Anonymity and Plurality in the Internet Age

The Xbox Case

Introduction | History | Finally Hacked | Homebrew | The Players

History

Just the day after the release of the Xbox there were already many attempts being made to boot DVD game backups. A website, Xbox-Scene.com, dedicated itself to providing daily Xbox news on everything from official Microsoft statements to hacking attempts. With the opening of their forums, the website slowly became the home of the Xbox community. Today the forums alone have over 345 thousand users with almost four million posts. Hundreds of its users have posted several thousand messages.

The hopes for a modchip went down in January 2002 when Sony won a case against modchip producer Messiah. The judge ruling was “ based upon the fact that a game that is run without permission makes a copy of copyright material in memory, this copy is 'infringing' because it is an unauthorized copy argued Sony.“The result of this ruling was simply disastrous for Messiah, who had to close down the production of PS1 chips. In the eyes of XanTium, webmaster of Xbox-Scene, this was going to “make the chance for a Xbox modchip even smaller.”

However, attempts on hacking the system continued. On March 30 th 2002, Xbox-Scene reported the first Xbox ISO! (For information on what an ISO, click here) To the discontent of many, the disk image would simply crash the Xbox. However, being able to crash the system meant much more than what people expected. XanTium explained: “it means the Xbox isn't bulletproof when inserting a CDrw.” By early May there were enough findings to foresee the Xbox hacked. On May 4 th 2002, before there were even modchips for the Xbox, a pirate game release group, ProjectX, made over 30 game ISOs available on the Internet. During the next two months, the Xbox security system that prevents DVD backups to boot would be hacked and commercial modchips produced.

On to Finally Hacked