Mmm...
I) The Age
When you are very young and you manage to hack security, you feel a lots of pleasure in sharing the security hole you just opened with everyone (and not the manufacturer). Mainly because you are still student and you put freedom over everything else.
When you are grown up, with a wife, even maybe with children, you think differently. Your brain wants (even against your will) to get an easier and more comfortable life. Being allowed to discuss with manufacturer is an easier way to explore new possibilities...
Since next-gen is harder to hack and also requires hardware knowledge, it's not estonishing, people able to break in are quite mature ones. So that explains that both for ps3 and 360, we got some people wanting to discuss immediately with manufacturer. On ps3 two jobs got created this way for hackers. On 360 it may happen too now. This article may be a way to prepare us for that event.
To the people who rather like 'young' hackers, don't despair, each generation see a new bunch of them blooming... Also current 360 model (with thin and weak epoxy) is not worthy (unless you revamp seriously the hardware, by removing X clamps for example). We need homebrew yes, but on a better model, in order to keep enough machine working on the long term.
Only problem is that security will be much higher now on next firmware iterations.
II) The Risk
Just a reminder, if you put a foot in manufacturer homeland, you can be arrested. The fact that you have good friendly chats with engineers doesn't mean some high level executive won't take advantage of a law to crush you and get some "financial" advantages. So I suggest you continue your "chats" from a safe place without exposing yourself to some financial staff naughty temptation...
Another, more common risk, is that you just get hired for working on next console security (or worse, I fear, PC PCI express graphic/physics cards only accepting signed microcodes and signed data, allowing Vista monopoly on PC). Some kind of job offer you can't refuse, because of other threats...
C) Conclusion
There's no chance young and older hackers see this event the same way...
Personally, I don't think they will manage to convince MS to open legal homebrew. I think they will be hired and muted. But future can still tell me I was wrong... (unfortunately, from my own experience, I can say power is in the hands of financial people, not technical ones). But I don't blame them (I'm old), I just say they may have done a mistake, from the hacker point of view (if they were sincerely not interested in getting a new job).
Wait & See.
Difference with last gen console is that you will get homebrew only with old obsolete firmware versions (because security on last ones will be much higher, thanks to large unexpected help brought to manufacturers):
360: firmware 4532 or 4548
PS3: firmware <1.54 (let's say <=1.50, if possible with EE inside, for safety)
A good thing can come out from all this : the end of false hope.
The worst would be to let people believe new hacks will certainly occur for recent firmwares and have them miss opportunity to purchase the correct configurations. With the most probable event now obvious, people will be able to plan how to spend their money if they really want homebrew on a next gen console, instead of waiting forever.
For new incoming consoles, it may be the same thing : a little security hole (because humans are not perfect), some friendly hacker-engineer chat, leading to the publishing of the fix, giving people the knowledge of the vulnerable obsolete firmware version... We have to live with what we are given...
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Topic: Bunnie, Mist and Tmbinc meet Designer of the Xbox360 Security (Read 620 times)