Muli Ben-Yehuda's journal

August 11, 2005

Filed under: Uncategorized — Muli Ben-Yehuda @ 10:48 PM

The Hidden Boot Code of the Xbox

(via lwn.net)

6 Comments »

  1. From what I can tell from hearing others at MS talk about what goes on there, this kind of behavior of leaving in really bad bugs is pretty normal. It is likely not exclusive to MS either, but I would wager is a problem at any large software house. You can’t hire all the smartest people in the world, so things like this will get past you. The only thing an organization can do is have the right kind of attitude about listening to and learning from the communities that focus on breaking software. MS has not, historically, had a good attitude.
    MS has compounded the issue by being very adversarial towards anyone who breaks their stuff. It’s only very recently that they’ve begun to show an interest in learning from the people who intentionally break their software instead of just trying to legislate and arrest them out of existence. Being the 800 lb gorilla in their (huge) market space for so long has lent itself toward some rather nasty institutional arrogance which they’re only just beginning to break themselves of. They’re having to deal with the pain of looking at free software projects and other companies such as Apple and IBM dealing successfully with security and other software problems at a much more rapid pace than they are capable of, and getting a lot of good press for it. I’m sure it’s a humbling experience, and likely the reason why they spend so much money on studies to show how Linux, et al, aren’t really any more secure than Windows.

    Comment by jeramey — August 11, 2005 @ 8:43 PM | Reply

  2. have you read Hacking the Xbox by Andrew Huang (sp?)? it’s a pretty good guide to the xbox/hardware hacking.

    Comment by irishmc — August 12, 2005 @ 4:25 AM | Reply

    • Yes, I have and I really liked it. Being a software guy, I’m in awe of anyone who can do non trivial things with a soldering iron.

      Comment by mulix — August 12, 2005 @ 6:15 AM | Reply

  3. I bought an xbox a month back and wanted to try hacking linux on it
    but my brother won’t allow it 馃檪
    Have you had some hands-on experience of doing it?
    Anything conked out ?

    Comment by jnagal — August 12, 2005 @ 5:07 AM | Reply

    • Afraid not… I’ll get one, eventually. Or rather two, one to play on, one to play *with* 馃檪

      Comment by mulix — August 12, 2005 @ 6:16 AM | Reply

      • | Afraid not… I’ll get one, eventually. Or rather two, one to play on, one to play *with* 馃檪
        heh.
        Thats what my bro told me, get another one to play with

        Comment by jnagal — August 12, 2005 @ 6:22 AM


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