Print

[PedrosPad]

The home of PIRS file details is here.  Although is hasn't been updated for a while.

I've also read that the CON variant of the PIRS archives are those generated by the X360 itself (for GamSavs, themes, etc.)

There was some information posted last week that contained the name of an XeDK library function that games call on to generate SaveGames, XContentCreate() (CON/PIRS files possibily?) - This probably take some sort of key that the developer can supply (probably a GUID to avoid duplication/collisions).
(Of course there'd be nothing preventing developers additionally encoding their GameSav data ahead of  submission to the XContentCreate() call!)

Regarding clear text in PIRS archives - the PIRS envelope itself contains clear text meta-data about the contained files (filenames, descriptions, etc.) - obviously this 'meta-data' won't exist in the extracted files.  This may be what you saw.

[MrPhunkee]

offtopic : I really hope they don't hack the achievements thing either. Or just don't release it.

[bloodtrax]

I think! This is just my opinion but I think if this is hacked it will be a sure fire way of getting you banned from xbl. Especially if you unlock acheivements that can only be acheived online then it wont tally with ur gamercard and they have u by the balls. BUT yes this is a big but I couldnt sign in to xbl the other week so i phoned them and complained they told me to delete my gamertag from my hdd and recover it from xbl. So i took there advice and did it but still i could not connect! So they said because i could connect to get my gamertag back i was online but it must be a regional fault try back later. I tried back later, about 3 hours later and i signed straight in GREAT! I thought. But I had completed many acheivements on pgr3, they were all still on my gamer tag but when i went to play pgr3 it said, i had completed no challenges had no cars and no trophies, So i was robbed i had to start the game again. And before u ask. When it asked me to delete just the profile or all associating data i selected just the profile. It never effected my perfect dark zero saves but for some reason i cannot copy them to memory card and back but thats a different story. So the point of all this is if this is done you could lose all your saves and be banned from xbl so is it worth it?

[ChadH]

What happened to your PGR data absolutely sucks! I appreciate what you are saying about attempting to hack achievements, etc, but the main purpose of this topic is to attempt to hack the PIRS files which in simplest form can be described as a secure zip file for the XBox. These are used for all sorts of things including the Dashboard theme - ideally I would like to hack that so that we can legitimately customise our 360 whilst still being able to use live. In the future when a modchip comes out, we will probably be able to bypass the security associated with the PIRS files, but that would be at the expense of using XBOX LIVE.

The drawback is, a hack like this (and when I say hack, the only way around this would be to obtain the key used to sign the files - which must be somewhere in the 360 hardware as these files have to be resigned as the files are modified) means that the achievements can be modified too. As long as they are modified correctly, there is no danger of getting banned from Live. It would just be as though you obtained them whilst being signed out of Live - when you next connect, they would be associated with your online Gamertag. The good thing is, the file would have to be modified exactly as it would be if you obtained the achievement legitimately, and I'd like to think that is going to be near impossible to do.

Anyway, back to topic. The two ways I can see to getting these files signed properly would be:

1) Obtain the key for signing. This is going to be tricky (perhaps impossible), but MS may have treated this with a low priority as hacking a theme file is not going to leave them out of a pocket a great deal. Unfortunately, sniffing this key out is going to need some advanced equipment and skills.

2) Trick the XBox into resigning the file even though the current signature is not valid. Purely speculation, but there may be a way in which this can be done. It may take a modchip to do it, but once the file is legitimately signed then it can be used without a modchip.