Microsoft Starts Banning 360s on LIVE - MS Confirms

Team XLink Administrator Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 1697

Microsoft Starts Banning 360s on LIVE - MS Confirms http://www.xbox-scene.com/index.php?newsview=1#newsitemEEZAuFAEuAjENKDCMV

>> With the amount of posts we see on our forums ... it's clear, Microsoft decided to start banning Xbox360 with modified firmwares today.
While it's the same release date as Halo3 beta, it seems that people who didn't download Halo3 also get banned. They probably detect backup discs when you play 'em online (not confirmed yet).
Even people using the new firmwares with disc-jitter added get banned, so it looks like Microsoft found another way to detect it.
Just like on Xbox1 it seems Microsoft bans the console unique ID, not the LIVE user.
Xbox-Scene
Picture by Eraser77. This is what you get when you go to test connection and after xbox live fails click on network adapter

Update: This was just posted on Microsoft's Games Global Marketing team blog:

Quote:

One of the great things about LIVE and the unified community is that we work hard to create a level playing field for all gamers and have a no tolerance policy towards inappropriate behavior like hacking or cheating. As part of our commitment to our members, we do not allow people that we have detected to have modified their console to connect to LIVE. This is an important part of our efforts to try and maintain a fair gaming environment for the large majority of gamers that play by the rules. This topic is more important than ever given the recent release of the Halo 3 beta. As a result, some consumers that try to login to LIVE who we detect have illegally modified their console will get an error code (Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D) when trying to connect to the service. These users will not have their account automatically banned from LIVE, but they will no longer be able to access the service from the console they modified.

We have stated in the past that customers can only enjoy access to the Xbox LIVE community through the use of a genuine, unmodified, Xbox console and we will continue to enforce this rule to ensure the integrity of our service, the protection of our partners and the benefits of our users.

I'm soooooo glad i didn't modify my 360 firmware. Did anyone on Kai get banned yet?

Team XLink Moderator Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 1536

i tried to read few posts...but now it seems xbox-scene is dead (overloaded users Rolling Eyes

)

-llnk- wrote:

I'm soooooo glad i didn't modify my 360 firmware.

i know it's early, but what exactly M$ detecting... modified firmw*re or pir*ted games while playing on LIVE? plus people without modded x360 getting baned too. Confused

Team XLink Administrator Joined: 11 Nov 2004 Posts: 5024

I don't think anybody knows exactly what they're looking for. I'm sure we'll learn more in the next few weeks. 99% of the people who say they have unmodded boxes that were banned are very likely lying...It's kinda funny actually because if you google some of the gamer tags of people who are complaining, some of them have all sorts of posts in the modding forums on x-s.com, and others have games in their "recently played" list that haven't shipped yet. Laughing

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 3:19 am

I would expect many to migrate from live to xlink because of this.

If xlink just had a solution to the 'voice' problem and 'low ping' constraints.

Kai Beginner Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 2

J5ONFIELD wrote:

I would expect many to migrate from live to xlink because of this.

If xlink just had a solution to the 'voice' problem and 'low ping' constraints.

Jejejeje, thats why I´m here.

Greetings everybody from spain Very Happy

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 10:48 am

Banned. Thought X1 would have the solution. Where are we in this mess of things? Take me to the promise land.

From patterns on xbox hacker and xscene - M$ detects if you have flashed your firmware after the spring update. Those who have are banhamered. It appears that MS does not detect the firmware or Backup.... but simply if you have flashed... This is of course my anaysis of the 30 pages of posting I have found... However, it could be that everybody will eventually be banned.

Kai Beginner Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 35 Location: Italy

it's the hour of XLINK KAI.

meanMF and friends, we carry 360 on xlink kai, no ping limit!

Kai Enthusiast Joined: 16 Apr 2005 Posts: 236

dylan666x2 wrote:

it's the hour of XLINK KAI.

meanMF and friends, we carry 360 on xlink kai, no ping limit!

From many many pages i have read, ping limit is on XBOX 360's core and not on Xlink. People on Xlink can't do anything about that (or anything else will be illegal)

If i'm wrong (or dont know something else) pls let me know

Kai Lover Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 879

thebetterJORT wrote:

Banned. Thought X1 would have the solution. Where are we in this mess of things? Take me to the promise land.

From patterns on xbox hacker and xscene - M$ detects if you have flashed your firmware after the spring update. Those who have are banhamered. It appears that MS does not detect the firmware or Backup.... but simply if you have flashed... This is of course my anaysis of the 30 pages of posting I have found... However, it could be that everybody will eventually be banned.

what up Jort...long time no see

Good thing I haven't had enough time to mess around with my 360 so that i wasn't on that list lol.

Team XLink Administrator Joined: 11 Nov 2004 Posts: 5024

RIMPAPAKION wrote:

From many many pages i have read, ping limit is on XBOX 360's core and not on Xlink. People on Xlink can't do anything about that (or anything else will be illegal)

The issue is definitely within the Xbox 360 core.. When you establish a connection to a host via system link, your Xbox and the hosts's Xbox go through a complex set of steps to negotiate an encryption key for that session. It's known as a "Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange". This key exchange has to complete within a certain amount of time (milliseconds), and if it doesn't, the key exchange fails and you can't connect. The delay added by sending traffic over the Internet, whether it's Kai, XBC, or some other VPN system doing it, is enough to cause the key exchange to fail.

I'm not a lawyer so I couldn't say if breaking the encryption would be legal or not, but doing so would likely violate the DMCA at least in the US where I live.

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 7:55 pm

BroKenMan-Redsku wrote:

thebetterJORT wrote:

Banned. Thought X1 would have the solution. Where are we in this mess of things? Take me to the promise land.

From patterns on xbox hacker and xscene - M$ detects if you have flashed your firmware after the spring update. Those who have are banhamered. It appears that MS does not detect the firmware or Backup.... but simply if you have flashed... This is of course my anaysis of the 30 pages of posting I have found... However, it could be that everybody will eventually be banned.

what up Jort...long time no see

Good thing I haven't had enough time to mess around with my 360 so that i wasn't on that list lol.

Ya man, what are people playing over here... I will be spending more time now.. lol.

Kai Beginner Joined: 26 Oct 2004 Posts: 73

yep i was one of them.so ill be looking for another 1 this week,shame i still cant get vista to work with xlink (x64)

PSP Guru Joined: 07 Apr 2007 Posts: 2405

i havent read everything on here, but there not banning accounts, there banning the hardware that accounts using..... so if you have a chipped/ softy and get banned on the account u are using..... you can recover that account on another box thats not softed or chiped and still be able to use it

Team XLink Administrator Joined: 03 May 2004 Posts: 2075

MeanMF wrote:

I'm not a lawyer so I couldn't say if breaking the encryption would be legal or not, but doing so would likely violate the DMCA at least in the US where I live.

Thank heavens we are not in the US. Hack away! Razz

Seriously though, reverse engineering the 360's encryption scheme to enable system link gaming over non-comercial tunnel gaming strikes me as "fair-use" although I am not a lawyer either.

Either way, sorry to those 360 owners who have been made to be outcasts by Microsoft for using backups of their costly originals. XLink is here for you and we *do* hope to have a solution for you in the not-so-distant future.

Welcome back!

-p

PS: thanks to xero9 for the image... no, my 360 has not been banned.

Kai Admirer Joined: 13 Oct 2006 Posts: 384

ya had to think M$ woulda caught on to the firmware hacks eventually

Kai Beginner Joined: 03 Feb 2005 Posts: 42

It seems odd that anyone would setup a sys link connection to be encrypted. What would be the point of doing that for a connection designed to be local?

Video Master Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 1815

prestige wrote:

Either way, sorry to those 360 owners who have been made to be outcasts by Microsoft for using backups of their costly originals. XLink is here for you and we *do* hope to have a solution for you in the not-so-distant future.

MY HERO!

Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 10:37 am

well to be fair we take the risk, you get away with it for a while personally ive modded mine with NME 1.2 chip thats reckons its undectable but mine is also banned

but ive download a few games to try them out, like most spiderman 3 etc is utter crap so im glad i didnt waste £50 pounds on it

yep most will pop over here or connect, like me i started with xbox live on xbox 1 and got bored then came to kia then stopped all together

bought a 360 on boxing day and banned 5 months later, modded it in March

but hey ho we all learn, hopefully there might be a cure as my gamertag is still working just no connection

Kai Beginner Joined: 26 Oct 2004 Posts: 73

i just got my friend to list mine on ebay with 104 games Smile

i just told him to mention that it is banned as i didn't see that in the auction anywhere. i haven't included my vision cam/mic and other controllers. it should still reach 500 + (i hope)

Team XLink Moderator Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 1536

thebetterJORT wrote:

From patterns on xbox hacker and xscene - M$ detects if you have flashed your firmware after the spring update. Those who have are banhamered. It appears that MS does not detect the firmware or Backup.... but simply if you have flashed.

no, people without the Spring Update and with or without the latest Firmw*re are been banned.. cos M$ collecting hardware info for long time.

MeanMF wrote:

99% of the people who say they have unmodded boxes that were banned are very likely lying...

this is true. also as someone quoted as they maybe decting disc speed change from original to backups...

"Microsoft are unbanning consoles, which probably indicates that whatever method they are using is bit on the flaky side. For anyone who is banned, I would recommend phonin, and trying to get your box unbanned. Deny all knowledge of a modification, and see whether they will unban you."

so i read few other posts that people WITH modified Firmw*re are still NOT getting banned. so this topic is intresting: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=603956
looks like if you buy a brand new x360 then flash it BEFORE you log in to LIVE you will not be banned... and if you replaced your damaged DVD drive with another one (with just the DRIVE KEY flashed) you are banned...modified firmw*re/backups or not Confused