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Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

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Re: Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

#91

Post by bombcar »

chadkeck wrote: post #12
cheeze wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacking the original Xbox + x360 is what I credit as getting me "really into computers" For OG xbox, I was a definition script kiddie but I learned how to use FTP, how to connect via crossover cable, how to solder, the basics of what exploits are and how they work, and a ton of other skills that I use daily. X360 required me to take the damn thing apart (which was terrifying as a 14 year old who wouldn't get a replac…

Same here for the OG Xbox. Lots of TSOP flashes for friends over SSH after booting a saved game exploit for 007: Agent Under Fire. Reading lots of the forums on xbox-scene.com. Learned to solder with a soldering iron I picked up from the local Radioshack.

Xbox modding (and similarly with the Wii) was a huge entry-level introduction to so many computer concepts.

Re: Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

#92

Post by grishka »

bowsamic wrote: post #89
grishka wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing: if I can't afford a game because it's so outrageously expensive, I'm not going to just not play it and miss out, I'm going to pirate it. And now that I'm an adult who totally can afford these things (after bypassing all the roadblocks that the world's entertainment companies put for customers from Russia), I still pirate everything because that's what I'm used to, and that's what I'm convenient with…

That's fine, the problem is people acting like it's outrageous to charge $60 for 100+ hour length multi-million dollar projects. Factorio recently increased its price by $5 to $35 in line with inflation and gamers are outraged. How dare they charge more money, it's totally immoral, etc. I don't get why people feel outraged about it.

My main complaint is not that games cost this much money, but rather about digital distribution. Especially with console games, it used to be such that you could buy pre-owned cartridges/discs and sell yours. It was really cheap to you, and technically the game developers also got their asking price for each copy they sold. You were also able to swap games with friends who had the same type of console.

With digital distribution, you still pay the full price, but your copy is "single-use" in essence. You're never getting any of that money back. And, the only way to buy games digitally is "new" for that full price.

Re: Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

#93

Post by bombcar »

ace2358 wrote: post #54
breakingcups wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original Xbox was locked down so only code signed by Microsoft was allowed to run on it. The executables also had a flag specifying which media it was allowed to run from. This meant that you couldn't run a game from a copied disc (different media-type) or the internal hard drive (again, different media-type). There were plenty of hacks that allowed you to circumvent this. Once you get some form of code execution…

Oh man! That hot swap method! I remember my computer, running Linux (which freaked 14 year old me out) from a live cd, case open, and plugging in the hdd while the Xbox and pc was on. I felt like a warlock when I could rip my games after that. Great memories. And my mate at school saying there is no such thing as a soft mod! Haha

I recall our progression was chipmod, drivemod, softmod- really didn’t use the softmod much because we had so many chipmodded devices, but we didn’t do much online then.

Soft modding the Wii was much more common.

Re: Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

#94

Post by bombcar »

scheeseman486 wrote: post #51
badsectoracula wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how often ModernVintageGamer uploads videos about new (and old) homebrew hacks, i do not think homebrew is that dead :-P.

Back in the 2000s homebrew served a practical purpose, today it's just a novelty. I can run Sega games on a WiiU, sure, or virtually anything else.

2000s homebrew powered things like XBMC which were many people’s first introduction to the reality that hard drives had far outstripped DVDs in capacity.

Re: Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

#95

Post by Levitating »

nebula8804 wrote: post #4

This soothes my soul seeing exploits for the consoles I grew up with. For a second it takes me back to a simpler time. The homebrew scene for the XBOX was more fun than the console itself! A while back I saw this clickbait video of "Gen Z trying out the original XBOX" and man that was a reality check as to how much time has passed.

> Gen Z trying out the original XBOX

Gen Z is a pretty wide group. I am Gen Z and played on an original xbox. However at the time the PS3 was already out, as it came out not much later.

And in my region, the PS2 was much more popular than the xbox.

My sister however, who is only a few years younger, is definitely part of the iPad generation.

Everybody played the Wii though, hell I still play the Wii.

Re: Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

#96

Post by jdefr89 »

azalemeth wrote: post #11

In many ways I think it is really quite sad that we're at a point where blown e-fuses, encrypted everything and properly done public/private key crypto means that it's entirely possible that next generation of consoles really might actually be unhackable and unbackupable, barring some tiny bootloader exploit, cheap TEM and an understanding of "physically uncloneable functions", or cheap and plentiful qubits. Things l…

As Vulnerability Research is my area of expertise we are finding new attack vectors all the time. Remember with new technology and abstraction you introduce new potential security issues that can be used to subvert other means of protection. It’s a tit for tat non ending cycle. That being said exploitation of consoles and phones has become quite difficult. Enough at least to make me move to embedded security as there is more work to be done there..

Re: Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

#97

Post by oxygenoxy »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #48
jsheard wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo (or rather Nvidia) was behind the curve on fault injection counter-measures, Sony and Microsoft did their homework and it's never been achieved on their last two generations of systems as far as I know. Microsoft openly talked about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo Seriously, console security is getting really good. The Switch had some major hardware blunders between the bootloader bug an…

I felt called out in that YouTube video when the guy said 'This is what people do to not spend $60 on games'.

I don't. I bought 1 game for my original xbox- Mech Assault

Re: Endgame: A dashboard exploit for the original Xbox

#98

Post by jsheard »

PUSH_AX wrote: post #85
jsheard wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would class making it uneconomical to hack a console for any practical purpose as "really good security". Could someone with nation-state resources hack the Xbox? Maybe? But who cares, they're not going to.

Tony Chen even addresses this directly in the video above. They literally had a hard line in the sand. $600. If it costs more than $600 to hack it then they really don't care. The other big thing is games being locked to a specific OS version, meaning some games require updates to play them. This has been key in their security strategy. It's basically pointless to hack it, it will be patched and you'll have to opt in…

Another smart move by Microsoft was shipping Xboxes in an uninitialized state that has to connect to the internet and download the latest firmware before it can be used. Sony has been repeatedly burned by patching an exploit but having the vulnerable firmware still pre-installed on machines still in retail channels, so someone willing to abuse return policies can easily get one. MS doesn't need to worry about that, every new Xbox ends up on the latest firmware regardless of when it was manufactured.
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