This article is about the security system of the Xbox and the mistakes Microsoft made. It will not explain basic concepts like buffer exploits, and it will not explain how to construct an effective security system, but it will explain how not to do it: This article is about how easy it is to make terrible mistakes and how easily people seem to overestimate their skills. So this article is also about how to avoid the most common mistakes.

For every security concept, this article will first explain the design from Microsoft's perspective, and then describe the hackers' efforts to break the security. If the reader finds the mistakes in the design, this proves that Microsoft has weak developers. If, on the other hand, the reader doesn't find the mistakes, this proves that constructing a security system is indeed hard.

At xbox-linux.org

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