A hack-proof Xbox 360?

by James Ransom-Wiley { Nov 9th 2005 at 4:00PM }

Not exactly. But according to a recent interview with the Lead Mechanical Engineer for Xbox 360, Jeff Reents, Microsoft is continuing its hack-proof campaign against modders, revealing that the outer casing of the Xbox 360 won't have any screws and will feature a number of tamper evident labels. So if you're a half-assed hacker that decides to crack open the box, but then decide you want to exchange it for a new one, good luck. Warranty voided, pal.

[Thanks, djk]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

J (The other one) @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Thats nothing new. They've done that on many a console. Most hackers could care less about warranty unless they break it. What if you send it in for repairs? Well this will certainly be fun.

yay @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

A hack proof 360....hahah. Keep dreaming Microsoft. The problem is that the more they talk about how it cannot be hacked, the more people will try to do it, and the sooner it will be done.

Evil Closet Monkey @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Since Microsoft has made no mention of the 360 being "hack proof", what is funny about their efforts? The work "hack" appears once in the interview, with "proof" never showing up for the party. Though trendy to laugh at Microsoft, common... let's at least make sure we understand the situation we are laughing at.

Todd H. @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

I bet some of those labels will end up on the net. Too funny...

Jody Anthony @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

As someone that actually read the post, i think its a good idea. But the title is a bit misleading. It's not so much about hacking the console as it is about an easy way to tell of tampering with the system. Kinda like nintendo and their security bits.

jc @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Anyone else think Jeff Reents may have used the X360's liquid cooling as his own personal bong one too many times?

Voiding the warranty is pretty much a given when you are hacking the unit, not a deterrant. I hope they have more up their tie-dyed colored sleeves to prevent hackability than just warranty stickers.

vc @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Evil Closet Monkey:

Microsoft has mentioned on more than one occasion that this console will be tough (if not impossible) to hack.

http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000990058291/ and http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000120057115/

Kevin @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

still has a usb port right?

Martez @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

How does the outer casing not having any screws make it more hack-proof? The front of my car dash doesn't have any screws, either- it must be impossible to mod!

ronnie @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

its funny becuase i think the xbox mod scene is going to be running for years, even with the new xbox out, its that strong.

Navstar @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Joystiq is suffering from some lazy writing. This whole "Hypothetical Question?" headline followed by a negation of the original question is a tactic used by local news stations.

"Is the desert wet?" "No, it's dry. So says Mr. X of company Z."

Quit trying to fill the headlines with attention grabbers.

Xlash @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

I agree... this title is only attention grabber. And it is not about hacking, but tampering with the hardware without voiding the warranty. Like if I care about the warranty if I open it up. Anyway, with the actual technology, one engineer needs to be very uncareful to brake his equipment... maybe while desoldering something, removing the coat out of chips etc,... But who would return a product with a MxPx without soldering and its coating!!!

Osiris @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

This is important news, Joystiq is doing it's job, and well.
I for one am interested to find out that they will being using annoying clip based cases like the PS2 V12 and onwards (slimline).
There will obviously be an easy way to open it, say with a special tool as those that carry out repairs would need to.

Jon Granada @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

The original Xbox had tamper-evident screws. You had to punch through two labels to get to them!

Alex @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

#13 "The original Xbox had tamper-evident screws. You had to punch through two labels to get to them!"

Hairdryer. Enough said. ;)

dak is back @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

it will probably be able to be "popped" open

but I wonder if u will be able to softmod it with splinter cell (splinter cell probably wont even work on the xbox 360)

David @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

0h, NO! N3W s7IcK3r TE(HNo1O6Y!

techie @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Unfortunately the so called "tamper evident labels" can work against you even if you didn't hack your Xbox. Any damage at all to the labels can be considered tampering or trying to hack the system and they can and will void your warranty. This happened to me on my current-gen xbox when it was last sent in for repairs. And no, I didn't try to hack or tamper with my Xbox, I have always had an extended warranty on it. But the people at MS decided it had been tampered with and voided my warranty and refused to repair my Xbox.

addi elding @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

dont they have to open the xbox360 to see if the "tamper evident labels" have been broken?

Jay @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

2 weeks after the Europe launch the germans will crack it. i'd bet money on it.

scoot @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Assuming MS isn't B.S.ing here, a console without screws would be a first. I'd think casual gamer's are gonna think twice before cracking open their precious consoles to get to the circuit board to install mods.

PS3 All over @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

I work at Walmart and I hacked an Xbox they had on display there. I can run Mac Os X on it... You heard it hear first.

I played the PS3 and I think its better than Xbox 360.

FierceDeityLink1 @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

"PS3 All over", the funny thing about your comment is that PearPC can run under Debian and Gentoo for the Xbox (albeit slowly)...

sonicinmobius @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

PS3 All over, stop lying. Why would a Kroger cashier be playing PS3?

someone @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

unless MS installs some sort of a self destruct mechanism or something, somebody is going to hack the 360 within the first day and a half or so, its going to happen sooner or later, like it or not

Jay Allen @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Oh, wonderful. So when the DVD drive on my 360 fails - as it did on my Xbox earlier this year - I can't buy a replacement and fix it myself? That's brilliant.

Nayr @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Does anyone else see what I see? Firstly, no doubt the security on ANY next-gen console will be tough. And if the Lead Mech Engineer says that it will be tough to hack it, then I would take his word for it...

Secondly, by making such a public statement and most likely encouraging hackers to give it a shot, they will sell more 360's. Why? Because you have to buy one before you can try and hack it... :p

Maybe they want people to buy the console to try and hack it. If a large number of would-be hackers buy consoles, but only some are successful in breaking it because of the high security, then it's a plus for MS in the console sales dep...

IronmanXRS2 @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

This actually reminds me of some funny memories. My friend Lenard back in SNES days would rent a SNES game, take out the guts, replace it with the guts of another SNES game, and then return the game like that. It wasnt with Blockbuster, it was actually a grocery chain we had down south here called Albertsons. This was his way of having all the top games. What an A-Hole. LOL

Daniel @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

MS has said that they know it'll be hacked eventually. I'm sure it will be difficult; you can do a lot of things when you design custom hardware that you can't do when just releasing software. And they've surely learned some lessons from looking at how the original Xbox was hacked.

I'm curious about what defenses they've come up with to stymie people with high-speed bus analyzers though. I suspect they've thought of something, especially since the Xbox's initial security code that runs at powerup was figured out by looking at the data that traveled over the bus. I suppose we won't know until someone figures it out and releases a mod chip.

RMF @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

"#13 "The original Xbox had tamper-evident screws. You had to punch through two labels to get to them!"

Hairdryer. Enough said. ;)"

Uh huh, maybe with the very early xbox's, but MS started using new stickers that were scored in a diamond pattern that were impossible to take off in one piece, and also impossible to stick back on as the edges of each diamond would fray to show a little silver edge.

Enough said...

RMF @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

"Oh, wonderful. So when the DVD drive on my 360 fails - as it did on my Xbox earlier this year - I can't buy a replacement and fix it myself? That's brilliant."

Why would you want to? If you're worried about voiding the warranty then surely that would mean that you could send it back to MS and have it repaired for free? Please, think before you post next time.

RMF @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Cyric @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Is not a bad bussiness hack a console and lose the waranty, in 5-10 games we save the price of the console. Microsoft more than any one should know there is no hack prof software or hardware. How many times they claim that windows was more secure and the next day any one discovers a new bug? The battle agains piracy, in my opinion, have to be beaten with lower game prices.

MrTroy @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Cyric:

Free is still better than 1 dollar.

Jake @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Hahahahahaha OMG there are void labels on that? Jeez I dont know how I'll get around that, I'm still trying to figure out how to remove them on my old xbox, and those hex screws are IMPOSSIBLE to get out. Good luck Mircrosoft, you've yet to dissapoint a hacker.

RMF @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Sorry about the quadruppel post.

Xbox 360 Hacks @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Certainly NOT hack-proof!

a hacker @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

you know if MS is so confident about the 360 being hack proof, why dont they hold some kind of a hacking contest. have like a $100 entry fee, then take all the entry fee money put it aside, and the first person to hack the 360 gets it all.

XBOX#1Hacker @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

You know, everyone that has posted these comments just wasted your time bullshiting about how the new xbox360 can and cant be modded because I already know the basics on how to mod the xbox360. All you do is copy the modded files from your old modded xbox, transfer it to your PC, then hook up the xbox360 to your PC and transfer all the mod files to the xbox and overwrite the system so it reads both xbox files and xbox360 files. Now you got your game copier and all your original files, such as your old emulation games and original xbox games, and its all done by a simple usb cable and crossover cable. Microsoft shoulda thought of that one before making public about the xbox360 hack impossible to do, and if what all I just said does not work, then I guess I was wrong......

Towner @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2610

Wow those lack of screws were a killer!

Additionally I cant work out is the previous poster is being sarcastic or ignorant? The 360 runs on an entire different instruction set architecture to the orginal xbox. You cant execute the same code on the 360. Obviously some tools are different to others but a lot if not all will need to be converted. Additionally the bios is now SMT 'd onto the board making it rather difficult to solder a chip too, unless you have an oven.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-mount_technology

Gomer @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Hack-proofing has little to do with the physical enclosure. Think of it more as anti-tamper, which is different than hack-proofing.

As for hack-proofing, a significant amount of work has apparantly gone into making the system hackproof by adding security features to the processor, which is really a system on a chip with multiple processors. One clue is here:

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEFpFlZApktdrRCUeP.php

And an even more detailed clue is here:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6957335.pdf

While nothing is 100% guaranteed to be hackproof, this bad boy looks like it will be difficult to crack, if I am understanding what they have done correctly.

Chris Ruter @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

I have a comment about the liquid cooling of the G5 processor. The liquid cooling of this processor is very similar to Apple's G5. My biggest thing with it is what if the thing starts to leak???? With the G5 tower you know if it's starting to leak (and yes some have) with this thing and as sealed as it's supposed to be how are you going to know till the water it it frys the board. I personally would wait for a while to get one and wait for all the bugs to be worked out. If this MS product has he same bugs the original XBox did (green screen of death, bad DVD drives, DOA etc.) there are going to be really pissed off people.
The hacking aspect of this machine looks intersting. If this is based on the PowerPC G5 processor one could quite possibly hack it be a Mac. So a possible $399.00 G5 for those of in the Apple side of the world.