Andrew "bunnie" Huang, who literally wrote the book on hacking Xboxes, was to be a witness in last week's first-of-its-kind trial for Xbox modding. However, the government prosecutor bungled his case so badly that he was forced to withdraw the charge and walk away, leaving the defendant unscathed.
However, Bunnie had already prepared an exhaustive briefing explaining the use-control system in the Xbox 360 that Crippen, the defendant, was on trial for modifying. It was intended to explain to a lay jury the fundamentals of crytographic signatures and scrambling, and to point on the subtle and important ways in which Xbox modding is different from other reverse-engineering that courts have already ruled against, such as breaking the DRM on a DVD.
I've been following this kind of thing closely for years, but I'm not a technical expert -- not in the sense that Bunnie, a legendarily accomplished reverse engineer is, anyway. Bunnie's explanations always leave me with a more thorough understanding of the subject than I had when I started, and this is no exception. Highly recommended reading.
The common use of "encryption" or "scambling" is tantamount to an "access control" insofar as a work is scrambled, using the authority imbued via a key, so that any attempt to read the work after the scrambling reveals gibberish. Only through the authority granted by that key, either legitimately or illegitimately obtained, can one again access the original work.USA v. Crippen -- A RetrospectiveHowever, in the case of the Xbox360, two technically different systems are required to secure the authenticity of the content, without hampering access to the content: digital signatures, and watermarks (to be complete, the game developer may still apply traditional encryption but this is not a requirement by Microsoft: remember, Microsoft is in the business of typically selling you someone else's copyrighted material printed on authentic pieces of plastic; in other words, they incur no loss if you can read the material on the disk; instead, they incur a loss if you can fake the disk or modify the disk contents to cheat or further exploit the system).
Modding and getting other operating systems running on these platforms,
which are essentially standard PCs with specialized graphic engiens (great for screensavers) allows a game platform to live beyond its original ‘shelf life’.
I still use my original xBox as a media player and also have games stored on the HD.
More reliable, lets me keep the original game in its case. (because really, long-term.. isn’t a unscratched game worth more years from now?)
Caution: the game can now be modified. Such things as annoying movie clips, soundtracks, character sizes..
If one changes a text file in Lego Star Wars and ends up with a 10 foot tall Ewok, that’s an infringement LucasArts and Microsoft never intended.
i see two options for future consoles. Either going to online only sales, using a encrypted drive inside the console to cache game data. Or going back to selling games on “cartridges” so that the game can query the validity of the console at the same time as the console queries the validity of the game.
Except cartridge consoles have been hacked mercilessly, too, using various tricks ranging from pass-throughs that use an authorized game to trick the console, to FPGAs feeding the console what it wants.
(Granted, IIRC, the DSi hasn’t been completely broken (DS code runs, DSi code does not,) but most games aren’t for the DSi anyway. The 3DS, OTOH, I suspect that’ll get broken soon enough.)
Of course, what I really see happening is game developers going to OnLive or similar, if they can get away with it. Then, piracy is impossible, without doing things like attacking OnLive’s subscriber database, or using stolen credit cards.
Does an actual “reverse engineer” have to walk backwards too?
No more than an electrical engineer must plug themselves in at night…
The thing to remember is that Xbox 360 modding isn’t like traditional rooting or jailbreaking. It bypasses the physical disc check, but doesn’t allow you to run unsigned code. (i.e. there is no Linux port, there are no unauthorized apps.)
I’m not sure whether this is because the Xbox’s protection is just that secure, or because they’ve pacified the amateur coders with the cheap XNA developers kit.
Actually there are different xbox 360 modifications.
1. DVD-drive flashing – just allows the play of burned games
2. JTAG-flashing – allows execution of unsigned code
The JTAG hack requires an xbox with an old dashboard(6-7xxx), reflashing the nand, and soldering a couple wires to the motherboard.
Where as DVD-drive flashing is much easier – and commonly requires just hooking up the dvd drive to a desktop computer.
“Unscathed”? Putting a guy through the federal wringer, disrupting his life and dangling a prison sentence above his head, all for a bullshit charge, and he’s left unscathed?
So, basically M$ is pissy cos their efforts to avoid paying for a CSS or other encryption license actually amounted to their content falling outside the legal protection against circumvention of decryption. HA!
http://craphound.com/images/IMG_3381_display_medium.jpg
“Unscathed” is an overstatement. This prosecution’s failure will, I hope, keep a lot of other people from prosecution, but the poor bastard who’s been the target has been through an ordeal. Being put on trial is not fun.