Xbox 360 Ups the Ante For Xbox Hacking
Remember when I said I would only buy a Xbox 360 when its officially hacked? Well it seems that task is going to be a infinitely more difficult that hacking the original Xbox was. Engadget has compiled a quick list of the road blocks in the way to a hacked 360.
- The flash is encrypted with a per-box key
- The key is stored inside the CPU
- The boot ROM is stored inside the CPU
- Also inside the CPU is a hypervisor that verifies the running state of the kernel, making sure there is no modification (RAM checksums), else the Xbox 360 panics and blows up!
The CPU contains RAM inside of it to store the checksums- All interrupt/exception handling is done by the hypervisor
- All code runs in kernel mode
- The emulator for first generation games can be updated via an official Microsoft download burned to CD by the user, though the CDs’ content will be encrypted and signed with public key cryptography.
- The boot ROM is stored inside the CPU.
Yikes. Anyone think Microsoft is using the 360 as a test run for their “Trusted Computing”? I guess they figured they would throw it all in the 360, and if all the geniuses out there working day and night out of their parent’s basements can’t beat it, then its golden (for now)…and if they can beat it, then they move on the 2.0 for the next try.
Either way, I’m thinking that I won’t be parting with my money for the joy of a new Xbox 360 anytime soon.
Perez Hilton Goes Down…Because of A Hacker
PerezHilton.com, the wonderfully trashy gossip site, was taken down today by a hacker. I’m not sure, but I’m picking up on a little hostility vibe from Perez about the whole thing:
Yes, we were hacked today.
But, like the fucking cockroach that Perez is, not even nuclear anihiliation can take him down.
You want a piece of me? Take it! I’m Cuban, bitch. And I will cut you!
Hacking someone’s website is so lame. Unless its a Nazi or KKK site, but even then I’m not wild about it…free speech and all. Ok, here’s the rule: Hacking someone’s website is only acceptable if it is someone that I don’t like…sorry, not someone that you don’t like, it has to be up to me. So just ask me and I’ll tell you if its cool or not. Also, if I do give you the ok, you have to replace the site with something fun to look at like a big picture of Angelina Jolie naked or a picture of your girl friend naked (unless she is a fatty) or just a picture some other girl that is hot…and naked. Then hacking websites is cool.
How great is it that I can write a story about a site getting hacked and somehow twist it so that I can justify putting a big picture of Angelina Jolie at the top of the article?
Make Free Skype-Out Calls
If you want to make calls with Skype and don’t want to pay those “Skype-Out”; charges, the VOIP blog has the answer.
Here’s the quick version:Skype allows you to call 1-800 numbers for free. There is a free 411 service (ad supported) at the number "800-FREE41" Have Skype dial that number, use the voice recognition to find the party you are looking for and have the 411 service connect your call. Free land-line calling from Skype. The only catch is the party you are calling must be listed so that 411 can find them.
How To: Create and Record Prank Calls From Your Mac
David Battino’s entry at the always interesting O’Reilly Weblogs explains how he would setup a prank call device through his mac that would allow the user to play clips from moviess to the mark as well as record the whole thing so that you can share it with the world.
He also shares a link to Celebrity Prank Calls.com. Now you can go get your Schwarzenegger prank call fix.
CVS Digital Camcorder Hack Getting Closer to Finished
Phillip Torrone at the wonderful MAKE Blog, along with help from the hacking community have taken many steps in getting to a complete hack of the CVS Digital camcorder.
A lot of progress on the CVS camcorder this last week. This weekend I figured out how to unlock the camera, and then daBass found a USB command that downloaded the most recently recorded video. By deleting that video after saving it, you can download all the videos. Lots of other people filled in with code to combine our discoveries. It’s been an amazing group effort…
Torrone said the next step is getting the camera to act as a USB mass storage device. Meaning, that you could record something, hook it to your computer and then just pull it off! Amazing. Once they get that figured out, the next step will be for me to get my ass to a state where CVSs are around to pick one of these up.
Question: Does South Carolina have CVSs? I’m going to be down there in a month…
Google Maps Pedometer
Now that the Google Maps API is out the flood of different scripts and usages for Google Maps will comming flooding in! Here is the first of many: “The Google Maps Pedometer”
A simple function, but it works great. You just click the record button and then mark with points the path that you want to track and the script calculates the distance. This is great for me because when the “gym” at my apartments is busy I just run outside and although I was pretty sure the loop I was running was a quarter of a mile (like a actual track) I wasn’t 100%. Now I am…its .267 miles to be exact.
Via MAKE: Blog
Make the change from “Jerk” to “Soda-Jerk”!
I personally think that anyone that has never secretly wished that they could have their own soda fountain in their home, is most likely a Nazi or at least someone that likes to go around hitting babies in the face with a stick. So of course, I hope that you will all really love this site someone set up with a complete run-through of how to make your own soda fountain at home!
Although the site looks like crap, the information seems good. If I only had the space to put one of these…on yeah, and the scratch to get all the parts I need. The next step, of course, is to make one of these and wire that bitch up a computer or the network and monitor the levels and even control the thing…that would be cool.
Ok, enough day dreaming. Go check out the site and day dream on your own…unless you want to get back to your Nazi-loving, baby beating fun, you sick bastard.
[ Via BoingBoing ]
Paris Gets Hacked
More Fun With Unsecured Cameras
I posted a bit about this the other day, and now I see variations on this on Gadgetopia. Apparently someone else has made a Google search string that finds a new type of unsecured camera available on the web.
Google Search: inurl:”ViewerFrame?Mode=”
There are all sorts of camera out there (but I haven’t had the same luck with finding working ones as I did with my last post.). In fact, some cameras supposedly have sound.
I did some more poking around and found some more Google Searches for some other fun things. (Some of these produced many results but only a small percentage really connected to anything.) After a bit of poking around and finding a few interesting things, I ran across this page when I googled for printer servers with this: “inurl: /printers/” johnny.ihackstuff.com: googledorks This page has tons of fun google searches and new ones seem to be submitted regularly.
Go have some fun and let me (and others) know about god finds in the comments.
Fun With Un-Secured Security Cams!
If you have a networked security camera and you leave it un-secured, is that an oxymoron or does that just make you a moron.
Well one of the guys @ Forever Geek posted a link he found of one of these security cams that was completely open to viewing on the net. Then a commenter on that article wrote up a nice but long, google search that finds all kinds of cams like the first one.
Nothing too special, but fun for a minute or two. If you catch a good network with a nice camera you can get some near, streaming clear video.
Link: Google Search URL
Enjoy.
UPDATE:
After some quality time viewing a few of these cams this morning, I have found my favorite: http://24.105.203.109:6010/view/view.shtml?videos=&id=9308
You can pan, zoom and everything with this cam! Fun stuff.