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Microsoft clearly learned from their Xbox and Xbox 360 mistakes, leading to unhacked (?) Xbox One and Xbox Series X consoles: https://www.platformsecuritysummit

Microsoft clearly learned from their Xbox and Xbox 360 mistakes, leading to unhacked (?) Xbox One and Xbox Series X consoles: https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/ https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/

zaptheimpaler 1y ago
Yeah, the hackers had a good run on jailbreaking every device for decades but the corpos won in the end. Most of the latest iOS devices/versions and consoles no longer have any meaningful jailbreaks. The end of an era..
- samplatt 1y ago
  A big part (I feel) of that for both iPhones and xbox is their ecosystems finally arriving at a point that's "good enough"; the store offers enough games with enough security with low barriers to "fun" that few people WANT to hack it. Same with Android - from 2008 to ~2018 I was rooting and putting custom ROMs on my phone before I'd even got it home. These days I rarely bother because the functionality that I required is finally provided out-of-the-box.
  - gonzalohm 1y ago
    In exchange for less control of your device though... The other day my phone updated without my permission and replaced Google assistant with Gemini, also without my permission. It's no longer my phone If I can't decide what gets installed and what shouldn't
    - maxloh 1y ago
      Both Gemini and Google Assistant are parts of the Google App. They were introduced or deprecated with app updates. It is possible to reject the update. Just disable automatic updates of the Google App in the Play Store. You could even return to Google Assistant by reverting Google App to an older version.
      - rep_lodsb 1y ago
        Just disable automatic updates, so you can then instead yell at them about how they're compromising security? What is really needed is being able to choose what updates to install, and more generally, being able to get rid of all the crapware that uploads everything you do on your device to your corporate overlords. Not just particular "apps", but the operating system itself. The fact that most people in 2025 simply accept carrying around 24/7 a device with GPS, microphone, camera and wireless network connection, which they cannot control or even know what it does at all, is dystopian. Imagine if this was the norm with PCs back in the 1990s. Linux would never have existed, since there would have been no way to replace the pre-installed Microsoft OS with something else.
      - gonzalohm 1y ago
        That's the problem. My automatic updates are disabled and yet somehow that happened
  - john01dav 1y ago
    The features that you use may be there, but I don't want all of my everything getting hoovered up to Google. On Apple some functionality (termux and ad blockers in native apps come to mind) isn't even available in the closed ecosystem.
  - Kudos 1y ago
    I was the same. This year I found new motivation and switched my Pixel to GrapheneOS to take back control of my device.
- haunter 1y ago
  > and consoles no longer have any meaningful jailbreaks. The end of an era.. Switch 1 all models are jailbreakable regardless of the system software but that’s because the the HW bug in the Tegra SoC
  - extraduder_ire 1y ago
    That's a previous generation console released in 2017.
ChocolateGod 1y ago
The Xboxes after the 360 have developer mode built in to allow people to run their own user space software (including emulators) so the attraction to look for exploits is reduced.
- spookie 1y ago
  Yup, it's just a compuper.
badsectoracula 1y ago
AFAIK a big reason for this is that the developer mode (as mentioned elsewhere) removed a large incentive for trying - people can run whatever code they want (after paying $20 or so to enable the developer mode, though supposedly Microsoft is planning on making that free now) on their console (with some limits but for things like getting emulators or homebrew to work those weren't important). However there have been some efforts last year or two to break the security. I remember reading about some exploit some time ago that would work from the original Xbox One to the current Series X devices though it relied on some program on the store that it was removed. However (supposedly, i do not own an Xbox One) the files were archived and one is still able to modify and compile the program (so it wont be caught by whatever automation MS has), use dev mode to put it on the store or device, then use that to apply the exploit. I expect the Xbox One (and later) to be cracked open pretty much as soon as Microsoft abandons the whole thing as recently their interest in Xbox seems to be waning.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >people can run whatever code they want Imagine that. The computer you bought and own can run the code you want. Wild. Now what's Apple's excuse? > removed a large incentive for trying I'm not entirely buying this, there's a big difference between running any code you want and the Xbox dev mode. If I look at jailbroken consoles of the past, people do way more stuff on them than what you can do on an Xbox with dev mode, like implementing various ways of self hosting and playing a huge library of pirated/backup games off local network storage, which Xbox dev mode can't do. So I don't think incentive is gone, just that the barrier is too high for your common hackers in their homelabs. I'm sure private companies with six figure side channel analysis equipment and unlimited hours can crack them no problem but there's nothing to gain from that.
  - liprais 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago

zaptheimpaler 1y ago

Yeah, the hackers had a good run on jailbreaking every device for decades but the corpos won in the end. Most of the latest iOS devices/versions and consoles no longer have any meaningful jailbreaks. The end of an era..

samplatt 1y ago
A big part (I feel) of that for both iPhones and xbox is their ecosystems finally arriving at a point that's "good enough"; the store offers enough games with enough security with low barriers to "fun" that few people WANT to hack it. Same with Android - from 2008 to ~2018 I was rooting and putting custom ROMs on my phone before I'd even got it home. These days I rarely bother because the functionality that I required is finally provided out-of-the-box.
- gonzalohm 1y ago
  In exchange for less control of your device though... The other day my phone updated without my permission and replaced Google assistant with Gemini, also without my permission. It's no longer my phone If I can't decide what gets installed and what shouldn't
  - maxloh 1y ago
    Both Gemini and Google Assistant are parts of the Google App. They were introduced or deprecated with app updates. It is possible to reject the update. Just disable automatic updates of the Google App in the Play Store. You could even return to Google Assistant by reverting Google App to an older version.
    - rep_lodsb 1y ago
      Just disable automatic updates, so you can then instead yell at them about how they're compromising security? What is really needed is being able to choose what updates to install, and more generally, being able to get rid of all the crapware that uploads everything you do on your device to your corporate overlords. Not just particular "apps", but the operating system itself. The fact that most people in 2025 simply accept carrying around 24/7 a device with GPS, microphone, camera and wireless network connection, which they cannot control or even know what it does at all, is dystopian. Imagine if this was the norm with PCs back in the 1990s. Linux would never have existed, since there would have been no way to replace the pre-installed Microsoft OS with something else.
    - gonzalohm 1y ago
      That's the problem. My automatic updates are disabled and yet somehow that happened
- john01dav 1y ago
  The features that you use may be there, but I don't want all of my everything getting hoovered up to Google. On Apple some functionality (termux and ad blockers in native apps come to mind) isn't even available in the closed ecosystem.
- Kudos 1y ago
  I was the same. This year I found new motivation and switched my Pixel to GrapheneOS to take back control of my device.
haunter 1y ago
> and consoles no longer have any meaningful jailbreaks. The end of an era.. Switch 1 all models are jailbreakable regardless of the system software but that’s because the the HW bug in the Tegra SoC
- extraduder_ire 1y ago
  That's a previous generation console released in 2017.

ChocolateGod 1y ago

The Xboxes after the 360 have developer mode built in to allow people to run their own user space software (including emulators) so the attraction to look for exploits is reduced.

spookie 1y ago
Yup, it's just a compuper.

badsectoracula 1y ago

AFAIK a big reason for this is that the developer mode (as mentioned elsewhere) removed a large incentive for trying - people can run whatever code they want (after paying $20 or so to enable the developer mode, though supposedly Microsoft is planning on making that free now) on their console (with some limits but for things like getting emulators or homebrew to work those weren't important). However there have been some efforts last year or two to break the security. I remember reading about some exploit some time ago that would work from the original Xbox One to the current Series X devices though it relied on some program on the store that it was removed. However (supposedly, i do not own an Xbox One) the files were archived and one is still able to modify and compile the program (so it wont be caught by whatever automation MS has), use dev mode to put it on the store or device, then use that to apply the exploit. I expect the Xbox One (and later) to be cracked open pretty much as soon as Microsoft abandons the whole thing as recently their interest in Xbox seems to be waning.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>people can run whatever code they want Imagine that. The computer you bought and own can run the code you want. Wild. Now what's Apple's excuse? > removed a large incentive for trying I'm not entirely buying this, there's a big difference between running any code you want and the Xbox dev mode. If I look at jailbroken consoles of the past, people do way more stuff on them than what you can do on an Xbox with dev mode, like implementing various ways of self hosting and playing a huge library of pirated/backup games off local network storage, which Xbox dev mode can't do. So I don't think incentive is gone, just that the barrier is too high for your common hackers in their homelabs. I'm sure private companies with six figure side channel analysis equipment and unlimited hours can crack them no problem but there's nothing to gain from that.
- liprais 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago