#305333* (?/41) ⚐Flag
In a perfect world, there would be no need for firmware hacking because any person would be able to create an exact copy of a game with nothing more than their simple dual-layer dvd burner. However this is not the case, because when Xbox360 games are created by Microsoft they aren’t “burned” so much as they are “pressed.” Wikipedia can supply you with ample information on this.
Microsoft uses this to their advantage, creating artifacts in the discs that we cannot replicate with burners at home. Then looking for these artifacts when the disc is put into an xbox dvd-drive. This is where firmware hacking and SSv1, 2, and 3 come into play. To get around these anti-piracy (AP) artifacts (and there are various, the latest being anti-piracy 2.5 or AP25), the crafty modders and hackers came up with SSv, which is a security patch that emulates the AP artifacts. SSv 1 and 2 were used to get around the various flavors of AP up until and including AP 2.0. SSv 3 for AP25.
These security patches are ignored by standard xbox firmware (obviously), so modded firmwares is required to recognize them. This modded firmware reports to the motherboard (and thus the Xbox-Dash OS) that the disc has all the necessary AP artifacts. I’m oversimplifying but I’m assuming you have no background with firmware programming or modification.
What microsoft has done is activated ‘hidden’ checks for AP25 in some recently released games, which up until now had no checks. These games ALREADY HAD AP25 ON THEM, AP25 is a physical property of the disc, it was not, and cannot, be created by the update. The reason for this is MS wanted to ‘ambush’ the modders who played without SSv3 patches on these games (which of course nobody does, since they weren’t necessary and were never ripped/developed). This does not mean MS can suddenly create AP25 on older discs, those will always be safe. Also, older drives (read: Hitachi’s and Sammy’s) are incapable of searching for AP25 and will always be safe from this sort of update. |