Hacking the Xbox

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Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering
there was insufficient time to analyze the system for weaknesses. Either
that, or Microsoft knew about the TEA weakness and designed this back
door into the system to mitigate the risk of locking their FBL into
silicon. It seems rather doubtful that Microsoft intentionally included this
back door, since modifying the MCPX silicon is a very expensive
proposition (although the expense ended up on nVidia’s books). On the
other hand, complexity is hard to avoid. My advisor at MIT, Tom
Knight, once told me, “There are two kinds of designs in this world:
those that are useful, and those that you can formally prove to be
correct.” To some extent, the only way to ensure the security of a realworld
system is to make its details open (no security through obscurity!)
and subject the system to analysis from all angles. In a way, a thorough
analysis of Xbox security is being conducted at no expense to Microsoft,
thanks to the hacker community.
Profile: Andy Green (continued)
I was working for in the same light.
It was after this that I read about bunnie's hack on Slashdot. I
read about bunnie's methods with some tart emotions. My
main thoughts were that this was something that I could have
done, since I have been using the FPGAs that bunnie used
since 1989, admiration for the conciseness of the attack, and
dismay with myself that I had not been doing something equally
cool and interesting — and that matched with my philosophical
predilictions — with my time. Instead I was sitting there
reading Slashdot, drinking coffee, contributing nothing. (An
aside, I think this is a fairly common experience for many
Slashdot readers, to be a little jealous and challenged when
they read about someone else's cool hacks. I think it explains
the constant background noise there of jeering and questioning
why someone would want to do such a thing.)
Over the next few weeks I gathered as much information as I
could on the internals of the Xbox; Xboxhacker.net was crucial
for this. It’s also where I met Michael Steil as the Xbox
Linux project was starting. Pretty soon I was able to identify
interesting projects that I could contribute to, for example
the Milksop project. Again from this, with Surferdude's help, it
became possible for me to put together the very first clean
ROM which was able to boot and keep up the Xbox without
being reset. This later became the basis of the crom
1MB Linux and cromwell, the Xbox Linux clean ROM. After
the initial hacks and designs, I decided to work almost entirely
towards the Xbox Linux goal.
Can you tell us why you hack the Xbox?
Why? Everyone has different reasons, but for me it was my
comprehension of Microsoft's outrageous antitrust behaviour
— deny everything, appeal everything, delay everything,
and in the meanwhile, create and dump (for they are sold
at below cost) on the market millions of Microsoft-only PCs
— the Xbox. Since our representatives here in Europe and
the U.S. don't seem to care (perhaps, as was the case recently
in the EU, because they plan to go work for Microsoft
(continued)