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How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

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Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#91

Post by alexklarjr »

jchw wrote: post #56

Microsoft really seemed to be ahead of the curve with console security. They really thought this through back in 2005 or so, to the point where clearly, they knew people would hack the drives to rewrite the serial number. It's probably for the best that they never actually did anything about the knowledge that gave them, but they clearly stayed a step ahead of the game. As much as I hate it, their actions show a grea…

Xbone is not hacked because nobody care about essentially a boring pc without any memorable games. It will remain in history as another Microsoft marketing disaster. One day it will eventually and silently destroyed to be emulated like all ancient arcades and microcomputer games protections. Every protection can and will be broken. Regarding unsuccessful money grab, Idea that Microsoft minds forsaw that people will want to upgrade their boxes with cheap generic parts and that must be punished is indeed new, no car manufacturers never did anything like that since 90s.

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#92

Post by easton »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #52
robotnikman wrote: post #14

I thought I remember there being adapters which allowed you to use regular 2.5inch hard drives on the xbox 360. Maybe my mind is just tricking me again though.

There was the USB official setup later, but you could also find a hard drive of the same model and flash firmware from a 360 drive onto it. So yes, but not just any drive.

I did this, I remember there being some fairly common laptop hard drive on the list because I found it laying around at home. There was a live cd to boot off of to format it and everything. Memories...

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#93

Post by EMIRELADERO »

Jerrrry wrote: post #70
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer that platforms are fully open because it would force game studios and app developers to implement good security that doesn't rely on the client being unhackable.

so you want an unhackable, but fully open, client. zero sense.

No, I want the client to not be able to hack the game experience for other users.

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#94

Post by ska »

jbverschoor wrote: post #19

Of all components, a disk is the only thing that “regularly” fail, that become too small, and have no other security impact, no profit margin (I think) It’s idiotic MS took this route. And what’s the downside/risk for MS? Nothing.. if the Xbox doesn’t work anymore, just don’t give any support on that disk

> It’s idiotic MS took this route.

According to article, it let them sell commodity hard drives with 3x markup. There are words for that, but "idiotic" probably isn't one of them.

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#95

Post by haneefmubarak »

progbits wrote: post #89

I couldn't find what is the size of the RSA key used. Any chance it is small enough to be broken today with bunch of cloud instances and few $100 [1] to spare? It was almost 20 years after all. Of course cloning another disk is simpler and more practical, but it might be fun to eg. have custom logos on unmodded console. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/break...

Wild guess: since the field given in the article is 256 bytes and the signature is probably just padded to the same size as the key, it's probably 2048 bits which is not really easily crackable (any key-specific flaws notwithstanding).

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#96

Post by EatonZ »

imadr wrote: post #57

The articles says that the security sector is RSA-signed using a private key only Microsoft possesses, what if you also change the public key used for verification that is stored in the console?

The key is inside of the hypervisor. Not changeable if you want to retain your unmodded status.

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#97

Post by ok123456 »

extasia wrote: post #3
everyone wrote: post #2

I will never understand why people buy that locked down, proprietary, DRM infested shit (gaming consoles, "smart" appliances, smartphones, apple stuff etc.) in the first place. .. I would rather have nothing.

What's the alternative? Rub sticks together?

General purpose computing.

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#98

Post by EatonZ »

nottorp wrote: post #83

Why would they care if my hard drive is genuine? For the PS3, PS4 and PS5 i just bought a hard drive (ssd for the ps5) matching their specs, installed it inside and gamed on. For the xbox you have to buy hard drives from Microsoft? Edit: please don't tell me about usb drives hanging off your console. I don't like stuff hanging off my console.

Microsoft also knows if you have USBs connected to your console (: If any are connected, it will report back the sizes.

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#99

Post by psychphysic »

stefan_ wrote: post #85
jchw wrote: post #56

Microsoft really seemed to be ahead of the curve with console security. They really thought this through back in 2005 or so, to the point where clearly, they knew people would hack the drives to rewrite the serial number. It's probably for the best that they never actually did anything about the knowledge that gave them, but they clearly stayed a step ahead of the game. As much as I hate it, their actions show a grea…

This was not a security feature at all, it wasn't securing anything? This is purely a feature to allow Microsoft to resell hard drives at 3x the price.

It secured a fat profit.

Re: How the Xbox 360 knows if your hard drive is genuine

#100

Post by slezakattack »

Interesting post but was really hoping to understand why some of my saves wouldn't transfer to other 360 consoles. Back when the "red ring of death" was more common, I would be issued a replacement console. When I snapped my hard drive back in and turned on Ninja Gaiden 2, I wouldn't be able to continue my progress. I had the unfortunate luck of this happening several times to me and I eventually quit playing that game.

Years and years later, I worked with someone who used to be at a gaming company and he claimed that apparently it was a quality assurance requirement from Microsoft in order to be published..

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