Quote>> With the amount of posts we see on our forums ... its clear, Microsoft decided to start banning Xbox360 with modified firmwares today (both Hitachi-LG and Toshiba-Samsung drives).
While its the same release date as Halo3 beta, it seems that people who didnt download Halo3 also get banned. They probably detect backup discs (and not the modified firmware) 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. However we also see reports of people with modified firmwares that are not banned (yet). Microsoft is known to ban with delay though, so itll probably take a while before we got a good view on who got banned for what reasons.
Just like on Xbox1 it looks like Microsoft bans the console unique ID (serial), not the LIVE user. Microsoft will not allow anyone to login on LIVE on a banned console.
Many people on the official xbox.com forums also claim they got banned but didnt have a flashed firmware ... well have to see how that story develops in the coming hours and days.



Update: This was just posted on Microsofts Games Global Marketing team blog:

QuoteOne 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.

QuoteHi everyone, I logged in just to clear up some of the FUD and blatant half truths that seems to be somewhat abundant regarding this issue. I have been modding boxes for some time, and consider myself to have a pretty solid understanding of whats actually happened. I actually got rid of my last modded 360 a while ago, and I am done with piracy, because that is the only reason one would actually modify the xbox 360. People who claim to be doing it to protect their valuable investments via backups are lying, and saying backup/backups in the modding scene is a euphemism for saying pirated games. Anyone who says otherwise is lying, because there is no need for a proxy disc, even though advocates of the DMCA would contend otherwise. Anyway, people on Digg love lists (and I am very fond of them as well!), so here it goes. I have tried to break it down as much as possible so as to convey a clear understanding of the issues surrounding the ban.

1) Current modifications do NOT allow modded xbox 360s to run unsigned (hacked, i.e. non-MS applications) code. Therefore, it is IMPOSSIBLE to cheat or mod in online Xbox 360 games, and the ban was passed to stick it to those who run Xtreme Firmware, and possibly those who use modchips to play pirated, (read: so-called backup) games. At no time did any of the current modifications for the xbox 360 allow for modding/cheating like many of you saw on Halo 2 on the xbox.

2)The Xbox 360s internal design is quite different, and much more security conscious than the Original Xbox, and has not been defeated, (although older firmware versions--which are automatically patched when one logs into LIVE--have allowed for some minor exploits, such as running Emulators and such). In sum, the only reason to have a modified Xbox 360 is piracy. On Xbox Scene--and I cannot reiterate this enough--people will say otherwise, but they are just trying to justify/rationalize their own illicit behavior. I too used to do the same thing, so I know this to be the case.

3)A lot of people involved in the scene are SHOCKED, and I mean absolutely SHOCKED that this happened. The reason being is that the firmware and chipped mods did not affect the main Xbox 360 Mobo, and only dealt with an exploit in the DVD-ROM drives. Heck, even Commodore4eva, (the author of the original hacks/mods), is probably surprised, since he advertised he/she advertised their firmware as being Stealth and undetectable to MS, forever. In an nutshell, not many people saw this coming.

4) Although I am a fan of Homebrew, (like the XBMC), a majority of it is based on pirating classic games and playing them through the use of emulation. Ultimately, homebrew on a console leads to more piracy, as emulators are a large part of the homebrew scene. Anyone who says differently is in denial, because I will be the first to admit that I had some great times playing Mario Kart 64 on the Original Xbox.

5) The digg lawyers arguing about Fairuse and fighting the man/corporate America are making absurd arguments, because you must remember that even though you paid for the console, and can do what you want with it, MS still controls their LIVE service, and has a right to say who and who is not allowed to conntect. I understand that MS is disingenuous when they say theyve taken these actions to prevent cheating, but that is not the point, and you know it!

I am done with the modding scene, because its ultimately more of a hassle then its worth. Constantly having to look over your shoulder and/or waiting for scene releases is lame, because when you have every game in existence to play, you become bored of each one quickly and lose interest fast. Im not saying Im going to be a perfect, loyal consumer. Its just that Ive come to realize that the modding/hacking community is full of hypocrites, thieves, and liars, for the most part. They try to justify illegal activities by saying that they are sticking it to the man. Good luck with that...

QuoteXbox360 LIVE Bans Info and iXtreme Online FW WIP
>> Here are some details about the Xbox360 LIVE bans I got directly and indirectly from GaryOPA, Commodore4eva (C4E), Iriez and others. Of course dont take any of this info as 100% confirmed, noone knows exactly based on what data MS is banning ... its just an analysis of what they think is happening and what MS might/can be checking.

C4E thinks MS is probably detecting and banning consoles from LIVE by tracking usage of backups via timing of the challenge response (c/r) on the drive over the last few weeks or months. A modified FW will reply much faster to the the Challenges requests (stored in a table) than an original firmware (seek on drive). They probably do this test more than once and can ban you if youre above a certain average.
FuzzyLogic also found that microsoft is sometimes doing additional checks on discs: PFI/DMI (so images without these sectors (or if using an old FWs without support for PFI/DMI) can probably be detected easily), drive inquiry (reads ascii string from drive), and capacity (reports capacity of disc) are requested. Strange thing here is MS requests 0x8000 bytes for PFI and DMI, while it should normally be 0x0800 bytes. TheSpecialist pointed out that the remaining 0x7800 bytes contains the relocated SS and PFI on burned discs ... which would make it very easy to detect backups for MS. C4E however told us this would not work on TS drives as its cut off to 0800 even if more data is asked, its unconfirmed how modified HLG FWs drives respond to this atm.
The "read capacity check" will also work as detection on HLG because, unlike the newest TS FWs, it doesnt have true stealth media yet, these drives are reporting back the burned disc based size of PFI instead of the correct PFI.
Apparently theres also an issue with SS (Security Sector) extracted from Hitachi-LG, some necessary data is screwed ... which means that probably only the Toshiba-Samsung / kreon setup has been extracting correct SS.

Another thing they are probably detecting (but probably not using yet to decide to ban or not) and log/flag is if you ever booted your Xbox360 with DVD SATA cable not connected to your Xbox360 (E64). Many people did this to power their drive when they wanted to flash it (power connected to 360, SATA to PC). So its highly suggested to use an external power to flash next time.
Its also possible MS also bans based on stuff like bad credit card info for your country, running a NTSC machine with euro-address/credit card (or inverse), having out-of-region (arcade) games and demos on your HDD, unofficial 360 HDD, internet downloaded gamesaves etc. Theres no clear view on all this yet.
For now, C4E believes Microsoft is not detecting modified FWs or detecting FW changes/updates. Using a special FW they did not detect any debug commands sent to the drive by MS (they went through the dash/kernel updates with the special FW as well and did not detect any debug commands there either). So they think either:
A/ MS is not doing any FW detection right now, and only previously (maybe on request of MS servers while playing on LIVE?), or
B/ MS is banning based only on the timings of the drive, ss/pfi/dmi checks, capacity, drive inquiry and c/r verification.

We also got information C4E is working on an "iXtreme Online" FW for Toshiba-Samsung drives, a Hitachi-LG version and maybe even BenQ version might follow later.
The new FW will have less features than the current Xtreme FWs: no single-layer (DVD5) support, no ripping of games (0800 mode), but more features to safely play from burned discs (emulate the exact speed and timings of the original games) and prevent booting from un-safe discs (without PFI and DMI or bad SS - so discs not passing the Stealth Check (using Xbox Backup Creator(info)(info) for example) are not going to boot on the new firmware), or images that arent exact dumps of the original.
Theres no official ETA (maybe this weekend though for TS drives), and of course no guarantee MS will never ban you based on new checks (thats the risk it takes if you want to be part of the modding community ) The HLG FW will take a bit longer as itll require true Stealth media etc added.

This new FW will of course be made mostly for new consoles being modded, because even if youre not banned from LIVE yet theres no way to know if MS already has info/logs on your console ID regarding timings or other stuff so even changing to this new firmware in the near future may not stop that console ID from being banned in the next wave of MS bans.
If your console is not banned yet, its highly suggested you dont boot any burned discs, originals should be ok, even when offline (MS might be storing results of some checks in flash), until the release of the new FW.
If your console is already banned this will of course not help you ... just enjoy the offline playing on that console for now (with some games you could try using 3rd party networks like XLink Kai(info)) and maybe some day a new exploit will allow you to do more with that console.

To end with ... X-Scenes obvious tip of the month: dont buy 2nd hand Xbox360 consoles