[Am-info] Re: FC: Why did the Neo Project halt work on hacking Microsoft's Xbox?

[Gene Gaines]

AM-INFO,

First of 3 emails from Declan McCullagh's Politech list.

Gene
gene.gaines@gainesgroup.com



> ----- Forwarded message from Eric Cordian <emc@artifact.psychedelic.net> -----

> From: Eric Cordian <emc@artifact.psychedelic.net>
> Subject: The Microsoft Xbox Key
> To: cypherpunks
> Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:37:49 -0800 (PST)

> Slashdot is reporting that The Neo Project, a distributed computing
> effort, has ceased trying to factor Microsoft's Xbox binary signing key,
> due to "legal reasons," and the fact that many of their current
> participants don't want to be soiled by association with something having
> a nefarious reputation.

> The Xbox public RSA key is 2048 bits in length, and its digits may be
> found at http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/articles.php?aid=200235404321

> Michael Robertson, the Lindows CEO, is funding two $100k prizes for Linux
> on the Xbox.  The first was to run Linux on a modded Xbox, and the second
> is to devise some method of running Linux on an unmodded Xbox, for which
> factoring the aforementioned RSA key is one satisfactory approach amongst
> several.

> The Microsoft Xbox is internally an Windows 2000 box, with a 733 mhz 0.18
> micron Coppermine Mobile Celeron, 64 MB of DDR RAM on two high speed
> channels, a 10 GB disk, custom nVidia GPU, Ethernet, 4 USB ports, a 5x
> DVD-ROM drive, and a Dolby capable audio processor, all at a lovely price
> point of $199.

> It is said that Microsoft loses money on every one sold, and the box would
> certainly make a lovely Linux box or Web Server providing you could run
> something other than Microsoft-signed binaries on it.

> You can of course run anything on your Xbox if you modchip it, but this
> requires taking it apart, voiding the warranty, getting permanently
> blacklisted for Microsoft's online gaming services, and other bad things.

> Also, only a tiny fraction of Xbox owners are going to bother modchipping
> their systems, and for the Xbox to become a popular general purpose
> computer, the ability to just burn any software you want on a DVD and cram
> it in the slot on an unmodified Xbox is required.

> Ignoring for the moment that The Neo Project had zero chance of factoring
> a 2048 bit key using publicly available algorithms, their caving under
> imagined legal pressure strikes me as a really bad precedent.

> Microsoft, an illegal monopoly in the area of computer operating systems,
> is attempting to garner a share of the gaming market.  To this end, they
> are selling at below their cost, a robust well-built low-end PC at an
> extremely attractive price.  In order to prevent this box from perturbing
> their core monopoly business of selling operating systems to manufacturers
> of similar computers, they are shipping the box as a sealed unit, not
> designed to be opened by the consumer, and they have rigged the OS to only
> execute binaries signed by them.

> Now, it strikes me that Microsoft has absolutely no legal right to prevent
> me from running any program I choose on hardware that I OWN, and doing any
> reverse engineering necessary to achieve this goal.

> This isn't like reverse engineering software, which I don't really own,
> but merely have a license to use under certain conditions.  It isn't like
> breaking copy protection on a copyrighted work either.

> It's like buying a trunk at a rummage sale, and having a set of keys made
> so you can open it without damaging it, to see what's inside, and to use
> it in the future for purposes a trunk is suited for.

> Before this silly notion that writing programs and running them on an Xbox
> which one owns is somehow illegal gathers steam, I think it would be real
> useful if an organization like the EFF could issue an opinion, written by
> a real lawyer, stating that people have every right to run their own code
> on their own Xbox.  And furthermore, that reverse engineering neccessary
> to achieve this goal, like factoring the public RSA key for the Xbox, is a
> perfectly legitimate activity, and has nothing to do with some other
> things having a bad reputation, like cracking copyright protection, or
> making illegal copies of licensed commercial software. 



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