18 ms·

How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

383 points by EatonZ 4y ago

everyone 4y ago
I will never understand why people buy that locked down, proprietary, DRM infested shit (gaming consoles, "smart" appliances, smartphones, apple stuff etc.) in the first place. .. I would rather have nothing.
- extasia 4y ago
  What's the alternative? Rub sticks together?
  - wronglebowski 4y ago
    I honestly prefer banging rocks together vs sticks but that's just my opinion.
  - ok123456 4y ago
    General purpose computing.
  - npc12345 4y ago
    [dead]
- ct0 4y ago
  If only every child would rather have nothing than a "locked down" Xbox. When I was 13 I didn't really care if it was locked down, but as an adult it matters a bit more.
  - ascagnel_ 4y ago
    As an adult, I don't want to have to manage a thing that I would normally use for leisure. Thankfully, we're starting to see devices released that point in that direction -- the Steam Deck is an open device (users can install an M2 SSD if they're willing to open the device, or they can use a standard SD card if they're not), has a full desktop environment available, yet can be entirely used in the device's "game mode" that abstracts and hides the bulk of the device's complexity.
- haunter 4y ago
  Life is too short to not enjoy things. Sure I can choose to have nothing either but personally to me that's not fun.
  - Lammy 4y ago
    It's possible to enjoy something like a game console while also being aware of their role in the elimination of general-purpose computing. These kind of platforms are where they farm us for technologies like hypervisors, signed-everything, e-fuses, always-online, etc. Consent is easily manufactured when enough people believe that media """needs to be protected""" to exist at all. I still love my 360 though :)
    - everyone 4y ago
      Yeah consoles indoctrinated people and opened the way for stuff like the BMW with the DRM heated seats. I think similarly, micro-transactions and DLC in games, digital goods, rare loot in WoW, led the way for stuff like bitcoin and nfts becoming relatively popular, and not just being utterly ridiculed by everyone.
  - alerighi 4y ago
    The fact is that you don't enjoy these things. These things generate only frustration, its more the time you want to throw these things out of the window than the one you enjoy them. A console that you have to mod just to upgrade/replace its internal hard drive? What the hell? Just because Microsoft can sell you a normal SATA disk for double the price?
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      > The fact is that you don't enjoy these things. I definitely enjoyed my Xbox 360 and didn't give a single damn about not being able to use a non-Microsoft hard drive. I doubt I ever really thought about the fact that I couldn't, it just wasn't an issue.
- beardog 4y ago
  People want products that "just work" and I don't think it is fair to blame them for that. The problems mainly arise when the locked down stuff breaks or treats the user badly in some way, but even if stuff were not locked down the average person would just sell or throw out their device when it no pleased them anyways.
  - everyone 4y ago
    I'm not blaming users for something. I said "I will never understand". Though I can hypothesize. I think in some cases due to deceitful marketing, users think "This thing will be great! It will do X,Y and Z for me.".. Then they buy it and realize that X is forbidden, Y requires a subscription, and Z is not available in their region or whatever. They are disspointed but they've already bought the thing at that point and make do rather than return it. I have seen this happen to people I know for sure. I definitely blame the corporation for unethically making products like that in the 1st place, and then also deceitfully marketing them. There should be much stricter laws and severe punishments in place to protect the public.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      Most people buy an Xbox to play games or an iPhone for its advertised features, and it does that, so they're happy. If they felt tricked like you said, they wouldn't buy the next generation, especially with iPhones where the competition is way more open. There are other ways I acknowledge hardware is truly becoming anti-consumer, like removing headphone jacks to sell wireless earbuds. Or Xbox HDDs.
- ddoolin 4y ago
  The irony of your username isn't lost on me.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Everyone in the world wants to install a Postgres server on an Xbox 360. Jokes aside, I appreciate EatonZ's work.
- fnimick 4y ago
  It can be nice. It takes mental effort to manage an open system and make sure you don't run anything malicious - a limited, sandboxed environment you can always rely on to work is much easier by comparison. I do miss the PS3 linux option though. It would be great to have console hardware that boots in two modes - a console mode for playing games, and an open x86 mode for doing general compute. This is especially relevant now that current console are effectively PCs with custom software rather than having specialty instruction sets. AMD even already sells broken PS5 chips as barebones systems! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h08cMFwqRc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h08cMFwqRc
  - forgotpwd16 4y ago
    >I do miss the PS3 linux option though. Still possible with a CFW.
- NavinF 4y ago
  > I would rather have nothing. Then I think you know exactly why others buy consoles lol. Even the most hardcore PC gamers would prefer a console over nothing
- p1necone 4y ago
  > I would rather have nothing. Nothing can't play Halo.
- jhoechtl 4y ago
  #metoo
- deely3 4y ago
  What model of phone your using? Tv? Laptop? Bank card? Car? All these stuff contains "locked down" or "proprietary" or "DRM infested" shit.
EMIRELADERO 4y ago
I wonder what would have happened if someone tried using antitrust laws to defeat this. Seems like there was a quite alive market for "third-party HDDs compatible with Xbox 360s" and Microsoft effectively tried to monopolize it. Plus, it seems to me like it could have passed the test of the modern Sherman Act interpretation. MS's actions directly reduced output and increased prices.
LesZedCB 4y ago
stuff like this is outrageous. i got a steam deck a few weeks ago and decided to grab the base model and an $80 512GB NVMe drive on newegg. the install was easy and i saved a ton of money. that's how hardware should work, especially stuff as easy as drives/RAM.
- robotnikman 4y ago
  I love how hackable they made the Steam Deck, you can easily find replacement parts as well. I even remember someone got an external graphics card working on one by using the NVME slot and an adapter to connect it. Of course, that kinda defeats the whole purpose of the Steam Deck lol
  - TAForObvReasons 4y ago
    Repairability and general hackability are core design goals of the Steam Deck compared to other devices. On the software side, they don't hide the desktop Linux core.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Valve is one of the few companies I don't feel is egregiously cashing in on their market monopoly store fees. The amount of value they give back is astounding. I remember buying a logitech racing wheel and finding it didn't work on linux, when I looked it up I saw a valve employee on the linux mailing list with a patch ready to merge to fix it. And then there is the incredible work done on Proton. I couldn't have imagined the future of gaming on linux was that Wine would be improved so much you couldn't tell it was being used.. At the time everyone figured you just had to complain in the game forums for a linux version and eventually it would work.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  It's fascinating to think that larger, more expensive machines find it acceptable to omit replaceable storage.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
beardog 4y ago
Eaton, if you are planning to write more interesting posts like this, please consider adding RSS/Atom (or making it more obvious if it is already there).
- EatonZ 4y ago
  I have just put up an Atom feed, more details: https://eaton-works.com/2023/01/28/syndication-feed-now-available/ https://eaton-works.com/2023/01/28/syndication-feed-now-avai...
- EatonZ 4y ago
  I have received other requests for this. I thought about it when I redesigned the site, but didn't think people really used RSS that much anymore. I have it on my list to implement (:
  - nfriedly 4y ago
    I use RSS, so you'd have at least two subscribers :)
    - BlockerBrews 4y ago
      Make that 3
- xavdid 4y ago
  +1 RSS. In the meantime, you can use https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ to get an RSS for newsletter items.
- EatonZ 4y ago
  If anyone is interested in RSS you can subscribe here to be notified when it's available (I will post about it): https://eaton-works.com/subscribe https://eaton-works.com/subscribe You can then unsubscribe & that will delete your email from my list, if you prefer RSS over emails.
robotnikman 4y ago
I thought I remember there being adapters which allowed you to use regular 2.5inch hard drives on the xbox 360. Maybe my mind is just tricking me again though.
- scintill76 4y ago
  It seems to me they could MITM the SATA link and effectively do the "HDDHackr" method to make that work. I don't know though.
- Lammy 4y ago
  That was possible over USB later on in the life of the console: https://www.se7ensins.com/forums/threads/complete-history-of-xbox-360-dashboard-updates-latest-2-0-17489-0.1457918/ https://www.se7ensins.com/forums/threads/complete-history-of... - 2.0.9199.0 — April 6, 2010 — Allows up to two USB flash drives or external hard drives to be used for storing profiles, game saves, demos and more up to 16 GB each, 32GB combined. - 2.0.16197.0 — October 16, 2012 — Added support for up to 32GB USB drives. - 2.0.17349.0 — April 30, 2015 — Added: Able to use USB Storage up to 2TB for Xbox Content. There was also the "Hard Drive Transfer Kit" SATA–USB adapter that became available alongside the 120GB HDD: https://www.engadget.com/2007-04-26-xbox-360-hard-drive-transfer-kit-hands-on.html https://www.engadget.com/2007-04-26-xbox-360-hard-drive-tran...
- Graziano_M 4y ago
  It's possible that the adapter MITM'd requests for this security sector and would return a valid blob.
- xen2xen1 4y ago
  There was the USB official setup later, but you could also find a hard drive of the same model and flash firmware from a 360 drive onto it. So yes, but not just any drive.
  - easton 4y ago
    I did this, I remember there being some fairly common laptop hard drive on the list because I found it laying around at home. There was a live cd to boot off of to format it and everything. Memories...
nywles 4y ago
May the logo have been included so that the security sector could not be distributed under copyright law?
- Operyl 4y ago
  The modders could have just as easily decided to go the "you must find the logo on your own" route and written a "select the logo" file prompt into the tools. I find the "they intended to let others sell HDDs" then changed their minds later route more plausible, especially since they never went after the "hacked" drives with bans or anything.
  - anamexis 4y ago
    However, it would have been effective at preventing people from selling modified HDDs commercially.
    - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
      It really wouldn't. Courts don't like it when you misuse copyright like that.
      - anamexis 4y ago
        It would seem so. But, it doesn't cost anything to try.
        EMIRELADERO 4y ago
        Sega tried and lost in court, so in that sense it did cost them to try as they had to pay for counsel which ultimately wasn't even successful.
        anamexis 4y ago
        Right, but it doesn't cost Microsoft anything to add their logo as an additional check. If laws or court precedent change, it's already there. (For example, the DMCA came long after the Sega decision)
jbverschoor 4y ago
Of all components, a disk is the only thing that “regularly” fail, that become too small, and have no other security impact, no profit margin (I think) It’s idiotic MS took this route. And what’s the downside/risk for MS? Nothing.. if the Xbox doesn’t work anymore, just don’t give any support on that disk
- ska 4y ago
  > It’s idiotic MS took this route. According to article, it let them sell commodity hard drives with 3x markup. There are words for that, but "idiotic" probably isn't one of them.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  No profit margin? What? They were making a massive profit off the hard drives, and this security was meant to preserve those profits.
  - jbverschoor 4y ago
    Not using an Xbox.. I didn’t know they sell storage upgrades. That’s pretty toxic
- 0x457 4y ago
  Margins are low on retail drives. Drives MS was selling had _plenty_ of margin. Which is why MS went that way. Also, this saves you from "I bought shitty drive from NoName on alibaba and it doesn't work" support requests. Still stupid though. Glad Sony out of all companies opened up PS3 they way they did.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    Drives MS was selling had _plenty_ of margin. Which is why MS went that way Maybe? It's hard to say. The linked article comparing the price of MS's HDD accessory to the cost of a contemporary OEM hard drive via NewEgg and yeah, MS's HDD was way more expensive per GB. There are a lot of extra costs for MS though. Maintaining a separate SKU. Retail packaging. Cost of unsold units. Negotiating a supply of HDDs from e.g. WD which had to keep a production line or whatever open for that model when they otherwise might have phased it out sooner. The plastic enclosures. Etc. Some of the price/GB differential may well have been gouging but some of it was also certainly overheads such as those I mentioned. There was zero possibility MS's retail Xbox360 HDDs could have been priced identically to the ever fluctuating price of HDDs from the direct sales channel. For a start, how could they reprice the units they'd already sold to WalMart, EBGames, and the like? My strong hunch is that those official MS HDD's were not very profitable for MS. Otherwise one suspects they would not have tolerated hacked HDDs. Of course if you want to say their whole strategy was dumb, I agree. Why not just allow consumers to slap the SATA drive of their choice into the 360? Bigger drives = more room for games = customers theoretically buying more games.
Jerrrry 4y ago
Regular blog posts about x360? The statute of limitations is over, it's time to revel in nostalgia :D Eaton's gonna be spoiling us, dude has always been an overachiever. By the way, you DID save my original 20gb security partition - I never told you, I don't think, but I had the original MS backup cable and your software right as that was figured out. Can't wait for the ultimate "KV.bin" write-up... >>:"Why would MS add over 4 magnitudes of cryptographic checks to a damn virtual serial number....?"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
wkat4242 4y ago
I still have one of those hacked WD blues. Always served me very well though I no longer have a 360. It serves out its live now as a 320 gb even though it's a 500 because I couldn't find a working 500 firmware at the time and I couldn't manage to get the original firmware back. But it's ok, I'm mainly doing ssd these days anyway.
cheeseomlit 4y ago
[flagged]
- infotogivenm 4y ago
  Not disagreeing but remember > Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, loses at least $153 (U.S.) on each Xbox 360 video game console it sells, based on just the cost of components and assembly, a research firm says. Parts such as processors and manufacturing cost $552.27 for each machine that retails at $399, El Segundo, Calif. With this context it doesn’t surprise me they try to recoup something on each optional hardware upgrade.
  - chronogram 4y ago
    When was that? Because at the start of the console your chip might be a cutting edge and incur massive costs, but cost a tenth to produce once it goes from cutting-edge to practiced.
    - Someone1234 4y ago
      Right, but the above figure is under-shooting if anything since it budgets $0 for software development. Microsoft definitely charged a premium for accessories, seems like a classic price discrimination, wherein the richer consumers were subsidizing the cost of the console (and its development) for poorer ones.
    - infotogivenm 4y ago
      2004, early days
- kevingadd 4y ago
  People want these kind of security measures when they buy a game console, because the alternative is easily-modded consoles that people use to cheat in online games. Lots of online games are also not well engineered so cheating can cause crashes and save corruption - for example, modders constantly find bugs in GTA V that can be used to crash GTA Online sessions or even crash single-player sessions where you're playing offline by yourself as long as you're online.
jchw 4y ago
Microsoft really seemed to be ahead of the curve with console security. They really thought this through back in 2005 or so, to the point where clearly, they knew people would hack the drives to rewrite the serial number. It's probably for the best that they never actually did anything about the knowledge that gave them, but they clearly stayed a step ahead of the game. As much as I hate it, their actions show a great deal of respect towards the ingenuity of console hackers, because if they didn't, they would've never bothered to do such an effort thwarting them. Compared to the Nintendo Wii, which had a decent security model that was ultimately ill-fated due to several fatal flaws in both hardware and firmware, and the PlayStation, where Sony seems to have a continual problem developing security measures that hackers and modders can just completely ignore, Microsoft really pulled it off. I still wish game consoles would allow you to just run your own code. Xbox has dev mode, which I haven't ever used since I generally do not buy game consoles, but it does seem like the absolute best option that's been available to consumers lately. Before then, it was OtherOS (ill-fated,) PS2 Linux (cool but kinda limited,) and Net Yaroze? Which seemed awesome to me, but unfortunately was a relatively uncommon good. Beyond that, official escapes from the walled garden are truly scarce. A sad reality that will get worse when measures like remote attestation finally make their way to general purpose computers. Remember: you can never have nice things. Ever. Thanks for FATXplorer BTW, it is very useful.
- RandomBK 4y ago
  Every time I hear about the XBox's platform security, I think back to this talk [1] about how Microsoft protected the XBox One. A lot of it boils down to clear requirements and good engineering, and many of these technologies are now showing up via Project Pluton. [1] https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/ https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/
  - airstrike 4y ago
    This is what I found on "Project Pluton" https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-microsoft-pluton-processor-the-security-chip-designed-for-the-future-of-windows-pcs/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2020/11/17/mee...
imadr 4y ago
The articles says that the security sector is RSA-signed using a private key only Microsoft possesses, what if you also change the public key used for verification that is stored in the console?
- fredoralive 4y ago
  You’d need Microsoft’s private key to sign the system firmware with a changed HDD verification public key in it (or an exploit undermining the general security chain of the system).
  - imadr 4y ago
    If everything is verified locally couldn't you also change the firmeware verification key, and whatever verifies the firmware verification..etc ? Isn't it turtles all the way down?
    - izacus 4y ago
      The Xbox 360 security is a lot of turtles and the last turtle is actually baked into the SoC itself so it's impossible to modify. That firmware verifies the next stage and establishes the chain of verification that's very hard to break. It did get broken eventually (after years of trying!) by figuring out that the CPU stops being reliable at very low clocks, but it was not even remotely easy.
- AceJohnny2 4y ago
  At that level you're already hacking the console firmware. Easier then to just patch out the check as they've done.
- EatonZ 4y ago
  The key is inside of the hypervisor. Not changeable if you want to retain your unmodded status.
Gigachad 4y ago
This is pretty similar to how Nintendo validates game cartridges. They all contain a unique signed header. If you connect to an online game and your game serial number is being used by hundreds of other users, Nintendo can see its a pirated copy and you get console banned from online for all games.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- fragmede 4y ago
  Back in the day StarCraft did the same thing. Except the key generation algorithm was reverse engineered. So even a legit key had the risk of being used online by pirates and being blocked.
nottorp 4y ago
Why would they care if my hard drive is genuine? For the PS3, PS4 and PS5 i just bought a hard drive (ssd for the ps5) matching their specs, installed it inside and gamed on. For the xbox you have to buy hard drives from Microsoft? Edit: please don't tell me about usb drives hanging off your console. I don't like stuff hanging off my console.
- meibo 4y ago
  The article leads with this, the drives from Microsoft had a massive upcharge compared to regular HDD rates at the time. They were making a pretty penny with these.
- EatonZ 4y ago
  Microsoft also knows if you have USBs connected to your console (: If any are connected, it will report back the sizes.
- AgentME 4y ago
  The later generations of Xbox allow any external hard drives to be used.
  - iforgotpassword 4y ago
    With breathtaking USB 2.0 speeds, yay.
    - ClassyJacket 4y ago
      I don't believe that's true? Xbox One and up use USB 3
- downrightmike 4y ago
  Just get a usb extension cord
progbits 4y ago
I couldn't find what is the size of the RSA key used. Any chance it is small enough to be broken today with bunch of cloud instances and few $100 [1] to spare? It was almost 20 years after all. Of course cloning another disk is simpler and more practical, but it might be fun to eg. have custom logos on unmodded console. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/breaking-512-bit-rsa-with-amazon-ec2-is-a-cinch-so-why-all-the-weak-keys/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/break...
- haneefmubarak 4y ago
  Wild guess: since the field given in the article is 256 bytes and the signature is probably just padded to the same size as the key, it's probably 2048 bits which is not really easily crackable (any key-specific flaws notwithstanding).
  - progbits 4y ago
    Nice catch, that is a reasonable assumption. Oh well, too bad. Maybe one day ;)
- EatonZ 4y ago
  It's a 2048-bit key. If it was 1024 maybe it could eventually be cracked? With 2048, I don't think it will be.
slezakattack 4y ago
Interesting post but was really hoping to understand why some of my saves wouldn't transfer to other 360 consoles. Back when the "red ring of death" was more common, I would be issued a replacement console. When I snapped my hard drive back in and turned on Ninja Gaiden 2, I wouldn't be able to continue my progress. I had the unfortunate luck of this happening several times to me and I eventually quit playing that game. Years and years later, I worked with someone who used to be at a gaming company and he claimed that apparently it was a quality assurance requirement from Microsoft in order to be published..
- EatonZ 4y ago
  There are "transfer flags" on content items that control whether they could be copied/moved.
  - hubbbbble 4y ago
    Good to know! Back in the days my friend and I figured out that if we bought Xbox Live Arcade games on someone's console with the other person's account, both would effectively own the full game and could play it (albeit not at the same time). We used this scheme to share account passwords and get more Gamerscore out of some titles. My then 14-year old self was quite disappointed to find out he lost all shared games when his console was replaced after a RRoD. I guess these games weren't transferable.
anonymousiam 4y ago
This is the same sort of bullshit that HP has done with their computer hard drives, but with an even more elaborate lock-in by Microsoft in this case. The HP computers came with an OEM Windows CD so you could re-install the OS after replacing a bad hard drive, but if you chose to replace the hard drive with anything other than a "genuine" HP replacement part, the Windows installation would fail. Note that the HP replacement part has half the capacity for twice the price, and a poor warranty. I spent two weeks sparing with HP over this. They sent me a replacement Windows CD that behaved in exactly the same way, and in the end, they were off their flowchart with no way to escalate the issue. I was able to install the same version of Windows on the computer using a non-OEM Microsoft Windows installation disc. HP Support insisted that it was perfectly okay to replace their OEM drive with something else, and denied any lock-in countermeasures when I challenged them. Either the support staff honestly didn't know about this (probably illegal) policy, or they did know, and were required to deny it. After this, I actively advised all of my clients to avoid HP hardware. At the time, I advised them to use Dell instead, but Dell has its own problems these days.
- Teknoman117 4y ago
  > Dell has its own problems these days. I am honestly very annoyed that my 2019 XPS 15 will refuse to negotiate anything higher than 65W over USB-C PD on a non-Dell charger. Their dock does 130W, yet every third party dock, brick, or monitor I use it refuses to exceed 65W.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    The whole windows market has been an absolute dumpster fire lately. The "modern standby" issue is infuriating. In a year or two I think the Macbook might honestly be the best linux laptop you can buy. I've got Asahi set up on my M1 and it's borderline usable now. Just waiting on thunderbolt and power management to be done and I could work with this.
    - anonymousiam 4y ago
      I would love to agree with you, were it not for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504752 https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgybq7/apple-macbook-activation-lock-right-to-repair https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgybq7/apple-macbook-activat...
rkagerer 4y ago
Sounds to me like this is ripe for a class action lawsuit. Especially if they start applying more severe consequences to those who already installed unsanctioned HDD's into their own property.
EatonZ 4y ago
Glad everyone enjoyed the writeup! I have several more interesting writeups planned, including a significant hack disclosure (not Xbox/gaming related), so keep an eye out (:
cmdrk 4y ago
The old dredged up Anandtech article is referring to the price of 3.5" disks, but the 360 used something smaller, probably 2.5". An off-the-shelf laptop drive would've been a bit more expensive and a bit more comparable to the $99 that Microsoft was charging.
- whatatita 4y ago
  Inside the casing, it did use a 2.5" drive.
WalterBright 4y ago
I don't get the value from preventing a customer from modding the device. Presumably, the customer gets more value out of the modded device, which means more sales to the device vendor. The IBM PC was a runaway success because it was user moddable. IBM failed to recognize this with their follow-on PS/2, which was locked down. It flopped. DEC's Rainbow PC flopped because they tied it to proprietary floppy disks. Chrysler was loved by hotrodders in the 60s and 70s because the company even published extensive manuals on how to hotrod them to various levels, and supplied the parts! I put my money where my mouth is, the D language is 100% open source.
- Gh0stRAT 4y ago
  >the customer gets more value out of the modded device, which means more sales to the device vendor. Not sure about the modern xbox, but a lot of game consoles have traditionally been sold at a loss with the expectation of making it up on game licensing fees. Making more sales at a loss without a significant enough increase in licensing revenue equals a bigger loss. And that's before accounting for the higher support costs of people with incompatible 3rd-party hardware calling Xbox support.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- vel0city 4y ago
  > I don't get the value from preventing a customer from modding the device. For many, having locked down consoles is a feature not a bug. It massively reduces the odds of coming across people running cheats in online gaming. It still happens, sure. But in the end it is far less common when cheating requires buying hardware modifications from potentially shady marketplaces, soldering things on to the board, potentially breaking your hardware, and potentially blacklisting your hardware on official matchmaking systems. You're never going to get to zero cheaters, but if you make it more difficult to cheat and make it easier to blacklist expensive hardware it'll massively reduce the odds of your player base encountering cheater in an average match. Encountering less cheaters increases player satisfaction and keeps players playing your games. I didn't buy a game console for it to be a general purpose computer to do whatever I want, I bought a game console because I want to play games. If I want a general purpose computer to hack around with I'll go buy a Pi or an ESP32 or some other SBC instead of a Switch or an Xbox or Playstation.
c4wrd 4y ago
Eaton, I was a big admirer of yours back in the Xbox 360 modding scene, and envied your genius and dedication to things like FATXplorer and DevTool. We had common acquaintances (cas, teh1337) and I believe we may have worked together very briefly on a project at one point (I developed XPRC, which brought RPC and a whole host of new modding abilities to JTAG'd consoles). I'd love to get in touch and hear what you're working on now-a-days and see if there's anything we can collaborate on (perhaps a blog article?)!
- EatonZ 4y ago
  Thank you for the kind words :D My contact info is here: https://eaton-works.com/contact/ https://eaton-works.com/contact/
justicz 4y ago
Is the code/assembly for the RSA signature check (`XeKeysVerifyRSASignature`?) available anywhere online?
- EatonZ 4y ago
  https://i.imgur.com/AFZIA3p.png https://i.imgur.com/AFZIA3p.png It takes in the RSA signature, SHA data hash, and RSA key type. Key types are: XE_PIRS_RSA_KEY = 0x0, XE_LIVEDRM_RSA_KEY = 0x1, XE_DEVICE_RSA_KEY = 0x2 (this is the Sata verification key), XE_XSIGNER2_RSA_KEY = 0x3 It uses key type to load the corresponding public key from memory at static addresses, then verification takes place.
caycep 4y ago
Was this the hack that made Bunnie Huang famous?
IYasha 4y ago
eaton-works.com Your browser is out of date! Update your browser to view this website correctly. More Information. thankyoucloudflare.no. They don't even bother giving me an option to proceed anymore!!

383 points by EatonZ 4y ago

I will never understand why people buy that locked down, proprietary, DRM infested shit (gaming consoles, "smart" appliances, smartphones, apple stuff etc.) in the first place. .. I would rather have nothing.

extasia 4y ago
What's the alternative? Rub sticks together?
- wronglebowski 4y ago
  I honestly prefer banging rocks together vs sticks but that's just my opinion.
- ok123456 4y ago
  General purpose computing.
- npc12345 4y ago
  [dead]
ct0 4y ago
If only every child would rather have nothing than a "locked down" Xbox. When I was 13 I didn't really care if it was locked down, but as an adult it matters a bit more.
- ascagnel_ 4y ago
  As an adult, I don't want to have to manage a thing that I would normally use for leisure. Thankfully, we're starting to see devices released that point in that direction -- the Steam Deck is an open device (users can install an M2 SSD if they're willing to open the device, or they can use a standard SD card if they're not), has a full desktop environment available, yet can be entirely used in the device's "game mode" that abstracts and hides the bulk of the device's complexity.
haunter 4y ago
Life is too short to not enjoy things. Sure I can choose to have nothing either but personally to me that's not fun.
- Lammy 4y ago
  It's possible to enjoy something like a game console while also being aware of their role in the elimination of general-purpose computing. These kind of platforms are where they farm us for technologies like hypervisors, signed-everything, e-fuses, always-online, etc. Consent is easily manufactured when enough people believe that media """needs to be protected""" to exist at all. I still love my 360 though :)
  - everyone 4y ago
    Yeah consoles indoctrinated people and opened the way for stuff like the BMW with the DRM heated seats. I think similarly, micro-transactions and DLC in games, digital goods, rare loot in WoW, led the way for stuff like bitcoin and nfts becoming relatively popular, and not just being utterly ridiculed by everyone.
- alerighi 4y ago
  The fact is that you don't enjoy these things. These things generate only frustration, its more the time you want to throw these things out of the window than the one you enjoy them. A console that you have to mod just to upgrade/replace its internal hard drive? What the hell? Just because Microsoft can sell you a normal SATA disk for double the price?
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    > The fact is that you don't enjoy these things. I definitely enjoyed my Xbox 360 and didn't give a single damn about not being able to use a non-Microsoft hard drive. I doubt I ever really thought about the fact that I couldn't, it just wasn't an issue.
beardog 4y ago
People want products that "just work" and I don't think it is fair to blame them for that. The problems mainly arise when the locked down stuff breaks or treats the user badly in some way, but even if stuff were not locked down the average person would just sell or throw out their device when it no pleased them anyways.
- everyone 4y ago
  I'm not blaming users for something. I said "I will never understand". Though I can hypothesize. I think in some cases due to deceitful marketing, users think "This thing will be great! It will do X,Y and Z for me.".. Then they buy it and realize that X is forbidden, Y requires a subscription, and Z is not available in their region or whatever. They are disspointed but they've already bought the thing at that point and make do rather than return it. I have seen this happen to people I know for sure. I definitely blame the corporation for unethically making products like that in the 1st place, and then also deceitfully marketing them. There should be much stricter laws and severe punishments in place to protect the public.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Most people buy an Xbox to play games or an iPhone for its advertised features, and it does that, so they're happy. If they felt tricked like you said, they wouldn't buy the next generation, especially with iPhones where the competition is way more open. There are other ways I acknowledge hardware is truly becoming anti-consumer, like removing headphone jacks to sell wireless earbuds. Or Xbox HDDs.
ddoolin 4y ago
The irony of your username isn't lost on me.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Everyone in the world wants to install a Postgres server on an Xbox 360. Jokes aside, I appreciate EatonZ's work.
fnimick 4y ago
It can be nice. It takes mental effort to manage an open system and make sure you don't run anything malicious - a limited, sandboxed environment you can always rely on to work is much easier by comparison. I do miss the PS3 linux option though. It would be great to have console hardware that boots in two modes - a console mode for playing games, and an open x86 mode for doing general compute. This is especially relevant now that current console are effectively PCs with custom software rather than having specialty instruction sets. AMD even already sells broken PS5 chips as barebones systems! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h08cMFwqRc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h08cMFwqRc
- forgotpwd16 4y ago
  >I do miss the PS3 linux option though. Still possible with a CFW.
NavinF 4y ago
> I would rather have nothing. Then I think you know exactly why others buy consoles lol. Even the most hardcore PC gamers would prefer a console over nothing
p1necone 4y ago
> I would rather have nothing. Nothing can't play Halo.
jhoechtl 4y ago
#metoo
deely3 4y ago
What model of phone your using? Tv? Laptop? Bank card? Car? All these stuff contains "locked down" or "proprietary" or "DRM infested" shit.

EMIRELADERO 4y ago

I wonder what would have happened if someone tried using antitrust laws to defeat this. Seems like there was a quite alive market for "third-party HDDs compatible with Xbox 360s" and Microsoft effectively tried to monopolize it. Plus, it seems to me like it could have passed the test of the modern Sherman Act interpretation. MS's actions directly reduced output and increased prices.

LesZedCB 4y ago

stuff like this is outrageous. i got a steam deck a few weeks ago and decided to grab the base model and an $80 512GB NVMe drive on newegg. the install was easy and i saved a ton of money. that's how hardware should work, especially stuff as easy as drives/RAM.

robotnikman 4y ago
I love how hackable they made the Steam Deck, you can easily find replacement parts as well. I even remember someone got an external graphics card working on one by using the NVME slot and an adapter to connect it. Of course, that kinda defeats the whole purpose of the Steam Deck lol
- TAForObvReasons 4y ago
  Repairability and general hackability are core design goals of the Steam Deck compared to other devices. On the software side, they don't hide the desktop Linux core.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Valve is one of the few companies I don't feel is egregiously cashing in on their market monopoly store fees. The amount of value they give back is astounding. I remember buying a logitech racing wheel and finding it didn't work on linux, when I looked it up I saw a valve employee on the linux mailing list with a patch ready to merge to fix it. And then there is the incredible work done on Proton. I couldn't have imagined the future of gaming on linux was that Wine would be improved so much you couldn't tell it was being used.. At the time everyone figured you just had to complain in the game forums for a linux version and eventually it would work.
smoldesu 4y ago
It's fascinating to think that larger, more expensive machines find it acceptable to omit replaceable storage.
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[deleted]

beardog 4y ago

Eaton, if you are planning to write more interesting posts like this, please consider adding RSS/Atom (or making it more obvious if it is already there).

EatonZ 4y ago
I have just put up an Atom feed, more details: https://eaton-works.com/2023/01/28/syndication-feed-now-available/ https://eaton-works.com/2023/01/28/syndication-feed-now-avai...
EatonZ 4y ago
I have received other requests for this. I thought about it when I redesigned the site, but didn't think people really used RSS that much anymore. I have it on my list to implement (:
- nfriedly 4y ago
  I use RSS, so you'd have at least two subscribers :)
  - BlockerBrews 4y ago
    Make that 3
xavdid 4y ago
+1 RSS. In the meantime, you can use https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ to get an RSS for newsletter items.
EatonZ 4y ago
If anyone is interested in RSS you can subscribe here to be notified when it's available (I will post about it): https://eaton-works.com/subscribe https://eaton-works.com/subscribe You can then unsubscribe & that will delete your email from my list, if you prefer RSS over emails.

robotnikman 4y ago

I thought I remember there being adapters which allowed you to use regular 2.5inch hard drives on the xbox 360. Maybe my mind is just tricking me again though.

scintill76 4y ago
It seems to me they could MITM the SATA link and effectively do the "HDDHackr" method to make that work. I don't know though.
Lammy 4y ago
That was possible over USB later on in the life of the console: https://www.se7ensins.com/forums/threads/complete-history-of-xbox-360-dashboard-updates-latest-2-0-17489-0.1457918/ https://www.se7ensins.com/forums/threads/complete-history-of... - 2.0.9199.0 — April 6, 2010 — Allows up to two USB flash drives or external hard drives to be used for storing profiles, game saves, demos and more up to 16 GB each, 32GB combined. - 2.0.16197.0 — October 16, 2012 — Added support for up to 32GB USB drives. - 2.0.17349.0 — April 30, 2015 — Added: Able to use USB Storage up to 2TB for Xbox Content. There was also the "Hard Drive Transfer Kit" SATA–USB adapter that became available alongside the 120GB HDD: https://www.engadget.com/2007-04-26-xbox-360-hard-drive-transfer-kit-hands-on.html https://www.engadget.com/2007-04-26-xbox-360-hard-drive-tran...
Graziano_M 4y ago
It's possible that the adapter MITM'd requests for this security sector and would return a valid blob.
xen2xen1 4y ago
There was the USB official setup later, but you could also find a hard drive of the same model and flash firmware from a 360 drive onto it. So yes, but not just any drive.
- easton 4y ago
  I did this, I remember there being some fairly common laptop hard drive on the list because I found it laying around at home. There was a live cd to boot off of to format it and everything. Memories...

nywles 4y ago

May the logo have been included so that the security sector could not be distributed under copyright law?

Operyl 4y ago
The modders could have just as easily decided to go the "you must find the logo on your own" route and written a "select the logo" file prompt into the tools. I find the "they intended to let others sell HDDs" then changed their minds later route more plausible, especially since they never went after the "hacked" drives with bans or anything.
- anamexis 4y ago
  However, it would have been effective at preventing people from selling modified HDDs commercially.
  - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
    It really wouldn't. Courts don't like it when you misuse copyright like that.
    - anamexis 4y ago
      It would seem so. But, it doesn't cost anything to try.
      - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
        Sega tried and lost in court, so in that sense it did cost them to try as they had to pay for counsel which ultimately wasn't even successful.
        anamexis 4y ago
        Right, but it doesn't cost Microsoft anything to add their logo as an additional check. If laws or court precedent change, it's already there. (For example, the DMCA came long after the Sega decision)

jbverschoor 4y ago

Of all components, a disk is the only thing that “regularly” fail, that become too small, and have no other security impact, no profit margin (I think) It’s idiotic MS took this route. And what’s the downside/risk for MS? Nothing.. if the Xbox doesn’t work anymore, just don’t give any support on that disk

ska 4y ago
> It’s idiotic MS took this route. According to article, it let them sell commodity hard drives with 3x markup. There are words for that, but "idiotic" probably isn't one of them.
jaywalk 4y ago
No profit margin? What? They were making a massive profit off the hard drives, and this security was meant to preserve those profits.
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Not using an Xbox.. I didn’t know they sell storage upgrades. That’s pretty toxic
0x457 4y ago
Margins are low on retail drives. Drives MS was selling had _plenty_ of margin. Which is why MS went that way. Also, this saves you from "I bought shitty drive from NoName on alibaba and it doesn't work" support requests. Still stupid though. Glad Sony out of all companies opened up PS3 they way they did.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  Drives MS was selling had _plenty_ of margin. Which is why MS went that way Maybe? It's hard to say. The linked article comparing the price of MS's HDD accessory to the cost of a contemporary OEM hard drive via NewEgg and yeah, MS's HDD was way more expensive per GB. There are a lot of extra costs for MS though. Maintaining a separate SKU. Retail packaging. Cost of unsold units. Negotiating a supply of HDDs from e.g. WD which had to keep a production line or whatever open for that model when they otherwise might have phased it out sooner. The plastic enclosures. Etc. Some of the price/GB differential may well have been gouging but some of it was also certainly overheads such as those I mentioned. There was zero possibility MS's retail Xbox360 HDDs could have been priced identically to the ever fluctuating price of HDDs from the direct sales channel. For a start, how could they reprice the units they'd already sold to WalMart, EBGames, and the like? My strong hunch is that those official MS HDD's were not very profitable for MS. Otherwise one suspects they would not have tolerated hacked HDDs. Of course if you want to say their whole strategy was dumb, I agree. Why not just allow consumers to slap the SATA drive of their choice into the 360? Bigger drives = more room for games = customers theoretically buying more games.

Jerrrry 4y ago

Regular blog posts about x360? The statute of limitations is over, it's time to revel in nostalgia :D Eaton's gonna be spoiling us, dude has always been an overachiever. By the way, you DID save my original 20gb security partition - I never told you, I don't think, but I had the original MS backup cable and your software right as that was figured out. Can't wait for the ultimate "KV.bin" write-up... >>:"Why would MS add over 4 magnitudes of cryptographic checks to a damn virtual serial number....?"

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wkat4242 4y ago

I still have one of those hacked WD blues. Always served me very well though I no longer have a 360. It serves out its live now as a 320 gb even though it's a 500 because I couldn't find a working 500 firmware at the time and I couldn't manage to get the original firmware back. But it's ok, I'm mainly doing ssd these days anyway.

cheeseomlit 4y ago

[flagged]

infotogivenm 4y ago
Not disagreeing but remember > Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, loses at least $153 (U.S.) on each Xbox 360 video game console it sells, based on just the cost of components and assembly, a research firm says. Parts such as processors and manufacturing cost $552.27 for each machine that retails at $399, El Segundo, Calif. With this context it doesn’t surprise me they try to recoup something on each optional hardware upgrade.
- chronogram 4y ago
  When was that? Because at the start of the console your chip might be a cutting edge and incur massive costs, but cost a tenth to produce once it goes from cutting-edge to practiced.
  - Someone1234 4y ago
    Right, but the above figure is under-shooting if anything since it budgets $0 for software development. Microsoft definitely charged a premium for accessories, seems like a classic price discrimination, wherein the richer consumers were subsidizing the cost of the console (and its development) for poorer ones.
  - infotogivenm 4y ago
    2004, early days
kevingadd 4y ago
People want these kind of security measures when they buy a game console, because the alternative is easily-modded consoles that people use to cheat in online games. Lots of online games are also not well engineered so cheating can cause crashes and save corruption - for example, modders constantly find bugs in GTA V that can be used to crash GTA Online sessions or even crash single-player sessions where you're playing offline by yourself as long as you're online.

jchw 4y ago

Microsoft really seemed to be ahead of the curve with console security. They really thought this through back in 2005 or so, to the point where clearly, they knew people would hack the drives to rewrite the serial number. It's probably for the best that they never actually did anything about the knowledge that gave them, but they clearly stayed a step ahead of the game. As much as I hate it, their actions show a great deal of respect towards the ingenuity of console hackers, because if they didn't, they would've never bothered to do such an effort thwarting them. Compared to the Nintendo Wii, which had a decent security model that was ultimately ill-fated due to several fatal flaws in both hardware and firmware, and the PlayStation, where Sony seems to have a continual problem developing security measures that hackers and modders can just completely ignore, Microsoft really pulled it off. I still wish game consoles would allow you to just run your own code. Xbox has dev mode, which I haven't ever used since I generally do not buy game consoles, but it does seem like the absolute best option that's been available to consumers lately. Before then, it was OtherOS (ill-fated,) PS2 Linux (cool but kinda limited,) and Net Yaroze? Which seemed awesome to me, but unfortunately was a relatively uncommon good. Beyond that, official escapes from the walled garden are truly scarce. A sad reality that will get worse when measures like remote attestation finally make their way to general purpose computers. Remember: you can never have nice things. Ever. Thanks for FATXplorer BTW, it is very useful.

RandomBK 4y ago
Every time I hear about the XBox's platform security, I think back to this talk [1] about how Microsoft protected the XBox One. A lot of it boils down to clear requirements and good engineering, and many of these technologies are now showing up via Project Pluton. [1] https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/ https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/
- airstrike 4y ago
  This is what I found on "Project Pluton" https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-microsoft-pluton-processor-the-security-chip-designed-for-the-future-of-windows-pcs/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2020/11/17/mee...

imadr 4y ago

The articles says that the security sector is RSA-signed using a private key only Microsoft possesses, what if you also change the public key used for verification that is stored in the console?

fredoralive 4y ago
You’d need Microsoft’s private key to sign the system firmware with a changed HDD verification public key in it (or an exploit undermining the general security chain of the system).
- imadr 4y ago
  If everything is verified locally couldn't you also change the firmeware verification key, and whatever verifies the firmware verification..etc ? Isn't it turtles all the way down?
  - izacus 4y ago
    The Xbox 360 security is a lot of turtles and the last turtle is actually baked into the SoC itself so it's impossible to modify. That firmware verifies the next stage and establishes the chain of verification that's very hard to break. It did get broken eventually (after years of trying!) by figuring out that the CPU stops being reliable at very low clocks, but it was not even remotely easy.
AceJohnny2 4y ago
At that level you're already hacking the console firmware. Easier then to just patch out the check as they've done.
EatonZ 4y ago
The key is inside of the hypervisor. Not changeable if you want to retain your unmodded status.

Gigachad 4y ago

This is pretty similar to how Nintendo validates game cartridges. They all contain a unique signed header. If you connect to an online game and your game serial number is being used by hundreds of other users, Nintendo can see its a pirated copy and you get console banned from online for all games.

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fragmede 4y ago
Back in the day StarCraft did the same thing. Except the key generation algorithm was reverse engineered. So even a legit key had the risk of being used online by pirates and being blocked.

nottorp 4y ago

Why would they care if my hard drive is genuine? For the PS3, PS4 and PS5 i just bought a hard drive (ssd for the ps5) matching their specs, installed it inside and gamed on. For the xbox you have to buy hard drives from Microsoft? Edit: please don't tell me about usb drives hanging off your console. I don't like stuff hanging off my console.

meibo 4y ago
The article leads with this, the drives from Microsoft had a massive upcharge compared to regular HDD rates at the time. They were making a pretty penny with these.
EatonZ 4y ago
Microsoft also knows if you have USBs connected to your console (: If any are connected, it will report back the sizes.
AgentME 4y ago
The later generations of Xbox allow any external hard drives to be used.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  With breathtaking USB 2.0 speeds, yay.
  - ClassyJacket 4y ago
    I don't believe that's true? Xbox One and up use USB 3
downrightmike 4y ago
Just get a usb extension cord

progbits 4y ago

I couldn't find what is the size of the RSA key used. Any chance it is small enough to be broken today with bunch of cloud instances and few $100 [1] to spare? It was almost 20 years after all. Of course cloning another disk is simpler and more practical, but it might be fun to eg. have custom logos on unmodded console. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/breaking-512-bit-rsa-with-amazon-ec2-is-a-cinch-so-why-all-the-weak-keys/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/break...

haneefmubarak 4y ago
Wild guess: since the field given in the article is 256 bytes and the signature is probably just padded to the same size as the key, it's probably 2048 bits which is not really easily crackable (any key-specific flaws notwithstanding).
- progbits 4y ago
  Nice catch, that is a reasonable assumption. Oh well, too bad. Maybe one day ;)
EatonZ 4y ago
It's a 2048-bit key. If it was 1024 maybe it could eventually be cracked? With 2048, I don't think it will be.

slezakattack 4y ago

Interesting post but was really hoping to understand why some of my saves wouldn't transfer to other 360 consoles. Back when the "red ring of death" was more common, I would be issued a replacement console. When I snapped my hard drive back in and turned on Ninja Gaiden 2, I wouldn't be able to continue my progress. I had the unfortunate luck of this happening several times to me and I eventually quit playing that game. Years and years later, I worked with someone who used to be at a gaming company and he claimed that apparently it was a quality assurance requirement from Microsoft in order to be published..

EatonZ 4y ago
There are "transfer flags" on content items that control whether they could be copied/moved.
- hubbbbble 4y ago
  Good to know! Back in the days my friend and I figured out that if we bought Xbox Live Arcade games on someone's console with the other person's account, both would effectively own the full game and could play it (albeit not at the same time). We used this scheme to share account passwords and get more Gamerscore out of some titles. My then 14-year old self was quite disappointed to find out he lost all shared games when his console was replaced after a RRoD. I guess these games weren't transferable.

anonymousiam 4y ago

This is the same sort of bullshit that HP has done with their computer hard drives, but with an even more elaborate lock-in by Microsoft in this case. The HP computers came with an OEM Windows CD so you could re-install the OS after replacing a bad hard drive, but if you chose to replace the hard drive with anything other than a "genuine" HP replacement part, the Windows installation would fail. Note that the HP replacement part has half the capacity for twice the price, and a poor warranty. I spent two weeks sparing with HP over this. They sent me a replacement Windows CD that behaved in exactly the same way, and in the end, they were off their flowchart with no way to escalate the issue. I was able to install the same version of Windows on the computer using a non-OEM Microsoft Windows installation disc. HP Support insisted that it was perfectly okay to replace their OEM drive with something else, and denied any lock-in countermeasures when I challenged them. Either the support staff honestly didn't know about this (probably illegal) policy, or they did know, and were required to deny it. After this, I actively advised all of my clients to avoid HP hardware. At the time, I advised them to use Dell instead, but Dell has its own problems these days.

Teknoman117 4y ago
> Dell has its own problems these days. I am honestly very annoyed that my 2019 XPS 15 will refuse to negotiate anything higher than 65W over USB-C PD on a non-Dell charger. Their dock does 130W, yet every third party dock, brick, or monitor I use it refuses to exceed 65W.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The whole windows market has been an absolute dumpster fire lately. The "modern standby" issue is infuriating. In a year or two I think the Macbook might honestly be the best linux laptop you can buy. I've got Asahi set up on my M1 and it's borderline usable now. Just waiting on thunderbolt and power management to be done and I could work with this.
  - anonymousiam 4y ago
    I would love to agree with you, were it not for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504752 https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgybq7/apple-macbook-activation-lock-right-to-repair https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgybq7/apple-macbook-activat...

rkagerer 4y ago

Sounds to me like this is ripe for a class action lawsuit. Especially if they start applying more severe consequences to those who already installed unsanctioned HDD's into their own property.

EatonZ 4y ago

Glad everyone enjoyed the writeup! I have several more interesting writeups planned, including a significant hack disclosure (not Xbox/gaming related), so keep an eye out (:

cmdrk 4y ago

The old dredged up Anandtech article is referring to the price of 3.5" disks, but the 360 used something smaller, probably 2.5". An off-the-shelf laptop drive would've been a bit more expensive and a bit more comparable to the $99 that Microsoft was charging.

whatatita 4y ago
Inside the casing, it did use a 2.5" drive.

WalterBright 4y ago

I don't get the value from preventing a customer from modding the device. Presumably, the customer gets more value out of the modded device, which means more sales to the device vendor. The IBM PC was a runaway success because it was user moddable. IBM failed to recognize this with their follow-on PS/2, which was locked down. It flopped. DEC's Rainbow PC flopped because they tied it to proprietary floppy disks. Chrysler was loved by hotrodders in the 60s and 70s because the company even published extensive manuals on how to hotrod them to various levels, and supplied the parts! I put my money where my mouth is, the D language is 100% open source.

Gh0stRAT 4y ago
>the customer gets more value out of the modded device, which means more sales to the device vendor. Not sure about the modern xbox, but a lot of game consoles have traditionally been sold at a loss with the expectation of making it up on game licensing fees. Making more sales at a loss without a significant enough increase in licensing revenue equals a bigger loss. And that's before accounting for the higher support costs of people with incompatible 3rd-party hardware calling Xbox support.
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vel0city 4y ago
> I don't get the value from preventing a customer from modding the device. For many, having locked down consoles is a feature not a bug. It massively reduces the odds of coming across people running cheats in online gaming. It still happens, sure. But in the end it is far less common when cheating requires buying hardware modifications from potentially shady marketplaces, soldering things on to the board, potentially breaking your hardware, and potentially blacklisting your hardware on official matchmaking systems. You're never going to get to zero cheaters, but if you make it more difficult to cheat and make it easier to blacklist expensive hardware it'll massively reduce the odds of your player base encountering cheater in an average match. Encountering less cheaters increases player satisfaction and keeps players playing your games. I didn't buy a game console for it to be a general purpose computer to do whatever I want, I bought a game console because I want to play games. If I want a general purpose computer to hack around with I'll go buy a Pi or an ESP32 or some other SBC instead of a Switch or an Xbox or Playstation.

c4wrd 4y ago

Eaton, I was a big admirer of yours back in the Xbox 360 modding scene, and envied your genius and dedication to things like FATXplorer and DevTool. We had common acquaintances (cas, teh1337) and I believe we may have worked together very briefly on a project at one point (I developed XPRC, which brought RPC and a whole host of new modding abilities to JTAG'd consoles). I'd love to get in touch and hear what you're working on now-a-days and see if there's anything we can collaborate on (perhaps a blog article?)!

EatonZ 4y ago
Thank you for the kind words :D My contact info is here: https://eaton-works.com/contact/ https://eaton-works.com/contact/

justicz 4y ago

Is the code/assembly for the RSA signature check (`XeKeysVerifyRSASignature`?) available anywhere online?

EatonZ 4y ago
https://i.imgur.com/AFZIA3p.png https://i.imgur.com/AFZIA3p.png It takes in the RSA signature, SHA data hash, and RSA key type. Key types are: XE_PIRS_RSA_KEY = 0x0, XE_LIVEDRM_RSA_KEY = 0x1, XE_DEVICE_RSA_KEY = 0x2 (this is the Sata verification key), XE_XSIGNER2_RSA_KEY = 0x3 It uses key type to load the corresponding public key from memory at static addresses, then verification takes place.

caycep 4y ago

Was this the hack that made Bunnie Huang famous?

IYasha 4y ago

eaton-works.com Your browser is out of date! Update your browser to view this website correctly. More Information. thankyoucloudflare.no. They don't even bother giving me an option to proceed anymore!!