I have never seen this discussed before, so I thought I would bring it up-
I would think that XBL silver members get banned just like gold members, but I have not heard anything specific about it. The servers are the same after all. I wonder if they go after the gold members, or do the majority of their security sweeps to people while they are logged in and playing.
I am not banned, but I have decided that I will probably stay offline from now on. My XBL gold ran out, and I don't really have the cash to renew right now. I don't enjoy online gaming much, so I am not losing much there- but I was considering connecting occassionally as a silver member.
If my console is not already flagged to be banned, and I don't connect to XBL with a disk in the drive, and I am only a silver member, I wonder if I would be safe®? I know the quick answer is either "who knows" or "hell no", but since I can't remember anybody bringing it up before, I thought I would.
For those who think this topic may be useless: Can anybody confirm a ban of a firmware flashed console that was ONLY ever connected as a XBL silver member? (if no early releases or bad rips were played)