As I said b4, in A.Z.'s topic, I have I friend who has bought his XBOX brand new, modded it by himself, and well... He was banned with the modchip off, and he didn't had XBOX Live Account, he used a 2 month trial...
My oppinion today is that there is not a single point that launches the ban, there are many....
- EEPROM being used in more than one console on XBOX Live!... It is an easy check, same serial number connected at the same time, or you get the serial number with some set of configurations and the next time with another set of configurations... This is my favorite as one that is banning a lot of people.
- Ban using the CPU ID of the Pentium III CPU, or any other unique ID that is not on the EEPROM, maybe nVidia chipset has one as well. This could explain why people are being banned even changing HD and EEPROM at the same time.
- Some hacks of some specific games, specially in the Download Content. Easy to check, easy to ban.
- Scan all the HD is out of the question... But, a simple scan for most common files, like C:\BACKUP..... Easy not? It scares me a lot. It is not being done today, maybe done in a not so far future.
- LPC check if there is anything on there, except for XBOX v1.6.... If there is anyhting in the LPC, well, there is 100% of chance that this XBOX has been modded.... There are modchips that just don't force the XBOX to load the BIOS thru the LPC when they are "off"... But they are on and connected to the LPC bus... So easy to get this one.... I believe this is my second favorite as the reason for people being banned with the modchip "off".