MS Ban Hammer - 10.30.09

Came home after a long day of work to find out i was banned!
tsk tsk tsk on me!
But whatever man, i mean thats the risk that we take when we do these things right?! lol
but anyway, I posted this on another thread, but, for me, i think the game that flagged me was Batman Arkham Asylum... I played all these games for over a month with no problem: Need for Speed Shift
Fable 2, Fallout 3, BlazeBlu, Resident Evil 5; all games INCLUDING Batman passed the ABGX test. HOWEVER, as soon as I put in Batman (yesterday), I was banned within about 13 hours... ho-lee crap, they work fast!

 

I have 2 customers that are banned. Both have lite-ons with ixtreme 1.6 and both have only played ripped, stealthed, and verified games (no torrents). None of the games have ever been played early. They were both playing Borderlands when it happened. Everything was done right. M$ is detecting the systems itself somehow....not through the games. Since there's some people who have not been banned (ie myself and other friends) who have the exact same setup and games as those who have been banned, I am going to venture a guess that M$ is somehow just checking the systems one at a time randomly....otherwise everyone would be banned by now. If the people I know got banned aren't safe then no one who's played backup games on live is. We took all the possible precautions. I've been doing this for a long time and this has happened several times before. I think they just let modders THINK they were safe for so long so that more people would get their 360's modded and, therefor, more people would have to buy new systems if they wanted to play the awesome games coming out soon. Holiday bonus anyone?

 

It's definately something else now - Have heard from a friend that his is banned (1.6 Benq, only played dirt 2 fully stealthed + checked). I've just had a 1.61 samsung banned, my lite-on on 1.6 is still working at the moment.

M$ must have a way to detect the custom firmware...

 

I only play my own ripped games and everyone I know plays the same ones. 2 friends have been banned. Everyone is using the 1.6 fw.

 

Here's what I think -

Microsoft is doing a random hardware integrity sweep on consoles (they can do this even if the console is off but not unplugged). I had a friend banned and the only thing he was using that didn't says MICROSOFT was a 3rd party mem card.

I myself had my console banned this morning (11/06/2009) ~10:00 am PST. I was playing a private 2-player co-op game on Borderlands with my friend. Both of us got our Xboxes at the SAME TIME, both of us had it modded with iXtreme 1.6 at the same time, by the same person, and both of us were using the same version of Borderlands that I had downloaded and stealth checked for both of us 4 days after it hit store shelves. It's the only non-store bought game that has been in my xbox in the last two weeks.

I believe that they are just doing a remote call to the xbox to spit out firmware numbers and banning anyone who doesn't check out, or returns bad info (as anything modded will do).

the only solution is to hook your xbox up to a computer and flash the BIOS with good info from a new xbox 360... as far as I know.

-hw

 

Great info in this thread guys. I especially appreciate the info regarding people who have played only home-made rips.

There does seem to be some new detection mechanism in place now that was not in place as of the previous ban wave last November.

Here is a theory -- we know that MS cannot DIRECTLY 'sniff' our firmware. Even for us to do it, we have to put the drive into vendor mode/Mode B/0x72 status. MS obviously does not do that, or else we would notice when our drives did not work.


However... one thing MS possibly could do is build firmware challenges into the dashboard itself. Rather than depending only on the backup games to challenge the firmware, MS could potentially have added sophisticated firmware challenges into the software that runs on the 360 at all times. In that way, MS could more easily detect hacked firmware and we could not establish a pattern based solely on what games were played.

Ideas or feedback on that, anyone knowledgeable?

 

(Sorry for double post, this didn't get in last one)
P.S. I think they're using the new release games to base their search for consoles to scan.

IMO, This has to be getting done manually or something. An automatic detection method would be a lot more thorough. I've noticed, though, that Microsoft's ban sprees are always around this time of year...

 

I just can't believe we can't get any inside knowledge. Surely some guy, knows a guy..

It's mind boggling, but doesn't take away from from the point that i'm banned

My neeeew haaaaaarrdddd drriiiiiveee

 

Tell your brother to hit me up nawm

 

Ok, I've read 100 forum pages of this now and can say now that there is only one logical explanation. M$ now has the ability to actually look at your system and see what firmware you're running, most likely from the new update. It doesn't really matter how. That means, that if your system has modded fw on it then you are most likely at risk of getting banned, regardless of how you made your games. If you were playing games online before they were released then you probably increased your risk (that's pretty stupid if you ask me). M$ programmers aren't idiots and we would be foolish to think this day would never come. M$ will continue banning people until the market balances again. By banning people they will lose money in game rentals, xbox live, costs for banning, and customers switching to PS3 and Wii. They will gain some money back from customers who buy new 360's and start buying games. At the point where the cost of the man power to ban people exceeds the additional revenue gained from their increase in game sales, they will withdraw their hammer. The fact that some people are getting unbanned shows that M$ doesn't have a solid system for doing this. They went through and banned a lot of people then had doubts and unbanned them. If you got unbanned please post your drive and FW info. Maybe there's a pattern there. Sorry for the long post. Bored at work. Hope this helps.

 

Well, I don't see how it would be possible to read the firmware on the dvd drive. But if the ban wave continues they might have found a way.

 

OK, so at the very least, it's plausible that MS can detect whether you have hacked firmware or not (relating to the recent dashboard update?). If there are some people taking all the necessary precautions and STILL getting banned, then there has to be some new trick MS has come up with that we haven't realized.

Obviously some haven't been banned yet, and these people more or less act the same as those who have gotten banned. The question now is how are some people getting banned and others aren't.

Based on the accounts of those who've been banned from this thread, a wide range of people are getting hit by the hammer, (both people who are careful and people who really aren't). This suggests to me that MS is doing some sort of random checking test to determine whether you have a modded console, but who really knows anyway...

 

I had reported back a couple pages that I was banned earlier today, then "unbanned" about 15 minutes later. Like larry though, it didn't last long. Just tried again a few hours later, and I am once again banned.

 

I just read the first page of comments back when this thread started and man does the OP get ripped a new one,not so smug now are you(all the belittler's lol).

Anyway back on thread,my suggestion would be to stay off live for at least the forseable future,or until we hear from the people in the know, as it's becoming apparent that only a few are surviving this ban so i'm guessing,and its merely a guess on my part,is that m$ can now pick up firmware from the drives as i find it impossible to believe that every firmware,every drive and all senerio's of what games where played and when can come to some pattern for this clear carpet ban!!

We're all in trouble.....

 

What's the point of staying off Live? If they've tagged you already, you're *bleep* anyway. Staying off is just delaying the inevitable.

 

Okay, i have been wanting to flash my drive for a while now. I just got the necessary parts shipped to my house.

Should i flash it with ixtreme 1.61?

 

You might as well wait another week or two until the ban wave is over... then you will at least be assured of unbanned play until the next ban wave comes along.

Unless, of course, you don't care about using Xbox Live.
But, to answer your question, yes, you should use 1.61, as it is the latest and greatest.

 

ugh alright i thought the wave was already over, but now seeing as though all these people are getting banned, i guess not.

 

I just got banned. Turned my Xbox off at like 12:30, got back on and boom, console ban.