5 ms·

US$ 2000 Prize For Developing Open Source Microsoft Kinect Drivers

26 points by dkd903 16y ago

edge17 16y ago
cool..... but wouldn't this be worth significantly more than $2k?
- unwind 16y ago
  Well ... That depends on how you want to define the value, I guess. For Adafruit Industries, who I only know of as being a small-scale electronics/microcontroller DIY/hobbyist retailer, I think $2000 is probably a sizable chunk of money. It's not as if they stand to earn any of it back, as the requirement is for an open source solution, published in public view and fully documented. Adafruit probably don't happen to have a 100% compatible clone of the Kinect hardware that they can launch as soon as drivers are available, heh.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    OTOH, having available drivers is very handy if you want to build a plug-compatible hardware replacement. You would need that and an army of lawyers...
    - daeken 16y ago
      I don't think it's as easy as build the hardware and make it speak the language. The iFixIt teardown of the Kinect shows some beefy hardware -- the most interesting piece to me being the 512MB DDR2 it has onboard. This says to me that they're doing considerable processing on the device side, rather than putting it all on the Xbox. If that's the case, it'd be a considerable effort to replicate it. Edit: 512Mbit, not 512MB. Meaning it's highly likely that it's a fairly dumb device.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        512Mb is 64MB. It's quite a lot for an embedded computer, IMHO.
        daeken 16y ago
        Indeed. I misread the iFixit teardown earlier. 64MB makes a lot more sense.
- daeken 16y ago
  I'd been eying it already, so $2k would just be icing on the cake. This is right up my alley but I can't afford the hardware right now -- I'd be willing to split the bounty if someone can give me something to play with. (For reference, similar projects I've worked on/hacked: iPhone dev team, Belkin Network USB Hub, Emotiv EPOC brain-computer interface)
  - jbermudes 16y ago
    Are you referring to just the Kinect or do you also need the Xbox?
    - daeken 16y ago
      I'd need both for it. Been thinking through the best way to hack it, which really comes down to: take control over the Kinect software (even just being able to see the binary would be ok, but being able to modify it would be optimal), MITM the USB connection, and work from there. I believe they're doing considerable processing on the Kinect itself, as that's the only way to justify the 512MB RAM onboard. Will be interesting to see what the actual data it sends back is. Edit: Big reading fail on my part; 512Mbit, not 512MB. That's much more in line with what I'd expect from a device not doing a whole lot.
      - jbermudes 16y ago
        It's going to be difficult to do a MITM attack because iirc, the 360 encrypts the data going over USB so that 3rd-party peripheral makers have to get a license from Microsoft to make a supported peripheral. Of course there always seems to be some sort of chink in the armor like with Wii. But I'm sure Microsoft is probably a lot better at writing operating systems compared to someone like Nintendo. (To those who are interested in this type of thing: In the Wii's case it was using a pair of tweezers to glitch the memory chip into spewing Wii OS code that revealed that Nintendo was using strncmp to compare SHA1 hashes instead of memcmp which rendered the entire authentication system open to attack because if you can create a hash that has a leading null-byte then it will not be compared. So even though all games and firmware updates were RSA signed, this exploit bypassed everything. )
krschultz 16y ago
And if anyone had forgotten why open source users hates Microsoft: "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products. With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant." Everytime you start to soften to Microsoft and convince yourself "they're not that bad, (Oracle, Apple, Google) is pretty bad too", someone at Microsoft opens their mouth and convinces you that they are indeed the most out of touch.
- daeken 16y ago
  What hardware company that doesn't release their stuff openly says anything different? Hardware hackers have been running into this attitude for a long time, and it's showing no signs of going away. (This attitude is what pushed me to write http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto after being called a 'pirate' for hacking the Emotiv EPOC brain-computer interface.)
  - krschultz 16y ago
    Unfortunately that is very true (I worked for Bug Labs, so hopefully did a little good changing it), but I took particular offense to the "law enforcement" passive agressive threat in the Microsoft statement. I 100% agree that if you hack something, the company shouldn't honor the warranty, or let you use it on their services. That is their right, which is why when I modded my Xbox 1 I was fine wtih them banning us from Xbox Live. But I never felt like I was going to go to jail for doing it. I didn't pirate games, so I never thought I could get in trouble for it. Then Microsoft started trying to get people in legal trouble for just modding them, or showing people how to mod them. That was when I got really anti-Microsoft, and I've kind of forgotten that over the last 4 or 5 years. They reminded me today why I used to think they were the most anti-open source company.
    - daeken 16y ago
      I'd go to court over Kinect hacking in a heartbeat. They can't even use the standard anti-piracy argument here, it's simply preventing competition and interoperability. I really don't think MS is dumb enough to try it.
tocomment 16y ago
I think it would be amazing to use kinect to control a robot. Is anyone working on that?
pmorici 16y ago
http://www.primesense.com/?p=487 http://www.primesense.com/?p=487 Looks like the company behind the technology in Kinect sells a reference device and SDK.
- daeken 16y ago
  While it'd be helpful if you wanted to take total control over the Kinect, it won't get you very far in hacking the consumer device. The main issue would be that their code running on the SoC is most likely primarily custom, to handle encryption and all that fun stuff. Attacking it from the Xbox side would almost definitely be the most effective means, at least insomuch as gaining access to the same data that Xbox apps get.
grantbachman 16y ago
For a minute I thought Microsoft was offering the prize and thought about how refreshing this is...Then I read the story.
zoowar 16y ago
Ironically, Microsoft was founded on reverse engineering DOS. What if IBM had built hardware that precluded MS-DOS from running? We are better off today, regardless of how we feel about Microsoft. Hacking adds value.

26 points by dkd903 16y ago

edge17 16y ago

cool..... but wouldn't this be worth significantly more than $2k?

unwind 16y ago
Well ... That depends on how you want to define the value, I guess. For Adafruit Industries, who I only know of as being a small-scale electronics/microcontroller DIY/hobbyist retailer, I think $2000 is probably a sizable chunk of money. It's not as if they stand to earn any of it back, as the requirement is for an open source solution, published in public view and fully documented. Adafruit probably don't happen to have a 100% compatible clone of the Kinect hardware that they can launch as soon as drivers are available, heh.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  OTOH, having available drivers is very handy if you want to build a plug-compatible hardware replacement. You would need that and an army of lawyers...
  - daeken 16y ago
    I don't think it's as easy as build the hardware and make it speak the language. The iFixIt teardown of the Kinect shows some beefy hardware -- the most interesting piece to me being the 512MB DDR2 it has onboard. This says to me that they're doing considerable processing on the device side, rather than putting it all on the Xbox. If that's the case, it'd be a considerable effort to replicate it. Edit: 512Mbit, not 512MB. Meaning it's highly likely that it's a fairly dumb device.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      512Mb is 64MB. It's quite a lot for an embedded computer, IMHO.
      - daeken 16y ago
        Indeed. I misread the iFixit teardown earlier. 64MB makes a lot more sense.
daeken 16y ago
I'd been eying it already, so $2k would just be icing on the cake. This is right up my alley but I can't afford the hardware right now -- I'd be willing to split the bounty if someone can give me something to play with. (For reference, similar projects I've worked on/hacked: iPhone dev team, Belkin Network USB Hub, Emotiv EPOC brain-computer interface)
- jbermudes 16y ago
  Are you referring to just the Kinect or do you also need the Xbox?
  - daeken 16y ago
    I'd need both for it. Been thinking through the best way to hack it, which really comes down to: take control over the Kinect software (even just being able to see the binary would be ok, but being able to modify it would be optimal), MITM the USB connection, and work from there. I believe they're doing considerable processing on the Kinect itself, as that's the only way to justify the 512MB RAM onboard. Will be interesting to see what the actual data it sends back is. Edit: Big reading fail on my part; 512Mbit, not 512MB. That's much more in line with what I'd expect from a device not doing a whole lot.
    - jbermudes 16y ago
      It's going to be difficult to do a MITM attack because iirc, the 360 encrypts the data going over USB so that 3rd-party peripheral makers have to get a license from Microsoft to make a supported peripheral. Of course there always seems to be some sort of chink in the armor like with Wii. But I'm sure Microsoft is probably a lot better at writing operating systems compared to someone like Nintendo. (To those who are interested in this type of thing: In the Wii's case it was using a pair of tweezers to glitch the memory chip into spewing Wii OS code that revealed that Nintendo was using strncmp to compare SHA1 hashes instead of memcmp which rendered the entire authentication system open to attack because if you can create a hash that has a leading null-byte then it will not be compared. So even though all games and firmware updates were RSA signed, this exploit bypassed everything. )

krschultz 16y ago

And if anyone had forgotten why open source users hates Microsoft: "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products. With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant." Everytime you start to soften to Microsoft and convince yourself "they're not that bad, (Oracle, Apple, Google) is pretty bad too", someone at Microsoft opens their mouth and convinces you that they are indeed the most out of touch.

daeken 16y ago
What hardware company that doesn't release their stuff openly says anything different? Hardware hackers have been running into this attitude for a long time, and it's showing no signs of going away. (This attitude is what pushed me to write http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto after being called a 'pirate' for hacking the Emotiv EPOC brain-computer interface.)
- krschultz 16y ago
  Unfortunately that is very true (I worked for Bug Labs, so hopefully did a little good changing it), but I took particular offense to the "law enforcement" passive agressive threat in the Microsoft statement. I 100% agree that if you hack something, the company shouldn't honor the warranty, or let you use it on their services. That is their right, which is why when I modded my Xbox 1 I was fine wtih them banning us from Xbox Live. But I never felt like I was going to go to jail for doing it. I didn't pirate games, so I never thought I could get in trouble for it. Then Microsoft started trying to get people in legal trouble for just modding them, or showing people how to mod them. That was when I got really anti-Microsoft, and I've kind of forgotten that over the last 4 or 5 years. They reminded me today why I used to think they were the most anti-open source company.
  - daeken 16y ago
    I'd go to court over Kinect hacking in a heartbeat. They can't even use the standard anti-piracy argument here, it's simply preventing competition and interoperability. I really don't think MS is dumb enough to try it.

tocomment 16y ago

I think it would be amazing to use kinect to control a robot. Is anyone working on that?

pmorici 16y ago

http://www.primesense.com/?p=487 http://www.primesense.com/?p=487 Looks like the company behind the technology in Kinect sells a reference device and SDK.

daeken 16y ago
While it'd be helpful if you wanted to take total control over the Kinect, it won't get you very far in hacking the consumer device. The main issue would be that their code running on the SoC is most likely primarily custom, to handle encryption and all that fun stuff. Attacking it from the Xbox side would almost definitely be the most effective means, at least insomuch as gaining access to the same data that Xbox apps get.

grantbachman 16y ago

For a minute I thought Microsoft was offering the prize and thought about how refreshing this is...Then I read the story.

zoowar 16y ago

Ironically, Microsoft was founded on reverse engineering DOS. What if IBM had built hardware that precluded MS-DOS from running? We are better off today, regardless of how we feel about Microsoft. Hacking adds value.