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

tomshardware.com

261–270 of 311 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I looked it up; Saddam Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006 and the ps3 launched on Nov 11, 2006 in Japan and Nov 17, 2006 in the US. So, technically, he was alive for the launch.

That factoid has the ingredients for an awesome conspiracy theory ;-)

in case you don't check up again, i did find this https://web.archive.org/web/20041120084657/http://arrakis.nc...

And in my mind the whole story was a publicity stunt, considering the political wind at the time and the place that broke the story; which was then quoted at me in college.

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically if someone has physical access to device, its game over. You can do things like efuses that basically brick devices if something gets accessed, but that becomes a matter of whether the attacker falls for the trap.

> Basically if someone has physical access to device, its game over. It took more than a decade to exploit this vulnerability and even then there are fairly trivial countermeasures that could have been used to prevent it (and that are implemented in other platforms.) Nothing is unhackable, but it requires a very peculiar definition of "game over". (And as others have pointed out: only early versions of this Xbos One…

The incentives to hack the XOne were few. Easy sideloading. No exclusives. Not a great performance per dollar ratio either. It is the opposite of Nintendo consoles if you think about it, and nintendo consoles are notorious for having a really quick homebrew scene.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe servers actually have this level of hardware protection to be honest. Physical protection, as someone else pointed out, on the other hand. If hacking the xbox goes wrong, the hacker will short out the console. If hacking Azure goes wrong, the hacker will get shot.

Azures physical servers actually use a similar technology apparently. They both have some kind of proprietary HSM module that stores keys on the device and is resistant to tampering. I've read that Azure servers actually break this protection when removed from the rack so the server is made entirely useless if it's removed.

This is not just Azure (although the proprietary bit is true, that's basically souped-up Pluton), but basically most high-end HSMs deployments, including at major could providers (Google Titanium, AWS CloudHSM). There is even a built-in battery to ensure this happens (https://docs-cybersec.thalesgroup.com/bundle/v2.21-cdsp-cm/p...; https://nshielddocs.entrust.com/security-world-docs/hsm-user...).

I have even heard of a major cloud service mandating absurd earthquake-proofing (to prevent any movements inside the datacenter and triggering an HSM reset) but I cannot find any verification regarding this (maybe this is ultimately an urban legend).

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great point. As a geek I used to think those details don't matter, but it turns out language shapes society and how humans think way more than I understood. We need to catch up on this because the people who know how to use language for propagandizing don't have the best intentions in mind. But using the original term is not enough. We need to combat their word-twisting by upping them. We need a way to convey…

Sideloading should be called installing, and installing from the store should be called jailloading.

Jailoading is quite catchy, although it does have a "Micro$oft" and "Microslop" feel. Like more an insult than a word made to be used daily.

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

#265
post #174

> Whether PC users, our core readership, will be interested in actually emulating Xbox One, looks unlikely. The 2013 system’s game library is largely overlapped in better quality on the PC platform. And this explains why it's stayed unhacked so long. There was very little incentive to hack the system when the games are all playable on a PC. Pirates, cheaters, archivists, and hackers could just go there. Microsoft's b…

There is this general vibe online that the newer generation xboxen are either bad, worse than playstation, or a straight up failure. My series x, combined with gamepass, is by a very large margin the most at-home-entertainment bang I have gotten for my buck. Before then I had what could be regarded as a "vintage" gaming PC: 1st gen i7 (nehalem?), a gts 450 and some amount of ram. An upgrade (read: full replacement) w…

> gamepass made it all a total steal

Doing the math i can't find this to be true. As some one that has honed my taste in games, and have a large steam library, I don't spend as much money on games as game pass cost.

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

#266
post #265
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this general vibe online that the newer generation xboxen are either bad, worse than playstation, or a straight up failure. My series x, combined with gamepass, is by a very large margin the most at-home-entertainment bang I have gotten for my buck. Before then I had what could be regarded as a "vintage" gaming PC: 1st gen i7 (nehalem?), a gts 450 and some amount of ram. An upgrade (read: full replacement) w…

> gamepass made it all a total steal Doing the math i can't find this to be true. As some one that has honed my taste in games, and have a large steam library, I don't spend as much money on games as game pass cost.

With the recent price changes the calculus changes for sure. Even though I live in Europe now, my subscription is stil set up in South Africa. So I used to pay the equivalent of €10 per month for Ultimate, now it's €18/mo.

I think if I were forced to relocate my subscription and pay the full real price (€30/mo), I will probably cancel and buy a €90 game evey quarter or something.

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

#267
post #258
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this general vibe online that the newer generation xboxen are either bad, worse than playstation, or a straight up failure. My series x, combined with gamepass, is by a very large margin the most at-home-entertainment bang I have gotten for my buck. Before then I had what could be regarded as a "vintage" gaming PC: 1st gen i7 (nehalem?), a gts 450 and some amount of ram. An upgrade (read: full replacement) w…

> when our 3 month old baby is settled for the night Seemed a credible comment till that point! (/s) Congrats :-)

Thanks, we are definitely in the 'if it's this easy we should have another one!'. She's been a treat so far and from what I've heard from other parents, very easy.

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

#268

> Whether PC users, our core readership, will be interested in actually emulating Xbox One, looks unlikely. The 2013 system’s game library is largely overlapped in better quality on the PC platform. And this explains why it's stayed unhacked so long. There was very little incentive to hack the system when the games are all playable on a PC. Pirates, cheaters, archivists, and hackers could just go there. Microsoft's b…

No it doesn’t explain it. This is legitimately a difficult target. Did you watch the talk?

The people that MS hired to make and break this were top notch, and there is definitely incentive to maintain control over a content platform. This dude has been at this for /years/. I’ve been a fly on the wall on all sides to observe this.

There has been a lot of interest in underground / pirate communities to hack this, but that’s not the only reason why people hack things.

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

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has no relation to hubris whatsoever if the "unhackable" label is not something self-proclaimed at launch but something descriptively applied by other people who were unable to hack it. Nobody would have snickered if the Titanic were described as unsinkable by people who had been trying to sink it for 10 years.

> Nobody would have snickered if the Titanic were described as unsinkable by people who had been trying to sink it for 10 years. Pedantic: I'm sure somebody would have snickered about "unsinkable" if the Titanic sank after 10 years. Pragmatic: if the "unsinkable" Titanic lasted 10 years (or at least to profitability) before being sunk by people intending to sink it, that might certainly count as being "unsinkable" fo…

And they believed their own bullshit.

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

#270
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the very strict interpretation probably nothing is unhackable, just not hacked yet. But one should also be pragmatic about what "unhackable" means in context. Without the power of hindsight, a consumer device that stayed unhacked for ~13 years can be reasonably called unhackable during this time.

[flagged]

People should use their smarts and common sense to qualify statements. LLMs need a page of context, explanation and disclaimers so they maybe understand the meaning and intention.

> calling a safe uncrackable because nobody showed up with the right tools

The tools used for the hack (like voltage glitching) were there since before the first Xbox but nobody had the skills to apply them in a way that defeated the protections. There was a lot of interest in doing it but everyone who tried even just for the fame failed. I wouldn't fault anyone for calling it uncrackable, same as if a safe stayed impossible to open for decades or more.

If you want the "strictest interpretation", the useless one if you ask me, then only universal laws are immovable (maybe?), everything else is a matter of cost, time, etc. An entire category of words and expressions would have to be wiped from the vocabulary unless their meaning can be proven all the way to the heat death of the universe.

The pragmatism is that when someone calls a console unhackable, they mean it today, within a reasonable timeframe, for all intents and purposes. I don't think anyone realistically expects the "unhackable" console to stay so forever, only in the reasonable proximity of when it was said.

> Most hacks are about cost, not possibility

What about the other hacks which are about possibility? How would you go about proving something is hackable without hacking it? Is something "hackable" if you haven't proved it?

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