New protection confirmed in the Kinect dashboard

S

Sigma

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Mar 7, 2010
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A lot of people are coming here to grab the Kinect dashboard updates that are being uploaded, but there's a new protection in it. I can't see a thread about it, so apologies if it's been talked about already.

Confirmation from c4eva here: -

C4E Confirms New AP2.5 Checks on New Dashboard with New Games - Scenyx Entertainment Community

AP25 first talked about by Xorloser here: -

New Xbox360 Disc Protections? Bans to follow? « xorloser’s blog

This protection is why many people haven't been able to boot Fable 3, as it's the first game that has the protection on the disc. Here's what happens when you boot it on a console with the Kinect dashboard: -

1. The game is recognised by the 360, will install, but if you try and boot it, it says "This disc is unreadable".

2. Your console is then flagged for a ban for failing the AP25 challenge. You can check if your console has been flagged by using XVal 2.0: -

Xbox-Scene News: XVal 2.0 and Xbox Image Browser v1.0

3. Your gamertag will then only work on that particular Xbox 360. If you move it to another 360, it will show up as corrupt. A lot of people use an offline, flashed 360 to play games, then they sign into Live on another 360 to update their achievements/gamerscore. This stops you doing that.

The above 3 things happen just by booting Fable 3 on the Kinect dashboard. You don't need to connect to Live in order to suffer these effects, so it doesn't matter if you stay offline. I should clarify that only backups of Fable 3 are affected, not originals.

New firmware is being worked on, but there's no ETA. The first Wave 7 game has appeared (Hasbro Family Game Night 3), so this may contain the Kinect dashboard update - I can't confirm this though. It's not known which, if any, other games apart from Fable 3 contain the new protection. It's possible that the protection can be added to older titles via updates rolled out on Xbox Live.
 
I would recommend that anyone that's tried booting a backup of Fable 3 with the Kinect dash - whether it worked or not - should use XVal 2.0 to check if they've been flagged.

1. Download the program from the link I gave in post 1.
2. Fire up your Xbox 360 and go to My Xbox - System Settings - Console Settings - System Info.
3. Write down your console's serial number and the 16 digit string that's displayed after "X:" at the bottom of the System Info page.
4. Fire up XVal 2.0 on your computer and enter in your console serial number and the 16 digit string and then press Decrypt.

This will tell you if you're flagged for a ban. If you've booted Fable 3 and got the "This disc is unreadable error", you will almost certainly see this: -

xval.jpg


I've edited some of my personal info out of that image, hence the asterisks. If you see "Failed AP25 Challenge" then you are flagged for a ban for booting an AP2.5 protected game.
 
so whats why the game is so buggy. devs were more worried about protecting their assets than making the asset worth paying for ;)
 
sigma said:
i would recommend that anyone that's tried booting a backup of fable 3 with the kinect dash - whether it worked or not - should use xval 2.0 to check if they've been flagged.

1. Download the program from the link i gave in post 1.
2. Fire up your xbox 360 and go to my xbox - system settings - console settings - system info.
3. Write down your console's serial number and the 16 digit string that's displayed after "x:" at the bottom of the system info page.
4. Fire up xval 2.0 on your computer and enter in your console serial number and the 16 digit string and then press decrypt.

This will tell you if you're flagged for a ban. If you've booted fable 3 and got the "this disc is unreadable error", you will almost certainly see this: -

xval.jpg


i've edited some of my personal info out of that image, hence the asterisks. If you see "failed ap25 challenge" then you are flagged for a ban for booting an ap2.5 protected game.
Click to expand...
mines clean but i did get with 12606 a disc unreadable error. How strange it seems they're only foucusing on new game :0
 
mine is clean, has 12607, haven't tried any discs since 12583 though.
 
seanpr92 said:
will this protection follow to burned demos ect?

just a thought
Click to expand...
It's possible. It's also possible that old disc based games will be patched to include the new protection, as a patch released for FIFA 09 is the first time AP2.5 was noticed - it just wasn't activated at that time.

All we can do really is wait and see. For now, all we know for sure is that the new dashboard includes new protection and that this protection works in conjunction with particular games, and the only game confirmed to be affected right now is Fable 3.

My advice is - If you're on a pre-Kinect dashboard, don't update. If you're on the Kinect dashboard, do the test I posted above. If you're flagged, you're screwed unless you have a NAND backup. If you're not flagged, don't even attempt to boot a backup of Fable 3 or any other current releases until they are confirmed to be safe.

Oh, and there do seem to be one or two people on here that stir up trouble in the dashboard downloads section. For those people, before you go blaming xXXBOXxHACKERXx or anyone else that uploaded these dashboards, you downloaded and installed them entirely at your own risk and he, or anyone else that shared dashboards, is in no way to blame for this. Had to mention that, cos I hate pointless bickering.
 
Sigma said:
It's possible. It's also possible that old disc based games will be patched to include the new protection, as a patch released for FIFA 09 is the first time AP2.5 was noticed - it just wasn't activated at that time.

All we can do really is wait and see. For now, all we know for sure is that the new dashboard includes new protection and that this protection works in conjunction with particular games, and the only game confirmed to be affected right now is Fable 3.

My advice is - If you're on a pre-Kinect dashboard, don't update. If you're on the Kinect dashboard, do the test I posted above. If you're flagged, you're screwed unless you have a NAND backup. If you're not flagged, don't even attempt to boot a backup of Fable 3 or any other current releases until they are confirmed to be safe.

Oh, and there do seem to be one or two people on here that stir up trouble in the dashboard downloads section. For those people, before you go blaming xXXBOXxHACKERXx or anyone else that uploaded these dashboards, you downloaded and installed them entirely at your own risk and he, or anyone else that shared dashboards, is in no way to blame for this. Had to mention that, cos I hate pointless bickering.
Click to expand...

we also posted warnings B)
 
This isn't going to be added to demos. As everyone said so far the only game with the added protection seems to be Fable III. So why would this apply to demos in any way possible? It sounds like they are adding this protection to new games, they can't really add protection like that to demos like that unless it was officially released by Microsoft or the game company that produced it and obviously no one pumps out demos on a disc. So I would have to say that demos on burned discs will definitely be unaffected.
 
I'm wondering how long til these insanely picky security protocols backfire. 1 error on the fable 3 backup and it bans you? What if my legit disc has a scratch over what happens to be the security sector? It would fail to read, thus fail to decrypt, and now my xbox would be banned for having a scratch on a disc?

Can't wait til this backfires and causes a class action lawsuit :P
 
zefie said:
I'm wondering how long til these insanely picky security protocols backfire. 1 error on the fable 3 backup and it bans you? What if my legit disc has a scratch over what happens to be the security sector? It would fail to read, thus fail to decrypt, and now my xbox would be banned for having a scratch on a disc?

Can't wait til this backfires and causes a class action lawsuit :P
Click to expand...
What makes you think that the security protocols are "insanely picky"? I haven't seen a single report of legit versions of Fable 3 not booting on the Kinect dashboard, just pirated copies. The reason that Fable 3 backups get flagged isn't because of "1 error on the disc". There won't be a class action lawsuit, but there will be plenty of people with flashed consoles whining once the Kinect dash is released to everyone, lol.
 
Sigma said:
What makes you think that the security protocols are "insanely picky"? I haven't seen a single report of legit versions of Fable 3 not booting on the Kinect dashboard, just pirated copies. The reason that Fable 3 backups get flagged isn't because of "1 error on the disc". There won't be a class action lawsuit, but there will be plenty of people with flashed consoles whining once the Kinect dash is released to everyone, lol.
Click to expand...

Fable 3 is the first time AP2.5 was used, correct? Fable 3 is too new for someone to have a damaged disc yet, unless they intentionally scratch it, or just suck at keeping care of discs.

I'm talking about in the future, when discs get damaged to the point where they are unreadable, the firmware flips out and thinks its an illegal copy because it can't decrypt AP2.5 correctly, and bans you for no good reason. It's not impossible, unless they have some sort of "if bad sector, skip ban", and if they do, that can be exploited in custom drive firmware.
 
zefie said:
Fable 3 is the first time AP2.5 was used, correct? Fable 3 is too new for someone to have a damaged disc yet, unless they intentionally scratch it, or just suck at keeping care of discs.

I'm talking about in the future, when discs get damaged to the point where they are unreadable, the firmware flips out and thinks its an illegal copy because it can't decrypt AP2.5 correctly, and bans you for no good reason. It's not impossible, unless they have some sort of "if bad sector, skip ban", and if they do, that can be exploited in custom drive firmware.
Click to expand...
Your post makes no sense, because Xbox 360 game discs have always been protected and challenge/response tests have always been used, therefore if scratching a disc could somehow mess up these tests and lead to mass bans, a class action lawsuit would have already happened.

You described the new security as "insanely picky" which to me is about as picky as something can get, yet you know nothing about it at all and have absolutely zero reason to describe it as "insanely picky", but you use that as justification to claim that there will be a class action lawsuit. It's far better to just stick to facts. It's fine to speculate too, but only if you have good reason to, and you don't at this stage.
 
Sigma said:
Your post makes no sense, because Xbox 360 game discs have always been protected and challenge/response tests have always been used, therefore if scratching a disc could somehow mess up these tests and lead to mass bans, a class action lawsuit would have already happened.

You described the new security as "insanely picky" which to me is about as picky as something can get, yet you know nothing about it at all and have absolutely zero reason to describe it as "insanely picky", but you use that as justification to claim that there will be a class action lawsuit. It's far better to just stick to facts. It's fine to speculate too, but only if you have good reason to, and you don't at this stage.
Click to expand...

Touche. But I like to speculate. It leads to ideas. As you said there have been no reports of previous protocols triggering from a scratch, thus it has some error protection. That leads to exploitablity which c4eva already found, but still. Not saying he uses that, but still. This is why the cat & mouse game goes on.
 
zefie said:
Touche. But I like to speculate. It leads to ideas. As you said there have been no reports of previous protocols triggering from a scratch, thus it has some error protection. That leads to exploitablity which c4eva already found, but still. Not saying he uses that, but still. This is why the cat & mouse game goes on.
Click to expand...

didnt c4eva have 12209 beta when we first saw the new pics ;) i wonder where he got it.
 
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