MIT unashamedly training students to be hackers

World Tech Tribune.com ^ | Copyright June 4, 2002 | Scott McCollum

[Scott McCollum]

“A computer sciences graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a highly respected private co-ed tech college in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, proudly published a paper detailing how to hack the secure software technology on Microsoft’s Xbox video game console. Andrew 'bunnie' Huang told a reporter in a telephone interview that he will not 'share the secret code at all, or the key--those are Microsoft copyrighted items,' and said that he had 'been in touch with Microsoft about my work, and we've been really clear about what they think is legal research activity.'

The hack bunnie used to circumvent the video game console’s security measures consisted of what bunnie estimates as $50 worth of electronic parts and three weeks of work. Bunnie’s estimation does not count the cost of the Xbox or Xboxes torn apart during the experiment (which were bought by his girlfriend for $299 per unit unless she bought in late May when the price dropped to $199) or the average $38,000 most parents pay for nine months worth of tuition, books, room and board at MIT (Bunnie is a member of a fraternity, so his mileage may vary).”

Full text of the commentary is here.

[Scott McCollum]

Would you hire an engineer who signed his doctoral thesis as "bunnie" just because he graduated from MIT?

[Dimensio]

1) Where is it stated that he signed his thesis with the name "bunnie"?

2) What does a nickname that he uses have to do with his credentials?

[Gladwin]

Yes

[ScreamingFist]

"Bunnie and other hackers anticipate that the boot ROM would allow the Xbox to do things a PC does, like play MP3 music (someone should have told them that the Xbox came standard with that function) or browse the web (the Xbox will have limited Internet browsing capabilities in the summer when the broadband Xbox Live on-line game network is activated."

Anyone want to bet that Bunnie will be employed by Microsoft in the near future?

[Diogenesis]

You make hacking sound like a bad thing. Is it?

[arkfreepdom]

Yes, and so would the CIA.

[Dimensio]

Don't forget the NSA.

[Libertarian_4_eva]

Watch out don't open up your VRC and figureout how it works people or you will be an evil hacker.

[shadowman99]

May I ask what has this person done besides open and modify a video game that he bought and paid for?

He has bypassed an anti-copy mechanism that would prevent him from being able to backup his software that he purchased for the X-box. You have fair use rights under copyright law, and the X-box makes it impossible to exercise them.

Also many video games employ "region coding" that makes it impossible to import a video game. Have you ever purchased an import album and movie? Do you think the world ends at the borders of the US? Well, many gamers are interested in software that is only published in other countries. So why should they not be allowed to execute legally purchased software on a legally purchased piece of hardware just because some pinhead in marketing decided not to go for a US release?

If he paid for the X-box, he should be able to play it, modify it, smash it with a hammer, or any other damn thing he wants to do with it. It's a piece of private property!

So if this person has figured out some way of making his hardware better, why should he not be allowed to tell other people how he did it? Because Microsoft said so? Where is your first amendment outrage?

[w1andsodidwe]

It seems to me that you need experts in business and at the FBI and CIA that are trained in these techniques in order to catch the evil hackers. If the hackers are the only ones who understand this technology, then we are doomed to live under their domination.

[Rebelbase]

"Hacker" is probably one of the most abused, misused, and misunderstood words in all of Cybertropolis.

[bloggerjohn]

I think it's great. Who is going to protect us from the government and giant corporations if not hackers? Who is going to ferret out their nasty secrets and expose them? Freedoms are being eroded every day. I say, let them hack.

The government thinks it's going to compile all these databases, increase its police power, and have all these techies spy on us. Except half of them will be former hackers and more likely than not to turn on authority and save our butts. More hackers, not less!

[Dimensio]

Actually, I have heard (though not had confirmed) that "backing up" X-Box games is not an easy matter because the DVD spiral is reverse (outer-to-inner) that of a standard DVD disc. The "hacking" of the X-Box is more about having the console boot and run arbitrary code so that homebrew projects could be created for the system, including a Linux port. The X-Box is essentially built from PC components, thus porting PC-based code and software is not that absurd a proposition.

Sony has actually released a Linux dev kit for the Playstation 2. I was curious about it, because one could obtain it, run X and run the Playstation emulator epsxe (once the team releases the source) to run Sony Playstation games on the Playstation 2. Sure, it's a silly idea but it's kind of novel.

[ThinkDifferent]

Ditto. So many technological advancements in the last century came from innovators who got their start by taking things apart and figuring out how they worked. Today some corporate interests (most prominently in the entertainment industry) want to reduce computers to closed boxes that view only approved content. I can think of no better way to ensure that the US loses its technological edge in the coming decades.

[arkfreepdom]

Hack is also a term used at MIT to mean practical joke.

[Dimensio]

Just checked the article. Utterly clueless writing:

The reason why I termed the Sony v. Connectix as outdated is because Sony got tired of the court battle, bought the technology from Connectix, tried bundling the software with Playstations, lost money on the deal (undoubtedly through piracy of the Connectix software) and finally gave up on it.

Sony never tried bundling the software; Sony bought the software specifically to kill it because they knew that they had no chance whatsoever of winning a legal victory. The article author also attacks bunnie's defense that reverse engineering is legal, but doesn't explain what's wrong with that defense. Reverse engineering of a technology is perfectly legal; when DeCSS broke loose the MPAA (whose laywers should be flayed alive and dipped in acid, but that's another matter) won a legal victory against 2600 for DMCA violations, but they lost a legal battle in California over the distribution of trade secrets specifically because the "trade secrets" were discovered through reverse engineering. The case is more recent than Sony v. Connectix and to date the MPAA has not attempted to buy out any of the parties involved.

The author of the piece seems to suggest that no one should ever tinker with any electronic devices and that we should just leave them to function exactly as the big corporations intended. Sorry, but if I want to modify my Game Boy Advance to function as a webserver -- silly as that may be -- I'm not going to put up with Nintendo of America sending me cease and desist orders. I paid for the hardware and I'm not depriving NoA of any income through my actions.

[wheezer]

Anyone want to bet that Bunnie will be employed by Microsoft in the near future?

I think Bunnie's gonna' happily hop on down the money trail.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I don't think Microsoft gives much thought to nicknames, or to graduation for that matter. Microsoft wants brains, period. This kid has brains, and has demonstrated to Microsoft that he knows how to apply them. I can just about guarantee that Microsoft has already made him an offer.

In the end, the “bunnie”s of the world will continue to ... work against the intellectual property right protections that drive a free market economy and go from thieves to “celebrity hackers” who are paid well as “security consultants” by the corporations they try to destroy.

Do you fancy yourself to be a journalist? You sound more like an axe-grinder here. There is no evidence in your article that "bunnie" is seeking to undermine intellectual property right protections or the free market economy or to "try to destroy corporations". Bunnie's a lot smarter than you are, and I think you're just jealous.