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[Xbox-Scene]

Update on recent bannings, altered C/R timer, affects Kreon rips Posted by Iriez | December 2 22:57 EST | News Category: Xbox360

A followup regarding the xbox live bannings that occured a few weeks ago... Commodore4eva has noticed a recent change in games with regards to the c/r timings. It appears to have started in games a few weeks before halo 3, that will give a slightly altered Security Sector file when ripped using a kreon drive. We have tried to replicate the error with a samsung drive in 0800 mode with no success. This slightly altered data would be very easy to detect, and would enable microsoft to use as critera for bannings. We believe this is the result of the recent bannings. We are still not sure if this was a intentional move by Microsoft's part, or a coincedental bug within kreon. As a side note, kreon will not give this altered data every time, but appears to happen randomly. Here is a list of a few games that appear to have the possibility of giving altered SS data when ripped with kreon: Halo 3 Mass Effect Call Of Duty 4 Spiderman friend or foe Thrillville Project Gotham Racing 4 NHL 08 Half Life 2 The Orange Box Oblivion GOTY Edition This is just a small list of findings so far. There will be a full list maintained as time goes on (likely found in the forum thread below). Kreon, Redline99 and commodore4eva are all involved with this progress, so there will be a solution in the near future, whether its a kreon firmware, XBC, or firmware update to resolve the issue. If you have recently been banned, and would like to confirm whether one of your backups has a bad kreon SS, please use xdvdmulleter or any other program to extract the SS, and run Kreon Checker (compliments of #Stealth360 on efnet) on the SS, it will tell you whether it is a good or bad kreon rip. We are trying to verify that everyone who was banned had a bad kreon SS. As we find out more, the xdvdmulleter database will be updated to fix any bad Security Sectors on specific games.

[Iriez]

I would like to emphasize that this is a thread devoted to quality information regarding xbox live bannings in relation to the altered kreon rips. As a moderator of this forum, I would like to apologize for all the other moderators who have incorrectly blamed anyone who got banned. Considering this new light, it appears that the users of this forum who have backed up their own games (recently) with a kreon drive are just as much at risk, if not more likely at risk, than any joe blow who downloads games off the internet.

I am going to heavily moderate the thread, so here is the list of what is allowed:

Technical discussion regarding the news.
Posts relating to your xbox live bans, and whether the backups you recently played had a bad kreon SS.

All other information will likely be deleted, so dont get mad when you find your post removed (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by Iriez: Dec 3 2007, 06:02 AM

[JAYNO20]

I had a feeling that the bannings were somehow related to those who ripped their games with the kreon drive rather than using the xbox to do it.


It makes sense that no PC drive is going to read an xbox game exactly the same as an xbox drive would.

[DuckOfDeath]

So, just using xdvdmulleter to check the rip vs the online database isn't enough?  You need to use this extra kreon checker, too?

-DucK!

[magic0200]

To clarify right off the bat,

Is it known whether M$ has been logging these checks and finally putting the information into play (and bans are finally coming down), or is this during game usage while on live recently? I'm willing to ask this stupid question so that it's not asked 1,000,000,000 more times in this thread.

[Iriez]

QUOTE(DuckOfDeath @ Dec 3 2007, 12:12 AM)

So, just using xdvdmulleter to check the rip vs the online database isn't enough?  You need to use this extra kreon checker, too?

-DucK!

As we go through the mulleter database and remove those bad SS's, and replace them with valid ones, yes, autofix in mulleter will resolve the problem. Kreon checker is a alternative to check your rips NOW, to see if the problem resides.

QUOTE(magic0200 @ Dec 3 2007, 12:15 AM)

To clarify right off the bat,

Is it known whether M$ has been logging these checks and finally putting the information into play (and bans are finally coming down), or is this during game usage while on live recently? I'm willing to ask this stupid question so that it's not asked 1,000,000,000 more times in this thread.

We cannot know anything for sure, however we highly speculate that this is the reason. One of the reasons for this thread is to put it against the public to see if it is correct. People who have been banned recently should check and post her to verify/deny the speculation.

[evans112682]

i have been banned and have verified with kreon checker that i have 3 bad games.

-Halo 3
-Mass Effect
-Half Life

This post has been edited by evans112682: Dec 3 2007, 06:34 AM

[AT6767]

I have 4 games with the bad kreon ss

- SMackdown vs RAW 2008
- Timeshift
- Mass effect
- PGR 4

I haven't played any of the backups besides Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 and when i did play that backup i was connected to live, but it did not result in ban i played that game today while connected to live and not banned. Do not know if that is relevant.

Is it known how long before the database is updated and corrected?

This post has been edited by AT6767: Dec 3 2007, 06:49 AM

[Deltagunner]

I have 2 games with Bad SS:

Mass Effect
The Orange Box

Not Banned yet.  Been playing Mass Effect pretty much every day since it came out. Guess we will see what happens.

This post has been edited by Deltagunner: Dec 3 2007, 06:59 AM

[Mitch111788]

just checked all my backups. mass effect was the only one with a bad SS. i HAVE NOT been banned from LIVE. however the last time i played mass effect was a few days before the bannings happened and yes i was online at the time. i guess i got lucky!

[palmeiro]

I have not been banned and just checked for games I have ripped after Halo 3 and got 3 bad results.

-Cars: Mater-National
-College Hoops 2K8
-Project Gotham Racing 4

[InvidiousDemise]

 So far the theory seems like it's not validating. 3 people not banned that have used bad games...i wonder if they will be a small percentage.

[bestever24]

some folks escaped the first ban wave and this is essentially banning based on the same bad information

i believe M$ had to change something, as only newer games are giving bad rips

[jooksingjai77]

i just got my kreon drive with v.1 fw and im totally new to this so this will probably be a dumb question

if i extract the ss file from an iso file, so I have to insert it again?

btw, just checked halo 3, good ss file

[evans112682]

QUOTE(InvidiousDemise @ Dec 3 2007, 01:05 AM)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)  So far the theory seems like it's not validating. 3 people not banned that have used bad games...i wonder if they will be a small percentage.

i survived the first ban before ixtreme and played bad backups online.  this time, not so lucky....