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Skye joined the community
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We're having to show comparisons between the assembly because source code for the first release of PrometheOS with this feature does not seem to exists. In the write up there's multiple of these screenshots showing the Ghidra disassembler side by side with M_akeMHz on the left and Cerbios/PromethOS on the right. Inside these windows you will see the assembly code in the middle panel and the C code approximation in the right panel. When we say the code was stolen, we’re not saying they had access to our original C source. Which is entirely possible, especially with modern disassemblers and decompilers. What we’re showing is that at every opportunity where an implementation could differ in structure, timing, or control flow that their version consistently matches ours. Each of those decisions could have gone a different way, but they didn’t. The outcome isn’t random chance. It’s copying. This has been a problem in the past and as recently as the Grand Theft Auto 3 reverse engineering project that Take Two forced to shutdown. This is because copying the output of a decompiler does not make a work transformative. --- It's taken two weeks for to get a response on one part of the code theft and we have not heard anything from Equinox, or the other members of Cerbios, about the other issues. --- I'm trying to figure out the next step here. I did open a GitHub issue on the PrometheOS here. But it seems to have created more questions than answers so far. - GitHub history of the development process doesn't exist. - It seems other closed source software may have been used.
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Why is FreeCell Solitaire Still a Go-To Game on the OG Xbox?
HDShadow replied to bewivobsrea's topic in Games
You'd think though that there would be or could be a whole load of homebrew solo card games including Solitaire and Hearts made for the OGXB. Marble/Peg Solitaire too. The OP's post appears to be spam but it does raise the quite interesting question as to why versions of those relative simple, easy play games haven't been ported/adapted. -
I'll unlock for a response if you so choose. This is more of a "my ignorance" question. This appears to be the code that unlocks a drive even with no key. Code that is in question and that you've alleged that you created and was stolen from your published works. If your assembly / machine code was stolen, how do they have the C++ code? My understanding is that a compiler is a one-way operation. It takes the type of code above and translates it into machine language, stripping comments and any other unnecessary but human-friendly things out on the way. This means there is no possible backwards translation or decompilation back into C++. They should only have the allegedly stolen block of assembly and not C++. Even if they did somehow manually translate the assembly into C++, based on previous comments here it should not compile back into exactly the same machine language. How is this possible?
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PM RECIEVED FROM @Harcroft. Info is relevent to this thread. "My talk of VSC research was entirely for PC side and Serial interface unlocking. Most of the research was done by Siktah, but many of the resources can still be found today. My links were all to address the accusations thrown at Skye and Eaton. NOT to do with the Stellar and PromOS Xbox side unlocking. They were separate "concerns" raised by MM. muramasa is connecting them when they should not."
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All this huffing and puffing and legal DMCA stuff is successfully achieving is driving a MASSIVE wedge through the middle of the scene. The regular scene users on one side and St_llar users on the other. Personally I dont see any end to this episode so we better get ready to split sites like this in two, one for the usual scene and one for the St_llar camp.
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Thanks @Rocky5, I just checked my Filezilla was set to auto. I am building another drive and will change it to give it a go.
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Why is FreeCell Solitaire Still a Go-To Game on the OG Xbox?
Bowlsnapper replied to bewivobsrea's topic in Games
Is this just spam without a link? Lol. -
If you're working on electronics or prototyping projects and need reliable wire for precise connections, I highly recommend using Kynar wire especially the 30 AWG Kynar wire. It’s flexible, durable, and ideal for wire wrapping. I’ve been using the Jonard Tools Kynar wire, which comes in multiple colors and lengths, and the quality is great. They even offer dispensers and pre-cut options, which really help streamline the workflow and keep things organized.
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So as someone who is also trying to understand all of this and has read through both long posts I wonder a few things. First let me say I'm not a programmer so some of the technical stuff goes over my head. I do IT work though though so I have friends that are programmers though. As near as I can tell L_ovemhz's claim, the 'smoking gun' is first. "So what are the chances that two completely independent implementations, written by different people in different environments, would not only use the same low-level delay function, but also choose the exact same timing values down to the microsecond?" combined with. "This comparison of disassembled code represents the bulk of the new HDD unlock logic. It shows a repeated pattern of identical pause logic, matching code structure, and even small but telling details like the use of the same temporary buffer sizes. For example, both implementations allocate a 2048-byte buffer to handle roughly 500 bytes of data. There is no technical justification for that size. It only makes sense if the implementation was copied." From what I can tell the response in the "Truth in the Xbox Scene" coming closest to addressing this is from @Harcroftwith "The truth of the matter is M_a_keMhz did not develop the hard drive unlocking code they implemented in S_tellar. The Vendor Commands themselves are owned by Western Digital and Seagate. All of the vendor commands and some of the timings have been documented previously in various forms, including: - on Llamma.com: https://web.archive.org/web/20060208043709/http://www.llamma.com:80/xbox/Unlocking Seagate Xbox Hard Drive.htm - in the source code for HDD Super Clone: https://github.com/thesourcerer8/hddsuperclone - in WDMarvel Demo: https://arch7rt.com/en/demo/ - on various old forums: https://www.os2museum.com/wp/seagate-serial-talk/ - on various old private blogs: https://jessiesbloggerific.blogspot.com/2011/10/unlocking-my-st310014ace-completed.html" But as far as I can tell this doesn't address the smoking gun. Even if L_ovemhz didn't pioneer the whole drive unlocking it doesn't mean that his implementation wasn't lifted in it's entirety and when L_ovemhz says his main concern hasn't been addressed this is what I think he's referring to. From what I can tell it's like having an entire paragraph lifted from a book exactly and appearing several times but when asked about it people note that the topic has been written about before and that's why. So I guess I would ask is the above understanding incorrect. Is there someone that can provide an actual technical analysis of why this is wrong? My guess is if this was an actual legal case they would call a special witness to explain this to the judge and jury that both sides could cross examine and ask these questions to? So far as someone looking in L_ovemhz seems to be the only one with the skill to explain that. (which doesn't help since he's making the claim). To be clear I'm just trying to understand as well. I have had a few conversations with L_ovemhz and he's been helpful to me on the few things we've discussed (and hopefully I've been helpful to him). I don't know @Harcroft but having participated in past retro chats on x and listening to him speak he didn't seemed unhinged or unreasonable. In fact he was much more civil at that point then the other people discussing xbox and kept the conversation focused on the xbox and not on drama. (which I appreciated at least)
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Ok, so deleting E:\TDATA\0facfac0 and E:\UDATA\0facfac0 helped against the issue with freezing. I can access the network menu for dvd2xbox. But there is still no network or ftp server up and running. " IP: no network"
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I've created an issue on the PrometheOS GitHub project. I'm still hopeful this can be resolved within the community. There's not much else for me to say from my side on the matter until a full response is provided.
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I was one of those who PM'd Admin. Firstly, I’m not here to bash you or anyone for that matter, in fact quite the opposite as only to advise somewhat and hopefully mediate to a slim degree. Theft of ones intellectual property is ultimately something none of us wish to happen. However, unfortunately it does. In no way am I indicating either way here that it has or has not occurred, let me get that straight. Generally speaking, in business, small, large, corporate or otherwise the pre-emptive is to fully ascertain with unquestionable doubt, the evidence of said infraction. Of course we then had legal dept or outside legal service (solicitor) evaluate the situation. Therefore the consensus would be, verify, gather the evidence and contact in the first instance to advise to cease and desist. You would have found this the better route before issuing DMCA’s as a last resort. These should only be issued on concrete evidence that would stand up in court under scrutiny. We can’t do that here of course. Historically, one would not make public and just serve. So therefore ultimately, you should have pure unquestionable factual evidence for your claim and if you wish to pursue on that claim then do so. ‘Doing the rounds’ so to speak in public forums et al, is not conducive to helping your case, and as already seen in a few points (GPLv2 for example), this can severely hamper your case. Any legal representation would advise you of this. Legal 'manoeuvring' would be used, possibly to your detriment on points like this. Also, making public and ‘airing ones dirty washing’ so to speak is both case detrimental and of greater issue is the damage it causes to your own customer base. This is why most firms follow the steps above. As you may know, the law is absolute. Undisputed evidence, not here-say nor likelihood nor any other ambiguity in evidence is of much use. Making statements online of saying something will be this or that or have this or that is not conducive either. Obviously legal representation either in house or external is expensive, but you ultimately need to make a choice on your actions with regard to this. It is, as you have already expressed, not the fault of the user base on these forums, but it is those who are ultimately suffering as a result because of it, here and everywhere else. This is especially relevant for site owners and forum moderators and channels of information to whom it is obviously causing them stress. Here I would simply implore you to make the decision to possibly indemnify said forums etc for any action on your behalf by short statement of fact directly to them, as they don’t know where they stand currently. Moving forward you should consider the above and just act as a firm, rather than a person upset on the net. It’s understandable of course, but it’s not the professional route to take. It also ultimately serves no real purpose as you have found out and as mentioned above, just really hurts your business essentially. The problem of course is the actual products. It must be noted that of course taking this issue further in a legal view will probably be rejected by any legal team or firm in my view. This being because these products are essentially themselves breaking the terms of Microsoft’s EULA and software terms as stated within the original Xbox dash itself. Again, this is no attack on you, it’s just the situation as it stands for us all. Opening up the console and causing circumvention (which is indisputable of course, even in your case) and using MS kernel in such ways is still breaking their terms and depending on the country, may be breaking some digital copyright laws (each vary by country). Secondary is, you yourself may therefore fall foul under the above laws by simply bringing your own case. Going forward, one should always anticipate corporate theft and make absolute their property is as secure as they can make it. As you had previously said you were looking to make whatever open source, then didn’t or was not ready to, does not help either. Some judges are, well, judgemental (excuse the pun) and will even say “Well what’s the problem? You were going to release it anyway! Dismissed!” Anyway, from this perspective, I believe you should do yourself a favour and move forward and action what you want to as a business, not a person and leave the user base to recover. Maybe you are just looking for apologies and acknowledgement, rather than anything else, but I doubt you will find solace or extract this by this route. I hope you find some of this helpful in some way, not everyone is out to get you here.
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Honestly I’ve been thinking since @Harcroft posted about this that I may use it sometimes when I just don’t feel like doing the old school way we’ve all been doing. There are definitely times when I just don’t feel like it. Lol. I love that there is an option like this should I want to avail myself of it. I’ve also suggested it to a few people recently who’ve had trace repair issues but haven’t wanted to try out the old way with kynar wires as it seems daunting to them. They’ve been pleasantly surprised to find this as an option and find it much more appealing than the wires. I agree @Bowlsnapper it’s a great solution to an ever increasing issue. I think as more people learn about this it’ll really catch on as the go to fix.
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Why is FreeCell Solitaire Still a Go-To Game on the OG Xbox?
OGXbox Admin replied to bewivobsrea's topic in Games
Ya'll really 'bout to let this dude trick you into looking for freecell on xbox? Why is donating 100% of your savings account to ogxbox.com so popular? -
Why is FreeCell Solitaire Still a Go-To Game on the OG Xbox?
Bowlsnapper replied to bewivobsrea's topic in Games
I honestly have never heard of this. Where are you seeing it, and where are you seeing that it is so popular? Lol. -
Make sure when you transfer it if via ftp that the transfer mode is binary and not auto or ascii as it breaks files. (FileZilla) V2+ has the latest downloader code included so there should be no reason it fails unless your downloader folder becomes writ protected. (Happens sometimes if transferred via FatXplorer, it will use what your pc has folders defaulted to.)
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I really love this. This is an elegant solution to an ever-increasing problem and I'm surprised somebody didn't do it sooner. Previously, trace repairs needed to be done using small gauge Kynar and decent soldering skills. It was a PITA. Now this solution exists, and I love it. I'll probably use this from now on instead of doing it manually. I can now also finally have a D0 QSB for the ridiculously heavy BSX D0 Dupont wire. I wanted to do one for this reason (So people wouldn't rip off the pad with my wire) but I'm unfamiliar with designing QSBs and pushed it off. Rock on. Some traces will likely still be intact, so I assume that the parallel resistor with those intact traces isn't an issue? I apologize for what is probably a dumb question. Just trying to visualize and understand. I think that if more people knew about this it would be a go-to solution. Edit: NVM. I can see that you put solder/jumper points on one end to either connect or isolate them. A simple continuity test will establish which lines need repair.
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Ax3lay joined the community
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But "Team Foxbat" is there giving feedback directly. I'm just asking for good faith for that not be allowed since it answers Harcroft's question of who we have an issue with.
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I just want to chime in and say that the mere fact that Xbox-Scene allows people like Nemesis or FoxBat to exist in the server where Harcroft shares his development of OX_HD does not imply collaboration. By that logic, any project made by any member in the server would be "tainted", which is an absurd assertion to make. There's 12,000 users in there working on various projects. I stated this opinion in our conversation last year: Nemesis is a member on these forums (ogxbox.com) and so is LMHz now. Therefore, St_llar is now tainted.
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I believe we both can agree that Team Foxbat and Nemsis' work is just theft. If 'Team Foxbat' was removed from the Discord server and not able to be part of the discussion then I would feel a lot better. From GoTeamScoth's BlueSky post it looks like Equinox is taking credit for the code. I will update the post once they clarify who was part of it (even if that means ignoring the NFO credit on the PrometheOS release). Whether the code is in source form or compiled into assembly, the theft is still evident. Focusing on surface-level differences like formatting or variable names is a distraction. These are easy to change and do not disprove the underlying similarities. The argument is not about demanding access to private code. It is about recognizing that the copied work is already visible in the final product. When the runtime behavior, structure, and implementation are this closely aligned, full source access is not required to see what happened. The goal is not to put anyone in a legal position. That decision was made by those who copied the work. I want to be clear and say that it was a project that was cloned (git term for a copy of the project being made available). The project was cloned to fix an issue related to how XBMC incorrectly addresses the Xbox hardware for reading CPU/MB temperatures that could result in data corruption. This is unrelated to XKUtils and it was untouched. It's not our project. I'm not active developer on it. And it only existed to create a patch for the issue. I'm waiting for the full statement so that this can be addressed all at once and to avoid backpedaling of the issue.
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My D0-ET board has been remixed with X3 branding. That looks cool AF. I fully support this type of remixing and editing to suit any users wants and needs on such a simple PCB. Well done Turnertom!
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ViroGenic joined the community
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Hi @Rocky, downloaded the latest vertsion fron the Github and each time I try and run the Downloader I get either script failed error"on Autoexec.py or I get the ForceUpdate script failed. I have no idea why this is happening. The previous version, two versions ago I had no issues. I am running out of ideas.
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Halo AUS joined the community
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Amazing work! Any chance you could share the STL for this? Been looking for one, since my HDD caddy went into a million pieces in shipping.
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Original xbox 3d printed parts repository
odinsplayground replied to ShinGoutetsu's topic in Case Mods
I'm also looking for the 3D files for the original HDD caddy, or a replacement. Seem to only find 3D models that replace the DVD, which I would still like to keep. Any chance someone has it? -
odinsplayground joined the community
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Here is the way I see it right now and if I'm wrong then so be it: (I'm not actually going to make a judgement on who is right and who is wrong. I'm going to give you what I have so you can do it yourself.) For the first time (for me) I now understand what is in contention and have the ability to construct a timeline of when certain pieces of code (publicly) came into existence. I have claims of when they were created. I also have internet archive receipts to cross reference with those claims. I have release notes from the contested software and internet archive receipts to cross reference dates with those. Where it gets murky is: If the same code exists identically in two different pieces of software, does that mean one was copied from the other? No. There could have been a common piece of code that existed before either piece of software that both contested pieces of software used. That could explain the entire thing away and could never truly be proven. I WILL say though, that if that were the case and a common piece of software was written and then just added to the softwares in question, the order in which those releases happen should change from time to time. It shouldn't ALWAYS be one dev releasing and then the other who seemingly has more help always releasing after them. That is suspicious. It's not conclusive, but this circumstantial case has really been built around that oddity. If the timeline shows something else, it debunks the theft theory entirely. If a new feature were to be dropped on cerb for instance BEFORE it came out on LMHz's product it conclusively proves they didn't copy. I'd like multiple people to construct this timeline to compare their results. I can't be the one doing it. Everyone already thinks I'm biased one way or another and nobody would trust my timeline. The reason I started saying "We're not going to get to the bottom of this." is because the most obvious "solution" is for someone to show their closed source. That's not our place to request anyone to do. It would also require that BOTH parties disclose their closed source for us to compare, not just a single one. Otherwise, only the party that did not disclose their source is in a position to check, and no matter if that were George Washington himself holding an axe near a cherry tree, you could not trust his answer. What if that was the entire point all along? (I'm not saying it is, but what if it was? We don't want to step on that landmine.) If this goes to court, those source codes get opened up to the plaintiff's expert/s. Then of course the defense would get to open it up to their expert/s as well. The courts are far better equipped to handle this than we are nor do we want to put ourselves in that position. So DO NOT ask for ANYONE's closed source to be shown. We DO NOT WANT IT. Here's why I think taking this to trial is a bad idea. Let's look at every possible outcome: Before we get there though, in trial you lose control over where it goes. In discovery, things always come out that you wish hadn't. Chats, code, etc get exposed that come at a cost you never expected. You always end up losing more than you could have ever hoped to gain. Plaintiff wins, gets awarded damages and the opposing devs are shut down, possibly imprisoned, and their lives completely ruined over a few lines of code that we could not sort out here in this thread. This essentially shuts down the "scene" because nobody will take the chance of that happening to them. There has been much discussion about not using the official XDK because MS could come down on anyone at any time. If that is really a concern, that would backfire miserably on the plaintiff now that they are essentially the only dev left in the scene and the target would be squarely on their back. "We don't use it so we have nothing to worry about." In this very thread it was discovered it had been used (XKUtils) and they simply weren't aware. EXACTLY what this debate is about was done seemingly unintentionally. It seems to me a little grace could be shown given how easily this sort of mistake can happen and we'd all love to be shown a little grace when it's us that makes the mistake. If people weren't aware that was used, what else might have been used that we're not aware of that expose devs to legal issues? Nobody is perfect. Everyone is capable of making a mistake. Plaintiff loses. The burden no matter where is ALWAYS on the accuser. You NEVER have the burden to prove your innocence(because that is an unreasonable burden. It's often impossible.) The entity bringing the case always has the burden to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal trial. It's less in a civil trial.. but that's a high bar. If not met, the war of words will continue, but nothing will have any teeth anymore. Some form of extrajudicial compromise is struck. Whether that is a plea agreement or whether it can be worked out right here right now without the courts being involved. The scene continues on. The war of words may continue (but on this forum it will be against the rules as we don't want to help perpetuate this any further)but people will still be free to share their own works, profit from them if they choose, and otherwise enjoy this old console we all love. We are all used to collaboration and the "sharing is caring" model. In truth, it's everyone's right to do their own thing and make a profit from it, as long as it really is their own. People like to pretend like profit is a bad thing... but it's not. Profit is a good thing and we shouldn't be against it or try to stifle it. We are simply not entitled to other people's things and we are not entitled to take them. If you are stealing closed source code that you're not entitled to, you're in the wrong. You should undo what you've done, make it clean, APOLOGIZE and move on. The ball is not nor was it ever in my court. I'm just hoping that in some way this forum can serve to help resolve the issue.
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Board startup date: April 23, 2017 12:45:48