Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss' • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#181

Post by rustyhancock » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 10:45 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #82

giobox wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other major incentive for hacking the console Microsoft removed was for the first time on a modern mainstream home console to allow side loading of homebrew code/emulators etc. The console supported a developer mode that allowed side loading of third party applications, so folks could get emulators and other traditionally "banned" content on the console through an officially supported route. There's a great prese…

You are 100% correct but they started clamping down on people using Dev mode strictly for emulators and homebrew. So here we are.

In their defense, they clamped down following lobbying (and pressure) from Nintendo IIRC.

Part of me also thinks that Microsoft were so forward with offering what was basically a test kit because they were confident in their security.

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#182

Post by client4 » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 10:51 PM UTC

The RE//verse conference has very high signal to nosie for reverse engineering content and attendees. I'd highly recommend it if it's an area you're interested in.

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#183

Post by philistine » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 10:54 PM UTC

Keyframe wrote: post #148

pjmlp wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what killed Linux support on PS as well, Sony was disappointed with what was being done with PS2Linux, instead of indie titles. Hence why PS3 Other OS no longer did hardware acceleration.

Linux on playstation was a play by Sony not to have customs like on a toy but as a more favorable computer merchandise. They didn't care.

Linux on Playstation was the final hubris of Ken Kutaragi to have his insane CPU design take over computing. Kutaragi envisaged the PS3 becoming a standard hardware platform similar to the PC but fully controlled by Sony. That was their goal with the PS3, they said so themselves time and time again. The second Kutaragi was removed from power over at Playstation, they closed the Other OS function.

It was the last time that a Japanese company made a fundamentally Japanese move.

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#184

Post by philistine » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 11:02 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #117

louhike wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing PC does not have are the Xbox/Xbox 360 updated games. Microsoft did a great job of making the old games playable on Xbox One with better resolution, performance, etc. It would be nice to play the exclusive games of those consoles on PC through this.

It might be coming as per GDC news, lets see.

They're not going to bring over Xbox 360 emulation. This thing is dependent on the specific CPU and GPU of the Xbox One and Series consoles. They've lost their appetite for emulation and have reassigned the whole team dedicated to it.

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#185

Post by Retr0id » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 11:06 PM UTC

deepriverfish wrote: post #153

has there ever been a modern game console post 90s, that's really unhackable?

There's no such thing as unhackable, only "not yet hacked".

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#186

Post by monocasa » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 11:10 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #179

monocasa wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were different customs for different countries targetted with different tactics. Ya basic was only one front in that war.

Sure, if we disregard that PS2 Linux came almost two years later, was only sold via Internet, added an extra 500 euros on top, although it got discounted into 300 euros at the end of PS2 lifetime. I own one such kit.

That doesn't factor into it, because the tariffs, bans, etc they were trying to circumvent weren't dependent on the software shipping with the device in that case, nor the separate price of the software, nor were they even necessarily primarily targeting Europe.

Each of these schemes had different sets of regulatory checkboxes they were trying to tick, and so had very different end products.

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#187

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 11:24 PM UTC

babypuncher wrote: post #55

darknavi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> assuming they continue making Xbox It sounds like that's the plan: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/03/11/project-helix-buildin...

The new Xbox is going to be a specialized PC running Windows with full access to third party game stores (Steam, Epic, etc). It won't need to be "hacked" because anyone will already be able to run any software they want on it.

> It won't need to be "hacked" because anyone will already be able to run any software they want on it.

The software that I want to run on it is a modified hypervisor. :-)

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#188

Post by msla » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 11:27 PM UTC

xnyan wrote: post #85

msla wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't. Console makers have these locked-down little systems with all the security they can economically justify... embedded in an arbitrarily-hostile environment created by people who have no need to economically justify anything. It's completely asymmetrical and the individual hackers hold most of the cards. There's no "this exploit is too bizarre" for people whose hobby is breaking consoles, and if even one of…

> You can't It's a moot point, they are not trying to prevent it. They only need to buy enough time to sell games in the lifespan of the hardware, which they did. > all the security they can economically justify... It seems like they did a perfect job, it lasted long enough to protect Microsoft game profits.

Well, they had better hope nobody notices how to use this flaw to chain into another one in the current generation.

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#189

Post by gautamcgoel » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 11:30 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #91

Amazing talk. Here's a quick writeup if you don't want to watch the full hour or don't have enough hardware knowledge to follow what Markus is talking about, as he goes very fast, in some cases too fast to even let you read the text on his slides. It's mandatory to use the pause key to understand the full details even if you have a deep understanding of every relevant technology, of which he explains none. The Xbox u…

Just wanted to say this is an amazing technical writeup, thanks for sharing.

Re: Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'

#190

Post by iso-logi » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 11:43 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #39

au8er wrote: post #25

This just again shows that given enough time skill, and resources, any security is pointless if the attacker has physical access to the device.

I think this might be a good example of the fundamental misunderstanding of what "security" even is. It is never a binary state. Never was. And I think a lot of people don't really grok that and think that if a security block can be overcome in some manner then the thing is not secure . Eventually Fort Knox will succumb to the unrelenting arrow of time and some future visitors will simply step over the crumbling wall…

I never hear about Grok being used over Codex or Claude on this site, I don't really hear about new Grok models or updates yet people love using Grok as a way to communicate meaning, are you guys just on Twitter too much?