HD Loader

[neonpolaris]

A couple weeks ago, a team released info for looks like a dvd-rom emulator for the Wii that reads images off of a hard drive.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/16/matrix-wiizii-mod-hooks-to-external-sata-hdd-for-speedy-iso-load/

Now, I'm not saying it would be trivial, but would it be technically possible to make such a thing for the 360?  Considering how pretty much everything about the drives firmwares are understood, what other major roadblocks would there be?

[Arakon]

it is possible to do, but not without a major hardware addon.
also, the wiizii is not confirmed to be real so far, with the matrix team being "gone" for months already and no official confirmation or info from them.

[gigabite]

I know this has been discussed previously etc...but how major and why more info, would a vulnerable box be needed ?

I hope the WiiZii gets released pls pls pls, FLatMii sucks

gigabite

[neonpolaris]

Of course you'd have to add on major hardware, I wouldn't expect just to flash something and boom you can store on your Xbox HD.  I was thinking more of an addon sitting next to the xbox (or maybe in place of the DVD-rom?) with the user's own HD attached to it. Not the xbox's drive.  It would attach via the SATA cable that would normally go to the DVD-Rom.  Some kind of switch to go between the real DVD-Rom and the fake one, like the Blaster 360.  I suppose an LCD display at least to be able to select the ISO.

Since this would be (from the xbox's view) essentially a DVD-rom replacement, I don't see how a vulnerable box would be needed.  We'd still need the key from the original drive, but that should be all.

---

If the Flatmii works, then the WiiZii is certainly feasible, since it would use the same concept.  Whether it is real, we'll just have to wait and see.

---

Man, I wish I had time to really contribute to this kind of thing.  Between work and college, I barely see my 360.  The arduino is my full extent of microcontroller programming.  (It's awesome)  It would take me years to try and learn enough to make a SATA DVD-ROM emulator in hardware.

You guys ever think that the lessons learned from the 360 would lead to an uncrackable next gen? (Xbox 720 or whatever)  They've plugged the timing attack, but not the dvdrom or HD firmware vulnerabilities.  Is it somehow impossible for them to seal these cracks?  Sign the drive's firmware with the CPU key?

[Arakon]

then they'd have to send the cpu key to the drive for it to decrypt its own firmware, which could be captured and would in turn lead to a bigger vulnerability.
they did almost stop the drive vulnerability with the lite-on.. if they disable the serial port too, we'd have no way to get the key and that would be the end of it for a long time.

[gigabite]

Of course you'd have to add on major hardware, I wouldn't expect just to flash something and boom you can store on your Xbox HD.

Yeah I know that

Would there be anyone willing to take up this project (assuming it really is feasible) ? It's not much on my part but I can try help, I can get cheap SATA HDD's or any computer part for that matter, I own 3 360's 2 which are vulnerable (1 which is completely hacked) have 2 infectus's and an LCD (from the LCD project) and the rest of it.

Get the pens and pencils and get down to business !!

gigabite

[neonpolaris]

I know I'm only asking for wild speculation, but why didn't they disable the serial port?  Why hasn't each new drive completely fixed the previous one's vulnerability?  Are they trying and just not as good at securing as others are at cracking?

Besides disabling the serial on the liteon, why on earth does the liteon even spit out it's key over serial at all?  It doesn't need to send it to the console, in fact it can't over serial anyway.  If there's not a technical reason, it seems like a big programming mistake.  All I can think of is for MS's own repair facilities, so they can change out a broken dvd-rom without replacing the motherboard as well, with minimal effort.  (Save time and money)

[n00bpwner360]

I know I'm only asking for wild speculation, but why didn't they disable the serial port?  Why hasn't each new drive completely fixed the previous one's vulnerability?  Are they trying and just not as good at securing as others are at cracking?

Besides disabling the serial on the liteon, why on earth does the liteon even spit out it's key over serial at all?  It doesn't need to send it to the console, in fact it can't over serial anyway.  If there's not a technical reason, it seems like a big programming mistake.  All I can think of is for MS's own repair facilities, so they can change out a broken dvd-rom without replacing the motherboard as well, with minimal effort.  (Save time and money)

Ya I think Microsoft either did it for repair purposes, or just forgot to take the key over serial feature out, it might have been in debug firmwares or something, and they forgot to take it out.

I would presume it is used for 1 of 2 things.

1. Initial programming. Initially, maybe the chip is programmed over TX and RX, and then the two resistors are removed to disable the functionality (well the hookup to the power connector at least) And the RX is used to confirm the firmware flash. (But then why does the drive still able to read out the key over RX?)

2. Think of it like this, Microsoft gets a console for repair, it is a LiteOn DVD drive, and it is shot, they need the key out of it to program a new drive....I don't know if Microsoft can, but they probably can extract the DVD key from the NAND thru the 360's software or something...I don't know, but anyways, it would probably be easier to  hookup to the RX point of the drive and get the key that way, so I think it is for the ease of Microsoft in repairing that the key over serial is still enabled.

Look at it this way though, even if the key goes out over serial, and we can get the key and spoof other drives to LiteOn, there are still things in the LiteOn firmware (something about SS spoofing or something that is different for the LiteOn) so that if you have a drive with iXtreme 1.4 (at the time 1.4) and spoofed as LiteOn, that Microsoft can detect your drive. So the key over the serial isn't THAT big of a problem. So while you can get the key, and spoof another drive with 1.4, they can still detect it and ban you.

I think Microsoft/Mediatek/whoever messed up in not embedding the SPI flash on the die of the Mediatek chip. Since it is just on top of it and removable, (with decapping the chip) it can be soldered up to and read out...if they implemented the SPI flash onto the die, there would be no wires to solder to it, and no way to read it out...Currently, we still can't read out the LiteOn fw, (except right after you flash it, but that is pointless because you have to erase the flash to flash it so we can never read out the original LiteOn firmware.) so Microsoft/Mediatek did get something right, it is impossible via software (at least so far) to read out the LiteOn firmware. You have to erase the chip, then you can write something to it, but you can only read it out right after you write to the chip, I think after rebooting the drive you can't ever read out the firmware again, which is very smart, write the firmware, read it back to confirm it, then of course the drive gets powered off, someone buys the 360 with the drive, and can't read out the firmware, I like it. You can still erase the flash and write a new firmware to it, if you were to repair the drive and hook it up to a new motherboard or something, but hackers can't (via software) read out the firmware. But you still need to be able to read out the key somehow (for repair purposes)...maybe via the drive, or via the 360 NAND which I'll comment on later.

So in conclusion, I think if Microsoft/Mediatek embedded the SPI flash on the die of the Mediatek chip, the key over serial wouldn't be that big of a problem, because we could have never extracted the LiteOn firmware, (decapping would have just found one die, not a die and a spi chip with wires attached) analyzed it, found how the LiteOn SS authorizing (or whatever it is that was different) was different from other drives, and implemented the spoofing support in 1.5 So Microsoft could have detected any drive spoofed to LiteOn (because 1.4 didn't react to SS the way that a true LiteOn did) and banned them. I really don't think reading the key over serial was a bad thing, it was good for Microsoft to implement for repair purposes. Just the way they did the SPI flash chip was stupid.

Also, it could have been a mistake. I don't know much about the Wii's drive security, but I did watch the 25c3 video on the Wii Fail. From what I remember, the Wii's DVD firmware doesn't accept normal DVD's, but there is a DVD mode apparently in the firmware...that is never used...just sitting there...(why not remove it if it is never used?) and apparently a modchip or a softmod of the Wii can enable that DVD mode (ya I don't know how it is enabled but I know somehow it is) and enable Wii game piracy. So...maybe Microsoft had the key over serial for debugging purposes in the firmware, and just forgot to take it out like Nintendo did.

So maybe Microsoft just forgot to take that feature out? I mean they could have, I would assume Microsoft has some way to change the DVD key through the 360 as I stated before, they could using some type of signed software or an API or something, get the 360 to spit out the DVD key it has already on it, so they know the LiteOn's dvd key, and then just replace the motherboard of the 360 and write the same DVD key to the NAND, or replace the LiteOn drive with one and flash that one with the motherboard DVD key, depending what is wrong with the system. So Microsoft probably could have taken out the DVD key over serial all together, and still be able to repair systems (granted they have access to teh NAND unencrypted but I am sure they can do that.)

So Microsoft could have done 1 of 2 things to make the LiteOn unhackable.

1. Implement the SPI flash on the die of the Mediatek chip. No way to read out the firmware (the firmware still might of been able to be extracted optically, but a lot more difficultly and more expensive than decapping the chip and soldering the SPI flash to a reader, which is what I am assuming that C4E and those guys did.) no way to analyze the LiteOn's different way of SS spoofing. So if Microsoft did this, the key over serial would still be there, you could spoof a 1.4 drive at the time to LiteOn but it would be detectable on XBL and bannable, because it wouldn't do SS the way a LiteOn did, because we wouldn't know how the LiteOn did SS because we never got the firmware.

2. Take out the key over serial. Sure, repairing consoles would be more difficult, Microsoft would have to get the key from the NAND or something, but it would prevent people from getting their keys from their drives. Sure, you could decap the chip, and read out the firmware to get the key, but getting a system with a flashable DVD drive would be easier and probably less expensive, sure the firmware probably would have been extracted and analyzed, and 1.5 would be released...but the problem would be, that LiteOn drives could be flashed with other keys, and work on other consoles that started out with a flashable drive, but they could never work in the console they originally came in because there would be no way to get the key from it.

So in doing one of the two things, they could have severely crippled the LiteOn hacking possibilities, but they did neither...so...ya that is why piracy is still possible on the 360...and until Microsoft learns, piracy will always be possible.

Wow I just re-read my post, I repeated myself like a million times, but hopefully you get my drift of what I am saying.

[neonpolaris]

Thanks!  No, I understand perfectly.  That was a great post.  Really reinforces alot of things I was thinking but was unsure about.

One more question, somewhat on topic:

Drive spoofing.  Is this required to have a different model drive working, or is it just to prevent banning from Live?  That is, if I exchanged my drive X for a drive Y, flashed with the key from the old one but otherwise kept the original firmware, would the xbox not accept it at all?  Or would it work but get banned from Live?

[Arakon]

it's required. the console has the drive type stored and will display E66 if you put the "wrong" type in without spoof.

[Ell3X]

it's required. the console has the drive type stored and will display E66 if you put the "wrong" type in without spoof.

launchboxes don`t have OSIG , so you can swap drives without spoofing

[growlley]

Ms have allready managed to make it reasonably difficult to mod the liteons, it may be argued a certain level of piracy increases market share. Ie the smaller share of a larger pie may be more than the larger share of a smaller pie for developers / publishers theory.

From a commercial point of view the product is *probally* more than half way through its lifecycle. Why waste any new tricks up their sleeve, when the genie is allready out of the bottle?

[Arakon]

it's required. the console has the drive type stored and will display E66 if you put the "wrong" type in without spoof.

actually osig was added later with a dash update. so unless you never upgraded beyond a certain point, you still need to spoof.

launchboxes don`t have OSIG , so you can swap drives without spoofing

[Tiros]

Actually osig was never added by later updates.
OSIG is part of the key vault, if you didnt get it when your box was born, you never will.

odd.bin was in fact what was added later on.

Consoles without OSIG can freely swap drives.

[n00bpwner360]

Thanks!  No, I understand perfectly.  That was a great post.  Really reinforces alot of things I was thinking but was unsure about.

One more question, somewhat on topic:

Drive spoofing.  Is this required to have a different model drive working, or is it just to prevent banning from Live?  That is, if I exchanged my drive X for a drive Y, flashed with the key from the old one but otherwise kept the original firmware, would the xbox not accept it at all?  Or would it work but get banned from Live?

You need it to get the console to boot. Like Arakon said, if you don't have the correct spoof string in teh firmware of the dvd drive that corresponds to the type in the 360's motherboard, then the console won't boot. However, remember when I talked earlier about the LiteOn and it's differences? If you just straight up do a spoof, which is what people did when people could extract the keys from LiteOn drives but not flash the firmware...(they were putting liteon keys into other drives) The other drives running iXtreme 1.4 didn't respond with the right SS or something liek taht and was bannable on XBL. I don't know if this happens when playing origs (drive running IX 1.4 spoofed as LiteOn playing original, does it respond with the correct SS that a LiteOn would? Or is that only for burned games?) or if this happens if your drive is running original firmware. (drive running the original firmware spoofed as liteon, does it get the SS correct or not?)

So yeah, spoofing is used to get the console to boot, and in cases of the LiteOn, you need to be running iX 1.5 to get XBL safe SS spoofing or something liek that...again I don't know what the LiteOn does differently but it does something with teh SS.

[neonpolaris]

Thanks guys.  Yes, I knew that spoofing the liteon with 1.4 on another drive would work but lead to banning.  It just wasn't clear to me before if the spoofing part was needed if someone was already banned or didn't connect to live.  I see that it is, with perhaps an exception for a launch box.  But I don't have a launch box, and don't see myself buying one considering how volatile they seem to be.  Many thanks for clearing all this up.

[gadget78]

Interestingly about the whole, must of kept in the functionality of reading the key/firmware out to repair them at MS..
ive been in contact will a few 360's that have gone back, due to the 3RROD firtsly

well they brought them to me firat for 'de-chipping' once was a while ago with a sammy drive in, so i dechiped, when it cam back had same type mobo, with same seiral of course and dif drive ..... had a dif key
this has happened every time, so i just presume they are just gving them back a dif console, and just making the mobo serial match up etc

but one recently was odd, he got it back, i re-chipped it, but the drif went odd after couple of weeks, stopped ejecting properly, then would not eject atall .
so he contact MS they said will pick it up and repair the drive.. he brought it round mine, same day he was contacting MS, well after erasing the firmware several times (was a BenQ) and re-flashing and messing around i got it going for him ! .... but was too late was already 'in the works' at MS, so they come picked it up etc etc
well they said was ok, but we replaced drive anyhows....
now on getting it back, they had put in a liteon drive instead, mobo was defo the same, (had same markings/stickers etc) BUT the drive key was totally dif...
now for them surly it would of been easier to just swop over key and not touch the console ..
but no they must ust recalculated the key and all that on mobo,

UNLESSS the key is not 'unique' but a calculation, like a keygenerator would give out for software ?

make ya wunder, on the whole key situation, AND why they leave all this stuff in the drive's??

MIck ...

[Shaun]

or that the console when in service mode can generate its own key and tell the drive what it is, or the drives come pre progged with a key and in same service mode the console requests what it is and it is stored in kv.

[itsfakemon]

how about this: they're using a recovery disc

big deal. still no backdoor available

[gigabite]

yeah but it's always interesting to discuss the possibility...makes you wonder, i'm in no way even the slightest bit good at maths (very bad in fact) but maybe someone should compile a private DVD key database (as in a combination from people who have stacks, I myself don't keep them) and see if theirs any similarities. I mean, it has to come down to something in some possible way (even if no one can find the similarity... : /). hmmmm

gigabite