The Times: Tech column - Hacking the Xbox/Friends Reunited clones
By David Rowan
FOR computer hackers such as "bunnie", the ultimate challenge of Microsoft's Xbox games console has nothing to do with playing The Sims or Mortal Kombat. The real fun lies in capturing the box itself - getting the console to do things that Microsoft never intended, thus defeating the great all-controlling giant of Redmond. Xbox hacking is a fast-growing sport, and one that is causing the company great concern. It sells the consoles at a loss, making its money on the software and online gaming charges - and so does not want hackers modifying the hardware so that it can run pirated games or the Linux operating system.
So Microsoft has taken a strong line against firms that sell "mod chips", which defeat (or "modify") Xbox's security system, allowing it to play unlicensed games. Last month David Rocci, a 22-year-old website owner from Virginia, was sentenced to five months' detention and ordered to pay a large fine for importing and selling Xbox mod chips through his isonews.com site. Microsoft has even joined forces with its rivals Nintendo and Sony in targeting Lik-Sang, a popular chip-seller based in Hong Kong. This, you see, is anything but a game.
So it will be interesting to see how the company treats "bunnie", who is about to publish a detailed instruction manual, Hacking the Xbox.The 270-page book has become the year's hottest publication among techies, taking 500 advance orders even though it is not out for two weeks. But, then, "bunnie" is not the stereotypical backroom hacker. A graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose PhD thesis was on supercomputer architecture, he was commissioned to write the book by the publisher John Wiley & Sons under his real name, Andrew Huang. But Wiley then got cold feet, and dropped the book over what Huang believes are legal fears over the US Digital Millennium Copyrights Act (DMCA), the much-criticised 1998 law designed to thwart piracy.
So he is publishing it himself, and selling it from his website, www.hackingthexbox.com. Huang insists that his book is educational, presenting material on cryptography, reverse engineering and security in a didactic fashion.
To claim that it is criminal, he says, is "like saying that breaking and entering is illegal, so you can't write a book on how locks work".
Huang argues that the "tinkering" he is encouraging leads to innovations and promotes a competitive marketplace. If Microsoft can stop people running their own codes on a piece of hardware, he says, it could force PC manufacturers to use chips that will run only Windows - and make it a crime to remove them. Microsoft's lawyers may take a more short-term view: corporations have increasingly been using the DMCA to suppress free speech that they claim harms their commercial interests.
If you do want to hack your console, be quick: Huang's book might not be around for long.
++++
ENOUGH OF the Friends Reunited clones already. The BBC is about to launch a Second World War veterans' version, the Jewish Chronicle is promoting Jewish Reunion, and there is even a Taliban Reunited ("find out what your old terrorist chums and captives are doing now" - not, you may guess, an entirely serious contender).
There are so many bandwagon-jumpers hoping to cash in that you can register with Classic Cars Reunited, Crooks Reunited, Forces Reunited, Lost Amigos (backpackers you met on your travels), roastbeef.co.uk (university friends) and even netfriends-reunited.com ("ever wondered what happened to an IRC friend?"). It's another internet bubble about to burst - but at least some day all the failed entrepreneurs will know how to re-establish contact with each other ...
(The Times, May 13 2003)
FOR computer hackers such as "bunnie", the ultimate challenge of Microsoft's Xbox games console has nothing to do with playing The Sims or Mortal Kombat. The real fun lies in capturing the box itself - getting the console to do things that Microsoft never intended, thus defeating the great all-controlling giant of Redmond. Xbox hacking is a fast-growing sport, and one that is causing the company great concern. It sells the consoles at a loss, making its money on the software and online gaming charges - and so does not want hackers modifying the hardware so that it can run pirated games or the Linux operating system.
So Microsoft has taken a strong line against firms that sell "mod chips", which defeat (or "modify") Xbox's security system, allowing it to play unlicensed games. Last month David Rocci, a 22-year-old website owner from Virginia, was sentenced to five months' detention and ordered to pay a large fine for importing and selling Xbox mod chips through his isonews.com site. Microsoft has even joined forces with its rivals Nintendo and Sony in targeting Lik-Sang, a popular chip-seller based in Hong Kong. This, you see, is anything but a game.
So it will be interesting to see how the company treats "bunnie", who is about to publish a detailed instruction manual, Hacking the Xbox.The 270-page book has become the year's hottest publication among techies, taking 500 advance orders even though it is not out for two weeks. But, then, "bunnie" is not the stereotypical backroom hacker. A graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose PhD thesis was on supercomputer architecture, he was commissioned to write the book by the publisher John Wiley & Sons under his real name, Andrew Huang. But Wiley then got cold feet, and dropped the book over what Huang believes are legal fears over the US Digital Millennium Copyrights Act (DMCA), the much-criticised 1998 law designed to thwart piracy.
So he is publishing it himself, and selling it from his website, www.hackingthexbox.com. Huang insists that his book is educational, presenting material on cryptography, reverse engineering and security in a didactic fashion.
To claim that it is criminal, he says, is "like saying that breaking and entering is illegal, so you can't write a book on how locks work".
Huang argues that the "tinkering" he is encouraging leads to innovations and promotes a competitive marketplace. If Microsoft can stop people running their own codes on a piece of hardware, he says, it could force PC manufacturers to use chips that will run only Windows - and make it a crime to remove them. Microsoft's lawyers may take a more short-term view: corporations have increasingly been using the DMCA to suppress free speech that they claim harms their commercial interests.
If you do want to hack your console, be quick: Huang's book might not be around for long.
++++
ENOUGH OF the Friends Reunited clones already. The BBC is about to launch a Second World War veterans' version, the Jewish Chronicle is promoting Jewish Reunion, and there is even a Taliban Reunited ("find out what your old terrorist chums and captives are doing now" - not, you may guess, an entirely serious contender).
There are so many bandwagon-jumpers hoping to cash in that you can register with Classic Cars Reunited, Crooks Reunited, Forces Reunited, Lost Amigos (backpackers you met on your travels), roastbeef.co.uk (university friends) and even netfriends-reunited.com ("ever wondered what happened to an IRC friend?"). It's another internet bubble about to burst - but at least some day all the failed entrepreneurs will know how to re-establish contact with each other ...
(The Times, May 13 2003)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, May 13, 2003
<< Home