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Microsoft XBox (Games)

Halo 2 Used to Sniff Out Mods 93

Posted by Zonk from the surely-a-covenent-plot dept.
TexasDex writes "C-Net tech news is reporting that users of Halo 2 who have installed mod chips are being banned from the X-box Live forums. It is unknown specifically how the Halo 2 game finds out the console is modded, Microsoft will only say in the X-box live Terms of Use that "Xbox Live may only be accessed with an unmodified [...] Xbox video game console.'" In related news, the New York Times (registration required) has a quickie interview with the folks behind Red Vs. Blue about changes Halo 2 bring to the series.
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Halo 2 Used to Sniff Out Mods More

Halo 2 Used to Sniff Out Mods

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  • Illegal Actions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Craigj0 ( 10745 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @06:16PM (#10815126)
    My guess is that Halo 2 attempts to do some action impossible with a normal xbox but works fine if it was modded, this has the benifit of no matter which method is used to unlock the xbox it will be discovered. It will at least raise the bar for unlocking xbox's from now on.
    • I'm actually really surprised that more people didn't see this coming. Do X-Box games run in user space or as the kernel?
      • Do X-Box games run in user space or as the kernel?

        I believe I read somewhere that xbox games execute in priviledged mode to gain performance, and since security is not really an issue when every game has to be digitally signed and will not run concurrently with anything else, it makes sense.

        Why is anybody surprised? Microsoft has said from day one that modified xboxes were not going to be allowed to connect to xbl.

  • Confirmed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tini1212 ( 675633 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @06:17PM (#10815135) Homepage Journal
    http://alexalbrecht.typepad.com/alex/2004/11/xbox_ live_and_h.html

    Poor Alex, first he gets fire, now he can't play on Xbox live.

    • I read that blog entry, and I don't get it. He gets fire? Is fire a type of modchip for XBox?

      • Re:Confirmed (Score:2, Informative)

        by McKinney83 ( 687821 )
        He got fired.
        From his blog:

        "Well I've officially been let go... along with a bunch of other people from TSS and three other shows. Kevin and Sarah are the only ones left on screen and I don't know what they are planning to do with them. The Screen Savers as you know it is GONE!"

  • Oh, still? (Score:5, Funny)

    by H0NGK0NGPH00EY ( 210370 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @06:45PM (#10815315) Homepage
    Oh, so they haven't stopped doing it since we were told about this four days ago on Slashdot? [slashdot.org]

    Thanks. I'll look forward to the next update on Wednesday to see if they're still banning modded Xboxes or not.
    • "Thanks. I'll look forward to the next update on Wednesday to see if they're still banning modded Xboxes or not."

      Sometimes I think the editors just want to watch us wave our pitchforks around. More ad clicks that way.

    • Re:Oh, still? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by complete loony ( 663508 )
      While there was some speculation, I don't remember it being pinned down to HALO 2 specifically.

    • Re:Oh, still? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That was a different story. It had nothing to do with Halo 2. People with mod chips were still able to play simply by flipping the switch. This story claims that Halo 2 is detecting mod chips and reporting them. Completely different.

      • "Since the release of Halo 2 (ed: and just before), Microsoft has been banning modified Xboxes from Xbox Live." Nothing to do with Halo 2 ...

  • ha-ha i saw it coming.

    bungee, like em or not, is entirely ownz0r'd by ms, and i always am skeptikal of ms. they're not ones to balk at opportunity anyway, ethical or not, and this halohype is definetly opportunity. I'm always more than happy to sit back and let the lemmings be the first wave, then progress once I'm confident of what's going to happen. *COUGH*SP2*COUGH*

    of course, this was reason #3 on my list not to play halo2... #2 being i can't jump, spin, and shoot behind me like i can with a mouse, and
    • ** quote **

      #2 being i can't jump, spin, and shoot behind me like i can with a mouse

      ** quote **

      please quit blaming someone else for your inability to use the equipment. i jump, spin, and shoot behind me just fine with the analog controller.

      • jeez, i didn't think i needed to phrase this so precisely, but since TWO people took time out of their busy day to slam my skills..

        replace "can't jump, spin, and shoot behind me" (a veiled reference to a similar comment Tycho of P-A made to the same effect recently, except regarding the new nintendo handheld with a stylus) with the more accurate "don't have the means for precise and near-instantaneous rotation".

        yes, you can jump, spin, and shoot behind you in halo, but an analog stick just does not even c
        • shit, nothing personal, where i'm from you can't just serve one up like that without it getting swatted down. it's just a knee-jerk reaction.

          on the subject at hand: after playing Halo 2 for a good while now i think that game is really pushing the XBox to what it can do. there's some places where you can see the hardware struggling to keep up, it's clearly not a bug/mistake in the code. i'm not sure it could pull off the kind of super-quick-spins you're talking about.

          i've been a gamer since the Atar

  • What Next? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    First the required Steam activation on HL2 and now this... It seems this latest generation of games is going to piss off more gamers than ever before.

    At least the only thing wrong with Doom 3 is that it's boring.

    • Re:What Next? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @07:10PM (#10815526) Journal
      On the contrary, Doom 3 had that hideous, hideous form of copy-protection whereby the game refuses to run if it detects CD-emulation software (or indeed random other bits of software the publishers don't approve of) installed.

      Personally, if there has to be copy protection, I'd rather see the HL2 model, or the Halo 2 model than that used on Doom 3. The reasoning behind this is simple; steam (Valve's DRM client thingy, through which you have to play HL2), for all its many flaws, actually functions and allows other things to function. Once the game gets "switched on" (and yes, I resent having to wait for this), I can at least play it while continuing to use my computer normally. It doesn't stop me doing anything unrelated to the game.

      Halo 2's copy protection means that I can't do certain things with my X-Box. However, my X-Box is just a gaming machine. I use it to play games and I tend to buy my games in my local high-street retailer. I can play Halo 2 while doing anything I would reasonably expect to be able to do with my X-Box.

      However, in the case of the system used by Doom 3 (and a number of other games), I can't actually play the game while I have a good number of other useful utilities installed on my home PC, which is *not* just a games machine. Sure, it gets gaming use, but I use my desktop for a lot of other things. Daemon Tools is an incredibly useful little program and I used it to speed up my use of a large number of programs which I legally owned. For a game to arbitrarily decide that it won't run if I have this installed is just not right. Fortunately, Doom 3's copy protection doesn't detect the excellent Alcohol 120%, which has similar functionality. However, it can only be so long before this loophole is closed.

      • Re:What Next? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mobby_6kl ( 668092 )
        > Personally, if there has to be copy protection, I'd rather see the HL2 model, or the Halo 2 model than that used on Doom 3

        This is choosing the lesser of two evils again, so I'd again prefered the third option ;).

        However, if these two types were the only things which would make the game run, I'd prefer the DOOM3 copy protection. The reasoning is also simple. I'd rather shut down one program than have some software ring home, download some crap, send my information and make me wait until the dev/pub t

        • However, if these two types were the only things which would make the game run, I'd prefer the DOOM3 copy protection. The reasoning is also simple. I'd rather shut down one program than have some software ring home, download some crap, send my information and make me wait until the dev/pub thinks I can play it. Also it is much easier to take a CD/DVD with me than a good fast internet connection.

          It is amazing how many people claim that Steam has flaws/annoyances that it does NOT have. Once you have logg

        • But you can't just shut it down. You have to uninstall it. And as a laptop user, that's annoying, especially since I use daemon tools to keep my battery life up.

      • However, the HL2 model permanently blocks your Xbox from Xbox Live. Thereby permanently reducing a good portion of the functionality that you paid good money for. How many people will either need to buy another Xbox or quite Xbox live for good?

        The Doom 3 version can be circumvented by a patch, or un-installing some software. At worst you can't play the game but the Computer is still fine, it's functionality is not permanently inhibited (as in the HL case). I think this is worse.

        • Re:What Next? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by iocat ( 572367 )
          Dude, their TOS says "no modded Xboxes" so what's the big deal? There's no inalienable right to use Live if you've modded your Xbox.
          • Oh, I agree with you there dude. I was just saying it's worse (for the user). I wasn't saying it was wrong. You're right though - it's Microsoft's system, and they can do what they want.

      • Re:What Next? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Mycroft_VIII ( 572950 )
        Among other things that keep doom3 (and farcry) from running are ide drivers. In specific the optimized drivers that come with some nforce2 motherboards such as my brothers gigabyte board.
        To be fair those divers have a prominent 'no guarantees these will actually do anything good and thier use is strictly at your own risk don't call us we don't support them' type blurb shoved in your face if want to install those drivers(you can cancell the install at that point, and xp's driver rollback worked just fi
      • If your Daemon Tools trip D3's user alienation system maybe you should update them or something because mine don't. Both before and after the patch my Doom 3 runs without a problem with theDaemon Tools enabled.
      • Huh? I installed Doom 3 on a system that had Virtual Drive installed, and it worked just fine. id have a long and glorious history of not using copy-protection systems.

    • Re:What Next? (Score:5, Informative)

      by FLAGGR ( 800770 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @08:28PM (#10816080)
      It's only banning people that mod their xbox. There's notthing evil or mean about it, it states clearly in the ToS that they don't want modded xbox's on live. It STILL lets you do everything else. Why would they do this? To piss off gamers? Make more money? No. The great thing about Live is its a VERY closed system. If everyone and their grandma start running linux on their xbox's, and find out how to hack live, then they can ruin alot of other players experiences, which sucks. Also, I guess it keeps people from finding out how to steal xbox live, but if no one pays for live then it isn't going to exist any more. Normally I hate MS as much as any other self respecting person, but I have to applaud them for doing this.

      • Re:What Next? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by His Nastiness ( 542696 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:20PM (#10816726) Homepage
        Oh dear god. I agree that MS is completely within their rights to do this and beyond that I have no real ethical, philosophical, logical or practical objection to their doing so. I have a modded box (and a thoroughly legit copy of Halo2 though I did rip it to my drive so levels would load faster). Your opinion however is based on some misguided and utterly retarded (read uninformed) notions. To the best of my knowledge no one has been able to connect to xbox live while running their mod chip. Which means linux can't be running while they are connected. Linux is irrelevant to this entire situation and your mere mention of it gives me an instant migraine. So dispensing with the linux argument (and your not-so-subtle implication that people with linux on their xbox are cheating-hacking-thieving gamers) no one has stolen xbox live. You would need an account to get in. Could it be hacked? Sure, anything can be given time, ability and knowledge. Are there a bunch of (or even 1?) rogue xbox users with hacked xboxen running Gentoo whilst merrily gaming on stolen (or invented) Live accounts while looking thru walls in Halo2 and sniping everyone? Show me one (1!) and I'll eat my own ass. Promise. This is about money pure and simple. Not greed. Just money. MS makes their money on software sales not hardware sales and they have very real (lets not kid ourselves) reasons to believe that people with modded boxes (or an extremely high percentage of them (100% of the people I know)) use their boxes to, among other things, rip or steal games that they have rented, borrowed, or downloaded. If you're really into Xbox Live and your box gets banned because it's modded, well, you take your lumps. But it could prevent those with unmodded boxes from deciding to mod theirs and (in MS's opinion) ultimately steal games. It is about money, there is just nothing particularly wrong or corrupt about it.

        • Re:What Next? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Siniset ( 615925 )
          I agree that it's about money, but this is one time where i think the consumers and MS's desires colide. I stopped playing online games on the computer because of hackers and cheaters. Live is an attempt to offer a service in which the hardware(and therefore, hopefully cheating and hacking) is controlled. If Microsoft does this, it will improve their bottom line, because more people will want to play on it. But it is also about controlling piracy. But for one of the first times, the company is actually
        • I didn't say anyone has managed to get on Live with Linux, I'm saying that it could happen, and could possibly be a danger to the service, that is all. Of course it also is to prevent stealing, but you'll notice you can still play on your xbox, just not Live, so I wouldn't consider it that big a deal (everyone knows ahead of time when they mod their xbox, they basically give up playing on Live)
        • See? It works.

  • It's not Halo 2 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14, 2004 @07:00PM (#10815450)
    It's not Halo2 that's banning the xboxes. It's just xbox live. People *without* halo2 are getting banned as well. And it's not everyone. They record the hard drive serial # and the eprom serial when you first sign onto live. If one changes and not the other you are banned. If you modded your xbox before you ever signed onto live then you'll be fine.
    • I don't believe so, I think they currently look at HD contents, to make sure there are no programs on there that shouldn't be on there. Even people with switchable mod chips that are new XBL customers are getting banned...
      • Halo 2 simply carries some 'extra' software which checks your Xbox if its modded/hacked. If it finds some it sends the data through Xbox Live. They only did it to Halo 2 because it was such a big game. Watch, the next Xbox Live update will probably send the 'extra' software to all Xbox Live users then we'll hear about this AGAIN.

  • halo2 updated my dash (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bmnc ( 643126 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @07:00PM (#10815452)
    F*CK!

    I have a hacked (unmodded!) xbox, with linux installed. After playing Halo2 I found out that if my mouse and keyboard are plugged in, the xbox accepts *no* input from any of the joypads. They all appear defunct. This is true whether Halo2, any other game, or nothing is in the xbox now.

    This is easily remedied by unplugging the mouse and keyboard, unplugging the controller, and replugging the controller back in, but this is annoying and a waste of my time.

    Beware all who even have a hacked xbox!

  • Oh Bungie...
    can you sink any lower?

    • Re:terrible news (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cassidyc ( 167044 )
      oooohh poor people who hack their xbox knowing full well it wont work on Live.

      Well shit

      see . that,

      That's the world smallest violin playing for all you fuckers

      Yeah the xbox is your, you can do whatever you damn well please. Guess what xbox Live is Microsofts service, and they can do whatever they damn well please.

      Now if you don`t mind I have a halo game to get back to.

      CJC

  • Good. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15, 2004 @12:45AM (#10817426)
    Now when I play Halo 2 online, I won't have to deal with cheaters like in CS, or people bitching about cheaters when there aren't any either. The best thing about console gaming is that it just works - unlike with a PC, there are no compatibility issues, you don't worry about your specs, and there aren't random strangers trying to fuck your shit up. You just put the disc in and play, and don't worry about all those other issues. So, I'm pleased to see that these advantages extend themselves to online play, too.

  • Oh, gee... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TJ_Phazerhacki ( 520002 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @02:29AM (#10817860) Journal
    I guess I'll just have to use my X-Box to play GAMES!!!

    Probabally not the right group to hear this, but when you purchase a piece of hardware, most of the time, It does in fact belong to you. Feel free to buzz it in half with a chainsaw - it is yours.

    But If MS wants to require that you use unmodded systems on Live, it is their perrogative - you are faced with two rather simple solutions:

    1. Play the system the way it was intended.

    2. Dont Use XBox live.

    I have played CS tooo long to know that the primary reason people use altered systems online is for cheating. Power to the XBox.

  • Dashupdate.xbe (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jarlsberg ( 643324 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @04:02AM (#10818129) Journal
    The Halo2 DVD contains a file called dashupdate.xbe. If you have a modded XBox and a storebought copy of Halo2, you can rip the game to a PC, remove the file and burn a new copy to use with the box. However, you have to do this before you start playing it for the first time...
  • this will have the added benefit of thousands of modders going out and buying new Xboxes, w/o buying new games. Meaning MS loses money :). Yeah, I know, by making a strong stance against piracy they make devs happy and will make more in the long run. Still, it's nice to see MS not getting out of this scott free.
    • Retarded mods! How can this be modded interesting!? How many times does it need to be pointed out that although they are sold below cost, MS does not lose any more money than they already have. The loss is a sunk cost and you are still adding $150 to their current bank account.

      I know it does not need to be pointed out to most of the crowd here, but it is really bothersome how low the bar of stupidity can be lowered.

  • It is now generally thought that xbox live is able to detect modchips, even when switched off. The EEPROM - HD marriage theory doesn't seem to be correct. So either you rip out the chip, or you try and install a switch that physically disconnects the chip from the motherboard. Sift through the xbox-scene.com forums for more...

  • Do not buy from Microsoft (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How much do you wan't to get fucked until you realize the truth?

  • Free online gaming?? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sknja ( 196640 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @08:22AM (#10818830)
    Where is the love for the free online gaming?

    Why even bother with xbox live anymore with or w/o a modded xbox?

    I perosnally have played xbox live quite a few times, as well as the free online supporters (xlink Kai, xbconnect). I have found the free ones to be quite nice, and on par with xbox live. If more people switched to free the experience would only get better.

    I just dont see why pepople will pay for microsoft to screw them.

    -------
    Bring on the fyre

    • I perosnally have played xbox live quite a few times, as well as the free online supporters (xlink Kai, xbconnect). I have found the free ones to be quite nice, and on par with xbox live. If more people switched to free the experience would only get better.

      Let's see, how about:

      • Single-sign on. Your gamertag is the same across all games. Of course, that could be done by these other services (presuming that one service does everything you want, so you don't have to jump across multiple services), so le
  • One of the things that attracted me to Xbox live was that it had greater ability to prevent cheating than PunkBuster or any of the PC mechanisms. I can't tell you how annoying it was to play Halo 1 via the internet using the proxy application (XboxConnect?). It was cheater central. No fun whatsoever.

    I can see why they would want to prevent the use of modders running on Xbox live as a way of hampering cheaters. And frankly, I don't blame them.

  • If anyone has a link to some nice overview images of the multiplayer maps, I would love to see it.

  • Legal (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Mooga ( 789849 )
    Can they legaly do that?

    Don't you have the legal right to mod your Xbox if you want to?

    • You have the legal right to do whatever you want with your Xbox. They have the legal right to stipulate what kind of hardware they allow on their service.

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