We're but simple bloggers, unfamiliar with the illicit, seedy underbelly of pirating video games, so we won't pretend to understand how all of this works. What we do know is that the demo for
Guitar Hero III – which came bundled in with
Tony Hawk Proving Ground and the December issue of OXM – isn't on the Xbox Live Marketplace but if you burn this magical disc you can play it on your regular old 360. No soldering, no flashing ROMs, or any of that other stuff we're vaguely familiar with from peeking around inappropriate internet sites. Just burn and shred. Now that we've got your attention, here's the track list for the curious amongst you.
(Page 1) Reader Comments
i don't have a guitar yet though, gotta wait for the full game
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There we go. All fixed.
Pearl jam? outside Jeremy and Do the evolution most of their songs are quite lame sorry if I offended any fan but that's my opinion.
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Hackers, modders, et al could look through the code on this disc and maybe discover something that could allow them to run non-demo games from dvd-r.
Or maybe they can't. I don't know. Neither do you.
Game discs, demo discs, dashboard updates and the Xbox back-comp emulator are, furthermore, signed such that the console can detect any modifications to the executable, so not even trial-and-error experimentation will work. Game discs do not have signed data, hence the reason behind the original King Kong exploit working via a security hole in the way the X360 handled shader fragments, which has since been corrected. Demo discs, dashboard updates and the Xbox back-comp emulator also have signed data, so you can't even edit that.
The only known ways to run unsigned code on the Xbox 360 involve timing-specific exploits during the (few) times that it's running in Supervisor mode, so any hacking attempts via modifying demos will be met with failure. Period.
You state that the code is encrypted, therefore it is unmodifiable. Actually, that's wrong. The reason it is unmodifiable is because it is signed. Encryption doesn't actually preclude you from putting other code on (although it may make it very difficult). The digital signature however, does prevent you from putting any code on. Even if you could look at the code on this disc (and others), you can't make your own payload that the console will run, because you cannot generate a digital signature that matches your code.
I didn't create this system, but I'm sure it works like this:
All code to be run is submitted to Microsoft.
MS looks at it and makes sure it isn't exposing any security holes (that the code won't run other, unsigned code, for example).
If they approve of the code, they then digitally sign it.
(Here the speculation begins)
For normal games, MS signs it with a certificate that will only let the code run if the code is resident on a copy protected disc.
For other things, like these demos, they can sign it with a different certificate that will let the code run from burned discs or probably even from memory cards and such.
MS would never sign a regular game with this certificate, because they don't want the games to work from copied discs. And there's no way to transmute one form of signature into another.
As MooglyGuy says, there's no way to modify the code and still have it run, unless you can figure out how to break the hash system used for the MAC. They probably use SHA-1 or SHA-256, and those are incredibly difficult to break right now.
I still think this system does represent a minor security issue. If you can find an exploit in this code that has been signed so that you can trick it into running unsigned code, then anyone can burn a copy of this disc to use as the "trigger" for the exploit and there's nothing MS can do to stop the replication of this disc. Whereas if people find an exploit in a regular game (like the one found in the Bond game used for soft-modding original Xboxes), MS can stop replication of that game and limit the exposure somewhat.
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While Rock Band is new, unknown, and could be considered rather expensive.
I personally like Rock Band better, but GH3 will undoubtedly outsell Rock Band
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J/K
No I'm not.
Yes I am.
No I'm not...
Really.
MUHAHHHAHAHAH!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
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You can rip your xbla games off of your 360s hard drive with xplorer360, burn them to a disk, and they'll run (in demo mode if you don't own the game), cause they're signed.
Unless a new hypervisor exploit is found in this game (like the one that was in king kong), I doubt that this will be any help to xbox hackers.
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http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5OX44D2U
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word is this is in OXM too?
which issue?
cause maybe i'll dust off my collection of demo DVDs and save a blank CD.
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Overall impressions- not terribly fond of the art style but glad to see the rest of the band is actually doing stuff and not just cycling animations without much care for the music. The loading quotes suck, note charts are good, and The Metal needs its audio re-balanced.
There's talk of using this for custom soundtracks but that will likely be a while.
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The drive modchips trick the 360 into thinking it's a pressed DVD instead of a DVD-R, and other stuff with the security sector from pressed disks.
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The real problem must have to do with signed code. :¬( I hate DRM bullshit. Looks like my Xbox 1 will remain my primary media center.
Though, unfortunately, we also don't have access to the SDK for the 360. Linux is done by breaking out using the King Kong shader exploit.
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Holy crap the Metal made my hand cry. Not recommended on expert for anybody who doesn't have a grasp of HOs and POs.
Even Flow was fun to play also, the other songs were throwaways.
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Megaupload isn't working.
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Microsoft publicized this functionality before the 360 even launched. It's nothing new.
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http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/20/xbox-live-arcade-games-on-a-cd-r-dvd-r/
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The game did freeze at one point and after that my 360 was having major issues booting after i hit the power button to "reset it". Would keep getting stuck at the 360 logo screen. Scared the living bejesus out of me. Left it off for a few minutes and switched it back on and it was fine (i hope).
Not sure if the demo caused it, or my machine is heading towards the red rings of death... either way GH3 looks like an insta-purchase, especially since Rock Band won't be out until next year (here in Australia).
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This looks considerably better, plays smooth (and I'm happy they didn't dick with the Multiplier after all), and is everything I want-slash-need.
Was it just for me, or does the demo kick you out after four songs? And did anyone notice the legal bits where "Activision only supports the use of the official, Activision-branded guitar controllers and the controller included with the system"?
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