Hacking the Xbox

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Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering
if billions of dollars were invested in trusted computing, only produce a
net result of no greater safety or privacy for consumers, while severely
curtailing consumers’ rights with poor content policy implementations.
The good news for trusted PC proponents is that shrinking feature sizes
in integrated circuits is driving greater integration throughout the PC.
Within a decade, today’s PC will fit on a single piece of silicon. Once the
RAM and the BIOS are fully integrated into a single piece of silicon,
hacking a system becomes much more difficult — but not impossible.
Focused Ion Beam (FIB) machines, a tool used by chip designers and
failure analysis labs, can cut and jumper nano-scale features. Another
upside for for trusted machine designers is that public key processors
could become so small and cheap to integrate into a chip that individual
chips, especially memory chips, could start using strong crypto to
authenticate and encrypt their I/O.
Another technology that could aid the implementation of trusted PCs is
integrated tamper-resistant or tamper-detecting features. For example, a
time-domain reflectometer (TDR) could be built into a chip’s I/O cells.
A TDR can detect the presence of an eavesdropper on a wire by
recognizing certain changes to the wire’s electrical properties. In addition
to the ability to detect eavesdroppers, integrated TDR devices are
desirable for high performance I/O since they can be used to calibrate
the drive impedance and equalization/pre-emphasis filters required for
multi-gigabit speed communications.
Concluding Thoughts
This book has taken you through a whistle-stop tour of Xbox hardware
hacking, from the basics of soldering and disassembling to the latest
projects and techniques. It has also introduced you to the social aspects
of Xbox hacking: the people who hack, and the interplay between
society, law, and hacking.
While the details of how to install a blue LED in an Xbox may be
irrelevant in a few years, the skills you learn executing the installation will
last a lifetime. Moreover, the social and legal issues confronting hackers
and consumers will extend beyond the Xbox and into every part of our
emerging information-centric way of life.
The material in this book is just a starting point; there is a world of
hardware out there waiting to be explored. I hope this book has provided
the novice readers with a strong starting point for becoming an
explorer, fixer, and innovator in a world increasingly filled with, controlled
by, and dependent upon electronics.
Happy hacking!
— bunnie@xenatera.com