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[Xbox-Scene]

Google 'Tech Talks' Mist on Xbox1 Security - 360 Presentation Next Week Posted by XanTium | December 23 00:59 EST

Michael Steil (alias 'mist') of the Xbox-Linux Project made a presentation for Google's "Tech Talks" on the 1st of December 2006. The video of the presentation has now been published online. He talked in details about the Xbox(1) security, how it was hacked and what Microsoft tried to stop it. The presentation is similar to last year's 22C3 presentation (also by mist) and will explain the mistakes Microsoft made: In late 2001, Microsoft released the Xbox, their first gaming console, to compete against Sony and Nintendo in the living room. As the real money is made with the games and not the consoles, Microsoft had to make sure (as much as they could) that nobody could play pirated games or use the machine for anything other than games. Although the original security design idea was a good one and has been copied a lot since then, Microsoft's inexperienced team made a variety of design, implementation, and policy mistakes. This talk first (re)constructs the design of the Xbox security system from Microsoft's point of view, and then deconstructs it from the hacker's point of view. As a bonus, the talk will feature some insights in the security system of the Xbox successor, the Xbox 360. Michael Steil is the founder and maintainer of the Xbox-Linux Project. He oversaw most of the Xbox hacks and also contributed to hacking, reverse engineering and porting Linux on the Xbox. In the last 2-3 minutes of the conference they mention the Xbox 360 too. No new information here ... except the announcement there will be a presentation on the 23C3 (23rd Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, Germany) about hacking the Xbox360, PS3 and Wii. After a bit of searching we can tell you the presentation will be held on December 28th 2006 at 20h30 local time at the 'Berliner Congress Center'. The 1-hour presentation called 'Console Hacking 2006' will be hosted by Felix Domke (alias tmbinc): "Next Generation" gaming consoles should not be limited to games, they have powerful hardware which we want to exploit for our needs. The talk gives a hardware overview of each of the 3 consoles, an overview of their security systems, as well as an update on hacking the Xbox 360, which has been on the market for about a year. The Microsoft Xbox 360, the Sony Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii belong to the seventh generation of gaming consoles, having GHz-class CPUs and hundreds of megabytes of RAM. While the Xbox 360 has been released roughly a year ago, and some hacking has already gone on, the Playstation 3 and the Wii will only be released in November 2006, so they will be brand-new at the time of the talk. Usual news sources focus on the features useful for gaming - this talk of course will focus on what we hackers really need. It evaluates possible attack points to execute homebrew code and professional operating systems. For the two systems that have just been released, you certainly cannot expect a working hack, but the basics of the security system will be explained, and it will be compared to existing systems implemented by previous consoles. Download: Console Hacking 2006 (PDF file - 67.0 KB)

[flashfreak]

That video is an hour long...i might skip it, thought it looks like it'd be informative.

The next event thing looks interesting though

[ILLusions0fGrander]

the old video on hacking the xbox 1 was long as hell.. but i sat through most of it, pretty cool to get an all in one on how shit goes down and how they hacked it.

[psxpirate1]

I would like to see the focus on 360 shift from dvdrom modding to getting homebrew code running on Xbox 360 once and for all. If you check the forum posts, all the homebrew code and modchip topics have died. All dvdrom. We need to start raising more questions on how this may be accomplished so more experienced eyes can view these interesting topics/debates and give some input into the scene.

Just my 2 cents.

[epsilon72]

QUOTE(psxpirate1 @ Dec 22 2006, 11:21 PM)

I would like to see the focus on 360 shift from dvdrom modding to getting homebrew code running on Xbox 360 once and for all. If you check the forum posts, all the homebrew code and modchip topics have died. All dvdrom. We need to start raising more questions on how this may be accomplished so more experienced eyes can view these interesting topics/debates and give some input into the scene.

Just my 2 cents.

True.  I would really like to see a real hack for the 360.  I'd help, but I don't know how to debug or program anything...

[Elusive hacker]

really informative video. kinda long, but still a good watch  

[NoFace]

I love the guys comment at the end about the xbox 360 security, made the whole video worth watching

[Maverick-DBZ-]

QUOTE(NoFace @ Dec 22 2006, 11:52 PM)

I love the guys comment at the end about the xbox 360 security, made the whole video worth watching

Same here, it was worth hearing the hour long talk. He really complimented MS on their security system for Xbox360. Over a year now and no "major" hacks yet.

[ZX3Junglist]

This lecture was mesmerizing for an aspiring systems designer. I definitely appreciated the way he constructed the mindset of microsoft, then of the hackers, then pointed out microsoft's mistakes.

It would be interesting to know what company is benefitting from this genius. He's a german, and working at a fortune 500 company that does kernel development. But it seems pretty hush. I suppose his employer may not want that sort of publicity. I've gone on to read some of his stories at Pagetable.com, and he certainly has some neat ideas on CISC architecture in general.

I give the presentation 2 nerd thumbs up

[Textbook]

I just watched that hour long presentation word for word.  I loved it.

While some (most) of the stuff was way over my head, he does do a relatively good job of dumbing it down and adding some humor to the presentation.

I definitely learned some new interesting things.

The dillema MS faced with turning off the secret rom and cpu at the same time was great .. "we'll just crash the cpu!"

And when mist did the checksum list, and just left an empty bullet for where fonts should have been.  

Great stuff.

[Mabec]

Great presentation, really interesting.

[PCBUILDERCHRIS]

i havnt been touching my 360 lately im waiting on some mods to be figured out (want it to be 100% healthy in perfect working condition with minimal dash updates

meanwhile i just go next door and wear someone elses out

[twistedsymphony]

I'd love to hear his upcoming next gen console presentation...  I really hope he touches on the controller security system being used...

[youloseagain]

QUOTE

I would like to see the focus on 360 shift from dvdrom modding to getting homebrew code running on Xbox 360 once and for all. If you check the forum posts, all the homebrew code and modchip topics have died. All dvdrom. We need to start raising more questions on how this may be accomplished so more experienced eyes can view these interesting topics/debates and give some input into the scene.

Just my 2 cents.

Totally agree. Any luck on the shader front?

[thebroken]

This guys intelligence level on the Xbox security system is just amazing. I sat through the whole thing though alot was over my head. He has a great understanding of the information. And is able to explain it to the masses which is truly amazing.

This post has been edited by thebroken: Dec 23 2006, 03:32 PM