Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

icode4.coffee

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 109 posts

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#51

Post by MisterTea »

kmeisthax wrote: post #43

I'm gonna be honest, I thought the story was over when they started talking about "oh hey here's this hypervisor code that loads extensions", because obviously extensions are going to be a massive increase in attack surface. But even then, the system wasn't actually broken by the extension being badly designed; the extension was just the most useful target to use the actual attack on. How the hell has this the Xbox 3…

> You'd think at some point, someone would write and sign a hypervisor extension with a cripplingly bad memory safety bug.

I'd hazard a guess that the Apple hardware is easier to work on than a video game console. Your already sitting in front of a general purpose computer running programming tools. A video game console is the antitheses of that.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#52

Post by perching_aix »

reassembled wrote: post #31
mouse_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xbox 360 emulation is still really bad for most games, despite what some YouTubers would have you believe. But let's say in a few years it does become substantially better. There's still: • Nostalgia • Authenticity • Compatibility • Preservation • Cost of entry Even if 360 emulation does become practical, a 360 will still be cheaper than any gaming PC capable of playing those games.

Just this week a PC port of the 360 version of Sonic Unleashed was released that was accomplished via static recompilation techniques. It plays flawlessly and is really quite an impressive release. If this is possible now then emulation of these consoles might not be the only avenue to preserving their history.

There's no meaningful technological difference between what that static recompilation tool can do for you vs. what hacking up Xenia can. I'd also hazard a guess that that port's GitHub repo will get DMCA'd eventually, and rightfully so.

I really don't know why people keep doing this to themselves and to the communities they claim to love. This is about as far from a clean-room reimplementation and porting effort as humanly possible. It's not a forward-thinking, sustainable preservation effort at all.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#53

Post by hart_russell »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #12
hart_russell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This video does a deep dive on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KbVf1AD1c He suggests that all of the fat models will eventually red ring due to being stress tested at the factory. Not sure how true that is.

RIP Felix has a much better video that explains the cause of the failure. Factory stress isn't the cause. It was a bad design.

You misread, that's not what I wrote.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#54

Post by perching_aix »

6SixTy wrote: post #20
Novosell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you're not thinking of the PS3 or did both of them actually suffer the same issue?

Both of them experience the same issue. Though it's a yellow light instead of the ring on the Xbox.

IIRC the PS3 issues were a mix of the RSX die cracking and the NEC Tokin caps giving out, not a solder issue.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#55

Post by perching_aix »

hot_gril wrote: post #17
whalesalad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at this point is there any reason to use xb360 hardware? emulation on modern hardware has gotta be substantially better

Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. They're slow, glitchy, and/or hard to set up. Related to what the other commenter said, anyone who says these are good must have a lot of time to deal with it, whereas I just want the equivalent of sticking the disc into the console. GameCube is the newest thing I've had a decent experience emulating, and even that isn't 100% unless it's Melee…

> Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC.

How did you manage to achieve that? What specs are we talking?

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#56

Post by hot_gril »

perching_aix wrote: post #55
hot_gril wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. They're slow, glitchy, and/or hard to set up. Related to what the other commenter said, anyone who says these are good must have a lot of time to deal with it, whereas I just want the equivalent of sticking the disc into the console. GameCube is the newest thing I've had a decent experience emulating, and even that isn't 100% unless it's Melee…

> Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. How did you manage to achieve that? What specs are we talking?

10th gen i5(? might be another gen I forget, will check at home), 16GB RAM, RTX 2060ti, Win10

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#57

Post by tecleandor »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #41
mulmen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a R&D problem. Why the dig at the EU?

Why not blame the EU? It is just a well known fact that non-leaded soldier has inferior properties to leaded soldier, which require careful engineering to work around, and still remain somewhat unresolved. At this point, the directive may have caused more e-waste and environmental damage from part failures than the damage the original leaded soldier would have caused.

You should remember the bioaccumulative properties of lead.

Lead: The most extensively spread toxic environmental contaminant (2024): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B97803...

The Urban Lead (Pb) Burden in Humans, Animals and the Natural Environment (2022): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8812512/

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#58

Post by perching_aix »

hot_gril wrote: post #56
perching_aix wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. How did you manage to achieve that? What specs are we talking?

10th gen i5(? might be another gen I forget, will check at home), 16GB RAM, RTX 2060ti, Win10

Could you be a bit more specific regarding that CPU? That's a very wide range.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#59

Post by vekatimest »

com2kid wrote: post #24
hot_gril wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. They're slow, glitchy, and/or hard to set up. Related to what the other commenter said, anyone who says these are good must have a lot of time to deal with it, whereas I just want the equivalent of sticking the disc into the console. GameCube is the newest thing I've had a decent experience emulating, and even that isn't 100% unless it's Melee…

> Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. This is unfortunate as a decade ago Microsoft had an internal emulator for Xbox 360 that ran at near native speed. I am curious if that emulator is what it used to play Xbox360 games on newer x64 based Xbox models, or if they are using a different code base. Either way, technically it is possible for the experience to be good!

I think the 360 backwards compatibility is a mix of emulation and certain parts being disassembled & recompiled for x86 with some black magic.

edit: Here's an interview with platform lead Bill Stillwell that goes into a lot more detail https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2017-xbox-one-x-bac...

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#60

Post by mulmen »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #41
mulmen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a R&D problem. Why the dig at the EU?

Why not blame the EU? It is just a well known fact that non-leaded soldier has inferior properties to leaded soldier, which require careful engineering to work around, and still remain somewhat unresolved. At this point, the directive may have caused more e-waste and environmental damage from part failures than the damage the original leaded soldier would have caused.

> At this point, the directive may have caused more e-waste and environmental damage from part failures than the damage the original leaded soldier would have caused.

“May” is doing a lot of work there. Can you substantiate the claim that the risk of lead is lower than the switching cost?

Post reply on HN