Update Halts Hackers Progress

More on the Xbox 360 update released today - it appears that the patch has also halted progress in the Xbox 360 modding / hacking community, as the Kiosk Demo disc will no longer boot now.

Given that the update contains neither of the two "big" features that gamers were hoping to see (background downloading and support for 360 webcam - to be possibly released later this year), a closer look at the true motivation for the update needs to take place. As one poster on an Xbox 360 weblog put it: "The true purpose of this update was to halt the progress of the modding community. Their “demo disk” doesn’t work any more. That’s the most significant update."

The Kiosk Demo disc was mistakenly released by Microsoft and was not copy protected, and so it could run on the Xbox 360 on burned media. In turn, this had allowed hackers / modders to run other unsigned code on their machines (mainly playing music and videos), and also learn more about the Xbox 360 security system.

After updating their consoles with the patch released by Microsoft today, users on Xbox 360 forums around the internet are posting that the Kiosk Demo disc will no longer boot. So it would seem that Microsoft has plugged this security hole, for now, with this update. So was this mainly a security or a feature patch?

News-Source: http://www.planetxbox360.com