XBox 360 News
Microsoft bans hackers from Xbox Live
By Hector Cortez May 18, 2007, 6:21 GMT
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Older Talkback
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It's a very good thing, considering how many people have clearly modded their Halo 2 characters. You can empty entire clips from point blank range into them and they shoot you once and you die which simply puts you off from playing in the first place...but it shouldn't have taken this long!
It's a pity, that they have no vision. What teenager doesn't modify their car or truck? What geek doesn't want to improve and become l33t? Instead of banning, they should have directed the modified Boxes to a different server so that those who hack can experiment, and battle each other, not only that but have forums on how to modify the platforms. Not only would this create interest, but who knows what innovations could be discovered? Make it part of the game not some anal-retentive corporate digital rights mumbojumbo.
Are you kidding me Pally? First of all anyone who thinks they are getting l33t from modding their xbox's is just stupid...being able to press the trigger and have automatic headshots does not improve your skills. When we talk about banning the modded xboxs, it sounds amazing. Not having to go into a matchmaking game and worrying about people cheating or trying not to get a new map so you dont get cheated. Its ridiculous that people want to rank up by cheating and then think they are good, esp. a game like Halo. There is no way these people are even good but thats also why they cheat because they know they cant get better. Sure we have those so you call 'geeks' that want to mod, but that doesnt mean they have to bring it into XBOX LIVE keep it offline and play and when you want to play Halo online get a different box or even better yet just dont mod at all!
u guys gotta watch ur wording... u cant fackin HACK an xbox, you can MOD an xbox there is a huge differnce..... a modded xbox does in no way give you any kind of game play advantage.. a mod is simply a hardware change that allows the insertion of a large HDD and allows the play of burned games... the games are written to disks, you cannot modify them they are read only...seriously this is fuggin ridiculous... if i own an xbox i can do what ever the fack i want to it.. i own the facker..
all of the sudden xbobx live is goinna be aghost town, cause i dont know a single xbox 360 owner who hasnt moeede thiers. i guess someone will have to start a private network for xbox 360, much like dreamcast when they shut down thier servers.
Yeah. It is a typical microsoft move.Isnt this ironic, you pay $300/$400 something and get \'your\' XBOX, but the moment you do some hardware change, you cannot connect to XBOX live. Wonder if Microsoft thinks you are eating away the bandwidth somehow. Damn, Thank god for competition. Just think what would be subjected to if 360 is the only gaming console. I used to use XBCONNECT a few years ago when I had the original XBOX, That is a very good option for folks who have modded their 360s. For that matter, I modded my Original XBOX too and used XBconnect to play online.
ha, thats funny because I dont have 1 friend that DOES have a modded or hacked xbox...i guess we're just not on the low level of cheating
Ha thats funny, not one of my friends have a modded or hacked xbox...i guess we just dont go to the low level of cheating because we're actually good at Halo and dont feel the need to think that I'm better than anyone by having auto-aim and ranking up.
See, here's the thing. I have an Xbox. I modded it. That doesn't make it so you can't shoot me and I have an instant kill. I don't cheat at games.
All 'modding' my xbox did was allow me to change the bootup screen, run extra programs, and increase hard drive size. On my modded Xbox, I have emulators to run Atari, NES, SNES, Sega (Game Gear, Master System, Genesis, etc), N64, and Arcade roms. I mean, yea, I *could* hook all my old consoles up to a ridiculously large switch and have a massive entertainment center with a bunch of shelves taking up the entire wall of my living room so I can play the games, but I find it much more convenient to just be able to play them all on my xbox. Just because the system that I bought and paid for has been modified to suit my needs, doesn't make me a cheater. I agree that they need to keep the cheaters off xbox live, but there's other ways. Soldier of Fortune2, for example, has a program called punkbuster, which checks each users game files against a hash key, and if you modified the code at all, then you wouldn't be allowed in.
Microsoft is either being lazy, or intentionally debilitating people that want to get the most out of their overpriced console.
People are so easily confused. Microsoft has deliberately mixed the idea of cheating at games with the idea of modding or hacking your xbox. They know you have the opinion that cheaters are low lives. So what they do is confuse you into thinking that modders and hackers are cheaters. There is no way to cheat using an xbox mod or hack, this is a fact. And in my opinion there is not a single technique out there that will allow you to effectively cheat on an xbox live game. The people you think are cheating are really just very very good. Deal with it
This is a good thing... I am tired of getting whacked by some idiot that doesn't even know the maps.
xbox games can be hacked on xbox live, halo and halo 2 are prime examples. several of you people are correct, modding your xbox does not make you a hacker, but the mod itself allows access to the game files, which will allow users with the right information to make changes to the game's code. and yes the disc is read-only, but the files can be pulled off the disc and run from the hard drive. This allows things like modifying armor, weapon damage, run speed, ammo capacity, fire rate, etc. someone with the right know-how could play using a tweaked character. i've seen the program that can make those changes, at least to halo, and i've seen what someone can do with it, and yes, those people are cheaters, and should be banned if playing against regular people. but it's hard to make that distinction, how to tell which of the people with modded boxes are using them to cheat vs. the people who uses their mods for legit reasons like expanding the usefulness of an xbox.
I agree the cheaters need to be stopped, in Halo2's case, you can contact Bungie and get cheaters' tags banned already. The banning of consoles isn't to stop cheaters. It's Micro's way of forcing you to buy their WAY overpriced accessories. US$180 for a 120GB HDD, RIDICULOUS. This banning of consoles brings up another issue, buying and selling used systems. Who's going to want to buy a used system after this goes in to effect?
A great way to stop potential game piracy. Think games are over priced? So are movies. Don't like the increasing price inflation? Don't buy it then.And recommend your neighbourhood to do the same. But a million rich farts still would. If you embrace capitalism, endure the consequences.
Am I the only person who is seeing what is going on?
Microsoft is just putting in place safeguards to prevent people who have a MOD chip installed in their machines from using Live. They are not so much worried about people cheating at HALO, but are worried about people pirating HALO.
The careful wording above has had the desired effect, where if you mod your XBOX so you can put in a 300gb HDD, watch foreign movies, and watch divX files, in everyone's eyes they are now just HALO 'hackers'.
If someone is cheating online, their online accounts should be banned.
'Who we detect have illegally modified their console...'
Has Microsoft built developed technology into the Xbox to spy on their users? I am all for fair play but, this story is not about cheating it is about privacy. Do Xbox users truly own there Xbox or are they just long term leasers who never truly own there hardware? Can Microsoft detect other information as well such as what movies you watch, how long and what games do you play, are the games and movies you watch/play copied? Is it possible to interface with an Xbox to initiate a wire tap?
I predict a few lawsuits to be hitting Microsoft's door any day now.
They are doing this more imo to keep people that have burned games, games on their hdd, or Network server. From playing online. They want people to buy the games not download them. It makes sense. I'm sure someone will find away around it and then ms will update and it all happens all over again. It is just a matter of time...
of course microsoft is going to try to annoy people who mod their xbox, if they can't stop them outright. and really, if you alter the composition of the device, then you cannot reasonably expect to connect to their service. as for cheaters, even if there were no cheaters at all, people would still accuse the guy who is kicking butt.
my question is this - Hacks are so rampant on steam and valve, how much more secure is the xbox at this point?
I love my counter strike, but I am really looking forward to TF2 on xbox, hoping there are less cheaters. Wishful thinking?
I dont own an Xbox (god forbid)...but i felt compelled to leave a quick comment on this interesting subject. Ive been playing multipalyer games for years, ive run my owm clan and i used to admin the game servers looking for cheaters...so ive seen it all before.
There will always be cheaters in multiplayer games....thats the real truth. If there are rules they will be broken....sooner or later
You see the games are designed to be realistic and like in real life (thats the thing behind the curtains) people cheat.......its human nature its thats simple. Wouldnt life be boring if we all followed the rules...
I have a modded 360, and all Microsoft have done to me by initiating the bans is to lose the 80 dollar a year fee for xbox live. I play burned games but In no way do I cheat and have broken characters.
I think Microsofts ban are due mostly to lost revenue from pirated games and to prevent people buying modded consoles and burning game sin the future rather than trying to create 'a level playing field' for game son Xbox live.
Microsoft care about money. Not their customers.
I think this was a great step.
*Quote Alex*
I have a modded 360, and all Microsoft have done to me by initiating the bans is to lose the 80 dollar a year fee for xbox live. I play burned games but In no way do I cheat and have broken characters.
**Well, the fact you play burned games...just burning 2 games a year...they already lose $120 a year from you. The $80 is nothing if they can stop you from pirating.
As a general comment. A lot of people are involved in Game Development which then leads to publishing. The prices for games are set so they can compensate their initial losses during the development stages. They invest a lot of money into just one game, they aren't going to do that for free. That's the way of the world.
Another thing, they aren't shutting your consoles down. They just don't want you on Xbox Live, because YOU BROKE THE EULA by modifying your console and or software. They clearly tell you not to do that. So, you did it. Now you are mad they took a small action against you. Just the fact you can still play offline shows that this won't stop piracy. Just stop people playing pirated games online. A good thing to stop cheaters for the people paying to play their Legitimate games online.
I have a 360 and an original Xbox and I love them both. My Orig. Xbox is modded and I do own legit copies of every game I've loaded to the hard drive. I mod the hell out of halo 2. Including Shotgun shooting bursts of stickies. Rocket shooting a nuke and blowing everyone off the map. YES CHEATING IS POSSIBLE. Auto Aim is one of the easiest mods. My Xbox has never seen Xbox Live. If you are complaining. about playing a game against someone. Just get XBConnect or Xlink Kai. They have rooms just for modders! It's not live, but you can play online via System Link. If you own an Xbox/360 the Literature was there, you chose to ignore it and mod your console. Well, I am tired of hearing people complain. Microsoft doesn't care about their customers! Well, Microsoft is a company that survives from it's profit, which affects everyone. Microsoft has no profit>stock holders pull out. Company can go under. I understand why they want their money. They don't care about their customers they won't let me play the games I stole from them online. Think about that maybe five seconds.
On a last note. I know my grammar skills suck. So, sorry. If you want to keep playing online they don't ban your account. Just the system, buy a new 360 and use legit games. Pick up the sticks and join everyone else. Just don't blame Microsoft for enforcing rules that you should have known when you bought the console.
its a shame that i spend my hard earn on my xbox 360 and i cant do what i want with it when i buy something its mine i am not borrow it from MS or rent it from MS if i want to toss it on the window then thats what i want to do if i want to set it on fire then thats what i want to do so what i mod my xbox 360 and now i can play back up game so what its what i want do they say in the usa the land of the free well i dont see it when everytime some do something that someone dont like it get band i should not have to live like that when i paid my HARD EARN money for something i just think its a shame i see why people killing people in the usa
Im happy for what microsoft had done too stop hackers from cheating...but im not happy with it either at the same time. I might have my xbox 360 modified to play burned discs but i will never use my modified 360 too use it too cheat on xbox live!!!
can i join xbox live through my modified xbox 360 if yes tell me how pls. someone told me u can join xbox live with only orignal xbox 360 games or dvd.
haha come to rainbow six 3 black everybody flying around, walking through walls, god mode, regeneration, all day everyday
I think it's great. Just to re-iterate what has already been stated earlier. Microsoft isn't making the machines themselves redundant. All they are doing is preventing modified machines from access to xbox live. It's fairly simple, when you buy an xbox 360 you agree to certain terms and conditions of use. The same applies to the use of xbox live. It's a contract, between the user and Microsoft. Both parties have obligations under it.
(It's the very same as if you want to join your local rugby club or football club or tennis club etc., there are rules. If you don't like the rules, don't join the club)!
Microsoft agrees, I imagine to provide a decent service free of cheaters etc., in essence they are merely upholding their end of the bargain. Namely to provide a fair and as cheat free a service as possible.
I think they are being very fair, I mean, they could ban gamertags as well. They aren't, they're giving the user with the modded console a chance, granted an expensive chance, to go get another console and use the service as originally agreed.
Anyway, I've said my bit
Riv
This is good, and to all of you complaining about not cheating with your mods or anything like that, just don't mod your 360s. I never even knew you could mod an xbox and I'm completely fine playing it normal. You don't need mods to be happy!
But I guess they should check the consoles for mods that cheat for the people who have already had mods and didn't know this was gonna happen.
u dont OWN the xbox its property of microsoft u OWN the right to use it as THEY say just as u dont OWN the games they are property of their respective developers/publishers
man i bought an xbox 360 and its modded lol its not cheating!!i hate fcking cheater! but mod are deffrent i agree with every body that cheater are fcking suckers dont know how to play but mod are deffrent...man im fearing of i get in to xbox live i will be bannded...lol this is so fcking unfair! people dont have money to buy those expisve games and even if they do some of the games are fcking short!!! i bought lost plant and finish it in 5-6 houres~~~!!!so its fcking unfair!!
If microsoft wanted to fix the cheating and modding they could do it.
It's funny that you guys confuse a modded 360, which only allows for less strict media checks with cheating. Their basically an exact copy of the game but placed on a dvd dual layer. Yes, the game isnt the original, yes its stealing. I just dont get how you link that to cheating. The original xbox was modded to the point it could run unsigned code to allow for homebrew. I still have one to this day since there isnt a better media center in the world that can compare to XBMC.
So hooray, that you dont want to see people getting the game that didnt pay for it, but to think the reason your getting your @ss handed to you on Halo 3 is because someones cheating is stupid. Only the thing that modded 360s do is allow more people online to play against. I know that's horrible and your taking food out of the developers mouth but it sure makes it nice to play Vegas and to have more than 3 people chillin' there.
BTW, Microsoft doesnt do their bans the way you think they would. If a user were to run a variety of backup games on their console without connecting to Live they are still at risk from being banned. The user could connect to download content on a game they purchased and the data collected while offline then would be sent and the user and console will be banned. It isn't like a console is banned for playing a game online it's just banned for connecting to live at all. Thats all fine and dandy just letting you know the average modded machine doesnt even try to get on Live with a illegal copy.
All the bans will inspire is cpu key spoofing and more walmart purchases and returns. You can purchase a console pull its valid xbox live able cpu key and return it. So the unlucky open box purchaser whos never modded theirs will unlikely be banned. MS has already banned people who werent actually modded before this and after for sure. The reason being is their detection checks are timing on dvd, media checks and so forth. So if your copied games isnt an exact copy it will find it, also it may be checking the time it takes to read a dvd and what if that dvd is scratched it may push it past that boundary. I had an xbox 360 banned because I bought it off someone through outside the retailers and the dvd drive stopped reading games, In order to replace the drive yourself you have to copy the dvd key up the a file and overwrite the new dvd firmware with the dvd embedded in it. Dont know why it was banned besides the fact I opened it and replaced the drive myself. who cares I guess I just ended up modding it more since its screwed from offline and now play backups on it.
WOW!! It’s amazing how people are rejoicing over the fact that XBOX Live has banned the people with modded systems, BACKUPS, and Pirated Games. Nowadays the word mod has a double meaning due to gullible people who listened to bad rumors. First off you can’t cheat with a modified system. Xbox 360 has too many security codes to allow that. The only way you can cheat is with a cheating device (AR Max, Gameshark, Codebreaker) and that was for the Xbox, which is what got most of you paranoid about modified systems in the first place. A modified board or character is not cause by a modified system people!! LMAO!!
The only people who are rejoicing over this are Ignoramuses, Friends & Family members of game developers, and people who are loyal patrons of certain games & the system itself. You all want to act as if people with modded systems are self-righteous a-holes but you’re all full of hypocrisy! The majority of you have pirated at one time or another!! THINK ABOUT? Whether it was a CD, Movie, TV Show, Music Single, or Software (Even if the software you illegally downloaded cost only $2 to purchase; even if you needed it for a class you were trying to pass; even if you needed it because your computer was full of viruses and was about to crash due to the lack of a Anti-virus program) YOU STILL STOLE! Downloading merchandise that you didn’t pay for is STEALING! So don’t give me that crap about thanking Microsoft because you were getting your @ss whipped in a game you can’t play! Get off of your narrow-minded high horse! There are people better than you!
I’m not a strong supporter of modding, even though I have done it in the past, but I hate hypocrites! All Microsoft did was cause consoles to be returned and unaware people to purchase banned systems. This STILL didn’t stop people from playing pirated games!! LOL! You think Microsoft did it for that sole purpose! MS is a money hungry company. They could have just solely blocked burnt games from being play on live, but NOOO!! By permanently banning your Xbox, Microsoft figured they could get those individuals banned to go out and buy another consoles. LOL! It’s pure genius!
You dumbass nerds not everyone mods there xbox to have an advantage in Halo which from my understanding isn't even possible. Games are too expensive to the relation of time playin them. Where else is it possible for the software for a system be 25% of the system price thats f'ed up! What it is this a printer!! I play sports games online where it is alot less difficult to mess with the integrity of the game. Not like those fruity ass point a shoot games with your big guns.
You won't get banned using original games on the Xbox 3FixMe live with a modded system my nephew plays his all the time which I flashed the DVD Rom for him not Modded. Modding means you put a mod-chip in it he even plays the odd copied game online and it seems as long as your not playing for hours on end you'll be fine and won't get banned. Btw I own a PS3 I don't support Microsoft and I never will they deserve to lost the so called money they lose to piracy they've ripped many companies off before Fck Bill Gates
Okay now. People seem to have a mis-understanding of what a mod-chip allows. What this does, is allow -any- disc so long as it has data that is the correct format of a 360, to play. There are several programs out there to entirely change games around, hack, if you will, but playing H2 with a severely changed map will result in a error when trying to play it with someone who does not have the very same map.
And, none of you seem to take in consideration the scale that this is being done at. A average pirating site has up to a million people, and atleast a quater of those take or 'Snatch' games for consoles. Guess what? 60$ x 250,000 .... = Big loss for one game. [ 150,000,000$ ]
And again, this is being done at several sites, for over the 100 widely wanted xbox Games. Do the math, just four sites with a average of 25k Members, and each one of them takes only 5 games which average in at 50$, ads up to. 25,000 x 4 x 50 = 5,000,000.
Now, they all have to have online supscriptions right, for this idea of thiers to be feasable. So... 25,000 x 80 for thier Year subby.
2,000,000 for those not good at math. So, The ratio of money gained to money lost is 2:5. Very bad.
I can see what they are doing, and I am neither for nor against it. I'm not for it, because this is a dirty, and under hand move that they pulled off to get people off XBL, that actually -pay- for a online supscrition.
They purchased the hardware, and have any right to do what they please to it.
I am not against it, however, because as previously stated, this will remove those fraction of modded users who know how to edit thier Halo and know how to fix the map's cache and bypass the map checks. I do not think this will really help stop pirating, though... Lets go back to my equation.
'Do the math, just four sites with a average of 25k Members, and each one of them takes only 5 games which average in at 50$, ads up to. 25,000 x 4 x 50 = 5,000,000.' Now dis-regard the part after it about subscriptions. Why? Because those 100k people will not purchase a 80$ Subscription for something they cannot use. Now thier ratio is 0:5, and Microsoft is out big with such small digits.
To burn a game costs about 1.50$ Per dual layer, and even cheaper for a disc... So, thats 150/6000 of the cost. Very easily, we can see, that the average person will choose to get thier Xbox modded... Can you see where I'm heading with this?
'Am I the only person who is seeing what is going on?
Microsoft is just putting in place safeguards to prevent people who have a MOD chip installed in their machines from using Live. They are not so much worried about people cheating at HALO, but are worried about people pirating HALO.
The careful wording above has had the desired effect, where if you mod your XBOX so you can put in a 300gb HDD, watch foreign movies, and watch divX files, in everyone's eyes they are now just HALO 'hackers'.'
Wrote Sagarat, he is completely right i thought I was the only who got this!
i agree that modding ur 360 isnt cheating microsoft should let people play burned games i mean screw profits they make enough off their over priced console u pay so much to get it they shud either let u play coppied games or sell the games for 10 DOLLARS
modded xbox does not help your aim
maybe should learn about what it does before flaming us all
i have a modded xbox but i dont cheat online just allows me to play backed up games so f**k off haters
hey is there such thing as cheating on halo 3 in xbox live cause when i play with other people they keep teleporting and some can double jump and i know some is lagging but i when they teleport i die and when i hit them they dissappear and i die
hey x1SoNicBOom1x has a standby program i played with him and he does almost all the time it makes it so the other team cant move or cant vote in gears of war 2
First, Lets remember where XBox and it's software come from ... Microsoft. The same folks who brought you that wonderful dillusion of operating system software called Windows. (choose your flavor) With all the holes, flaws and exploits in that software, it would be foolhardy to assume XBox software and XBox Live are all that much better.
In my experience with on-line gaming and anticheat programs like Punk Buster, in order to stop a cheat you need to 'know what it looks like or how it acts'. (much like antivirus definitions allow AV software to find viruses.) Until someone is caught, we really don't know the extent or capabilities of some wiz bang hacker's latest creation.
I don't play XBox. I can't stand the controllers. What I do is watch A LOT of XBox play by my son and his friends, both on and off line. What I notice is that sometimes there are aberations in the flow or feel of a game in play on line as opposed to offline multi or single player experience. Some of these aberations, based on my unusually objective observations, seem linked to certain players uncommon success on line. I have also noticed some significant irregularities linked directly to who is hosting who, specifically in a very popular hockey game.
My point is that I belive cheating and player improving hacks do exist in XBox Live. I can only hope that Microsoft is fully aware of the danger that these cheaters pose to their game console business and remain vigilant and responsive to their non-cheating clientel.
PHUC YOU
phuc you
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