !

If you download stuff you DO NOT have a legal right to well then your on your own and taking a big risk.

Again before throwing away my rights please educate yourself before blathering off.

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

[…] Source: Digg & XBOXIC […]

[…] If you are interested in the full details read on. We just skipped all the who-are-you and how’s-life bullshit because he wouldn’t tell anyway, so no useless chitchat here. Enjoy the interview, and many many thanks to Robinsod and TheSpecialist for answering all our pesky questions! If you consider this interview a worthwhile read, digg it too: spread the word, not the disc! Xboxic: Big question for everyone ofcourse is “why?” Why would anyone bother screwing around for 4 months to break a console’s security if you have no intention to do the thing it facilitates: running illegal software? Robinsod: Because I am naturally inquisitive, I want to understand how things work. I dont actually play video games much, if at all. Of course waving a big sign saying ‘forget it boys, you won’t break in this time’ is just going to encourage me. Ok, lets see if I’m good enough. In short the usual hacker motivations. Xboxic: How long have you been into hacking, and what was your reason to specialise in this expertise? Do you have a related job or just doing this for the fun and the challenges? Robinsod: I have been interested in hacking for a long, long time. I followed TheSpecialist’s Xbox1 hack in the XBH forums since it began and just started to dig around. Really it started as an idle interest but as I started to make more progress in understanding the firmware and share information & ideas with other people it became more & more important to finish the hack for it’s own sake. I dont work in the games industry or anything, this is just for fun. Xboxic: You guys claim you will not be releasing the hacked firmware, foremost reason being Microsoft’s legal department and hacker ethics a close second. Do you personally know of any cases where hackers got into trouble with console manufacturers? And like many people claim, haven’t you already sold the hack to the highest bidder? Or received a huge payment from MS itself to keep the code to yourself? Robinsod: We will not be releasing a hack, we won’t sell it and no-one from Microsoft has approached me either to pay me off or shut me up with legal threats (this may change of course). I want to polish this hack a little more for my own satisfaction and then I will consider it done. All the information needed to implement this hack is available and I have no interest in doing further research. I know of cases where thieves have been prosecuted for selling duplicated copyright material but I am not aware of hackers being prosecuted for being interested. I could of course just be ignorant about that. Xboxic: There are people out there that think the released video is a fake, because it doesn’t exclude the possibility of a second 360 connected to the back of the TV to fake booting the PGR3 backup. For the people unable to understand the technical evidence in XBH forums, do you plan to release “better” evidence? Robinsod: The video evidence is quite compelling if you know what is happenening. As TheSpecialist pointed out, the laser of the DVD drive does NOT behave like that if you simply insert a backup. The video shows a crude version of the hack, the drive is still reading some of the authentication data from the ‘middle zone’ of the disk. Maybe a better video could be filmed but why bother? I don’t really care if people believe me or not: all the ‘proof’ is there in the XBH forums and the drive firmware. Also you will never satisfy everybody that it’s not a fake no matter what you do. Xboxic: The skeptics might still say you did succeed in hacking the firmware to behave like booting but the TV was running from another one. ICE modchip taught people to be cautious. Robinsod: It would be impossible to convince them all, and yeah, sure, there are a lot of scammers out there. So scepticism is healthy. Xboxic: Even though Xboxic in its original article on the upcoming hack made sufficiently clear that this hack is unusable by the general public, many people predict this breakthrough will cause a modchip to be released in a matter of weeks. How do you see chances of a modchip happening anywhere soon? Robinsod: The hack is a modification to the DVD drive’s firmware, which is stored in a flash memory chip inside the drive. IF I was to release this hack, which I am most certainly not going to, I would release it as a Windows drive programming package, exactly the same as used to upgrade a PC’s DVD drive. Anyone who tries to sell you a chip is a scammer and is trying to cheat you. This hack is useless to the public in it’s current form, it has not been ‘weaponised’ and currently requires that the flash chip is removed from the drive circuit board and inserted into a special flash programming device. And I want to stress that if you don’t know what you’re doing you can easily destroy your 360 - don’t do it. Xboxic: You have seen the sites on the internet though that more or less provide a step-by-step guide to recreate this hack. People will try. Robinsod: I have seen some compilations of the many posts made by many talented people on XBH over the last few months. They should not be considered a guide, but a great set of notes containing useful stuff about interfacing to the drive. Trying to use that info without knowing every little detail will probably destroy your 360. Xboxic: Using the current hack the system cannot detect the modification, because the firmware can lie about its authenticity because of the cracked challenge/response protocol. Is it still possible for the system to softflash the drive should it want to? And if so, isn’t the hack completely useless should Microsoft decide to simply reflash the drive’s firmware every reboot, or every week, or every dashboard update? Robinsod: Well there are several parts to the answer. This is a consumer device and really you dont want to have a reflash fail and brick the device. I don’t know if the Toshiba-Samsung drive has a fall back position to recover from a bad flash, the Hitachi-LG has a ‘recovery’ mode if the main application is corrupted, restoring an empty firmware with only softflashing capabilities. If this feature, or something like it, does not exist then I doubt Microsoft would want to risk it, all those angry customers coming in with bricked 360’s. The drive could be softflashed from the kernel, but the firmware controls the process, so it could just say that the flash succeeded any time even though it didn’t do anything. Xboxic: Is your analysis of the used challenge/response protocols complete or does it just cover a subset of possible challenges? Would Microsoft be able to detect the hack if they send out a dashboard update sending different challenges to trigger erroneous behaviour from the firmware? Robinsod: Yes, I believe there’s a reponse modifier but I haven’t seen it used yet. Sure, then the game becomes how accurate an emulation can the hacker create? It becomes a game of cat and mouse…. The challenges themselves are actually on the game disc: the kernel reads an encrypted table from the disk, decrypts it and issues the challenges contained in it. Malformed challenges from the console could trigger correct responses from the hack and be detected, but we could probably reuse the existing code to factor this into the equations. Xboxic: Say Microsoft releases a mandatory dashboard update tomorrow that installs a new firmware with a completely different challenge/response protocol on every 360 in the world, will it take you guys another four months or can Microsoft strenghten the protocol sufficiently to ward off further breaches until the release of their next console? Robinsod: They can make life dificult by validating the disk with greater accuracy. If they do, someone else will have to continue improving the hack, since I’m done with it now we’ve proven it can be done with the current Xbox 360. Xboxic: Following the previous question: people are claiming that Microsoft forgot to sign the firmware on purpose and left the debug routines in there to make it an attractive target, a honeypot to attract the bees. This way they bought over 4 months of time in which the best hackers of the world would try to hack the easily replaceable and patchable firmware, time they didn’t spend on hacking the really dangerous parts of the system. Do you consider this theory credible? Robinsod: No, not really. Why leave any chink in the armour? People were going to attack the system anyway, why make it so easy with the debug routines that it only cost us 4 months? They could’ve made it much harder and we’d have attacked the firmware anyway because that’s what TheSpecialist did on the Xbox1. Xboxic: Is there going to be an Xbox 360 revision soon containing a signed firmware in the drive? Ofcourse with the public key embedded in the DVD’s ROM to avoid any future tinkering with the firmware? Robinsod: No idea, but unless the flash is inaccessable or properly encrypted any signature can be spoofed. I suppose if there was a bootloader in ROM that was packaged with the drives micro, that could check the flash’s signature. The problem then is it pushes up costs, the drive uses standard components which don’t have security features. Xboxic: $5 extra cost per drive to avoid 500k Linux boxes sold at $125 loss seems an easy equation. Robinsod: Then perhaps its a good thing the hack came so early and the cost of custom LSI can be spread over a larger number of consoles, and before too many ‘pirate capable’ systems were sold. Xboxic: In a forumpost TheSpecialist literally said “I doubt you’ll see some kind of OTHER hack soon, that lets you boot unsigned code for example. MS did a very good job on the 360 itself this time.” Does this mean you guys don’t see homebrew or other unsigned code being run anywhere soon, like within the current console’s lifecycle? Robinsod: Hmmm, well given the complexity of the software (and MS’s reputation for secure software) it seems unlikely that there’s no way in. The problem is finding it… Another motivation for this hack is to see if there is any possibility of an attack via unsigned modified files (no idea if there are any or if it is - thats the next area of research). But again, any successful attack opens the door to piracy. If MS would sell me a home developers XDK that allows me the opportunity to write code for what is a fantastic piece of kit then I would have no reason or excuse for doing this. Xboxic: Devkits cost over $22k indeed. I remember my Amiga days pushing the machine to its limit until 7am squeezing the last bit of performance out of a superb system, all with a $10 shareware assembler program. Robinsod: Yeah, but I doubt a copy of VC++ and a key to sign homebrew for execution from DVD+R needs to be expensive. Lots of devs creating quality homebrew…… Lots of new cool things to download from Live. It could make MS as happy as it would make us. Xboxic: Do you have any other hacking projects running related to the 360 or do you consider your job with this machine done now you’ve proven that the “CIA-level security” wasn’t all that much? Robinsod: No, when this is done I might well sell my 360 and do something else. Get a girlfriend possibly? Chicks love nerds. Xboxic: Can I quote you on that so one of our interested female readers could pay you a visit on XBH forums? Robinsod: As long as ’she’ doesn’t turn out to be a 47 year old male management consultant or something. Xboxic: Got anything else you want to add that we didn’t specifically ask about? Robinsod: Unfortunately, there is a good chance some malicious **** will put together a ‘brickware’ package, just like they did for the PSP, and using it will erase the unique key in you drive and destroy your 360. This is also one of the reasons I am probably not continuing work on the hack. Apart from that I think I’m done. Xboxic: Thank you very much for your time. […]

@ M.A.R.T

No matter what your opinion is, theres nothing you can say nor do to keep the 360 from getting hacked. If so many many millions of dollars have been spent into the development of the 360, then why is it able to be hacked? If theres a flaw in the machine that goes in my favor, I’m exploiting it. I don’t give a damn about nothing else except all the possible things I can do with MY console that I bought. So if copying games is a thorn is your ass, then work for MS and make sure people like me can’t hack your precious Xbox. As far as business is concerned, Bill you messed up.

Actually TheMan, I had another chat with Robinsod last night, and like me he doesn’t believe piracy will be possible on the 360 anywhere soon. It’s as far as the hackers know still unhackable for that which would make all the warezkiddies happy. The current hack will only brick your 360 if you apply it to play games with.

To all that think modding the xbox360 is not worth it: I have a friend with 12 original xbox’s, and all paid for by his buyers. For every modded box he sold he could have bought 5 more. His business is still booming even after the 360 came out, and his customers are just waiting for him to hack the 360 with the help of everyone else on the net. Not many people will pay for games when they can get them for free. So basically anyone who knows how to mod an xbox360 and sells one will have plenty for 2 360’s. 1 for playing on live, and 1 for playing all the games you can burn. Any and all games you are wanting to play on live you just rent through game fly, blockbuster, hollywood vid,….ect…… Like I said all of his customers pay for everything……

OwneD By ÇaMuR

Z
HaCKed By ÇaMuR

TurkisH HackeRS

CaMuR@LinuxMail.Org

Ive been modding xbox’s for a bit now, and have had no trouble getting on live or tunneling,
Considering the cost of most xbox games now (9-15 bucks), I and most others would rather buy a game than copy it, taking into account an on average ISO size of 4.7 gigs, it would be days or even a week or two just to download ONE game! Add the cost of a couple DVD blanks, and you’ve just went through a whole bunch of crap just to get ONE copy of ONE game, that MIGHT work. I don’t believe game piracy is really an issue with modded xbox’s, I like most parents with xbox’s only really benefit from not having to have all the discs sitting out somewhere for my kids to scratch. Just hiding the discs wont help, thats a stupid as buying a bike for them and hiding the tires becuase they might get a flat, ITS MENT TO BE USED! So, here I am, a longtime xbox owner, a modder, and I still buy ORIGINAL xbox games, so where’s the real issue?
Hell I just bought two games today, Star Wars Battlefront, and Robotech…..damn Ive been waiting forever for a decent Robotech/Macross game, well ever since that Freespace 2 Robotech Mod game out that is…

So, for all those peeps out there whining about people ruining the game industry by modding their xbox’s, please get a clue, and try not to be taken in by popular media’s attempts to make modders out to be thieves, I haven’t stolen anything, and never will, the only games played my xbox’s are BOUGHT and PAID FOR, thank you.