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'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast
Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus 2003-05-08

Hacker-engineer Andrew "Bunnie" Huang says he's already pre-sold between 400 and 500 copies of his self-published tell-all "Hacking the Xbox: an Introduction to Reverse Engineering," weeks before its scheduled May 27th publication date, despite -- or perhaps because of -- looming suspicions by some that the book skirts the edges of legality.

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'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-09
Anonymous (1 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-09
Anonymous (2 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-10
Anonymous (4 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-12
doc (1 replies)
Good Point!! 2003-05-16
Andrew Ramirez <Atari1110 (at) yahoo (dot) com [email concealed]>
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-12
Remy (1 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-14
Anonymous (1 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-12
Roland Hagge <Stop-porn-spam (at) here (dot) ws [email concealed]>
Reply to top comment 2003-05-09
Anonymous (3 replies)
I agree 2003-05-10
Tyro
Reply to top comment 2003-05-10
lowtec (1 replies)
Reply to top comment 2003-05-12
Anonymous
I also agree 2003-05-12
Anonymous player (1 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-11
David (1 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-14
Anonymous (1 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-12
CyberWolf (1 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-13
Anonymous (1 replies)
why banned, though? 2003-05-13
jsvlrt (at) yahoo (dot) com [email concealed], h_bugtraq (at) yahoo (dot) com [email concealed]
ok, there's been a lot of ridicule about stopping modification, but lets look at why microsoft don't want 'us' to hack their hardware..

as far as I can tell, it seems that microsoft have no reason to want this book banned - the book doesn't tell you how to make an X-Box using just dustbin lids and stickyback plastic, (if it does, consider the book sold out) so anyone buying the book for anything other than nostalgic reasons, is going to have to buy (or steal) an X-Box, which obviously means more revenue for Microsoft. The car analogy has been used before, and, sticking with this, take a look at Ford's Cosworth, people only buy it to modify - it it was illegal, the sales would decrease dramtically.

What I'm saying is that Microsoft seem to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater - yes, modding the X-Box can let you play illegal rips, so build better copy protection in, and prosecute warez distributors. But the positive side could be a cult following of X-Box loving modders who've hacked it up and love it - damaging to Microsoft, how, exactly?

Of course, they'd mostly be running Linux on the X-Box, but that's no-one but Microsoft's fault - make a crappy O/S, expect people to swap it for something better, once again, using the car analogy, if the engine's crap, you're going to upgrade it. But the bodywork is cool, and when people see it, they'll say, hey look, there's a funky looking Microsoft X-Box.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/4580/19967#19967
'Banned' Xbox Hacking Book Selling Fast 2003-05-15
Cheshire Cat ^..^ (2 replies)
'Banned' Xbox Book isn't worth $20.00 2003-05-19
Anonymous (1 replies)







 

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