

US$ 2000 Prize For Developing Open Source Microsoft Kinect Drivers - dkd903
http://digitizor.com/2010/11/05/2000-bounty-for-open-source-drivers-for-kinetic/

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krschultz
And if anyone had forgotten why open source users hates Microsoft:

"Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products. With Kinect,
Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to
reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make
advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement
and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant."

Everytime you start to soften to Microsoft and convince yourself "they're not
that bad, (Oracle, Apple, Google) is pretty bad too", someone at Microsoft
opens their mouth and convinces you that they are indeed the most out of
touch.

~~~
daeken
What hardware company that doesn't release their stuff openly says anything
different? Hardware hackers have been running into this attitude for a long
time, and it's showing no signs of going away. (This attitude is what pushed
me to write <http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto> after being
called a 'pirate' for hacking the Emotiv EPOC brain-computer interface.)

~~~
krschultz
Unfortunately that is very true (I worked for Bug Labs, so hopefully did a
little good changing it), but I took particular offense to the "law
enforcement" passive agressive threat in the Microsoft statement.

I 100% agree that if you hack something, the company shouldn't honor the
warranty, or let you use it on their services. That is their right, which is
why when I modded my Xbox 1 I was fine wtih them banning us from Xbox Live.
But I never felt like I was going to go to jail for doing it. I didn't pirate
games, so I never thought I could get in trouble for it. Then Microsoft
started trying to get people in legal trouble for just modding them, or
showing people how to mod them. That was when I got really anti-Microsoft, and
I've kind of forgotten that over the last 4 or 5 years.

They reminded me today why I used to think they were the most anti-open source
company.

~~~
daeken
I'd go to court over Kinect hacking in a heartbeat. They can't even use the
standard anti-piracy argument here, it's simply preventing competition and
interoperability. I really don't think MS is dumb enough to try it.

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edge17
cool..... but wouldn't this be worth significantly more than $2k?

~~~
daeken
I'd been eying it already, so $2k would just be icing on the cake. This is
right up my alley but I can't afford the hardware right now -- I'd be willing
to split the bounty if someone can give me something to play with. (For
reference, similar projects I've worked on/hacked: iPhone dev team, Belkin
Network USB Hub, Emotiv EPOC brain-computer interface)

~~~
jbermudes
Are you referring to just the Kinect or do you also need the Xbox?

~~~
daeken
I'd need both for it. Been thinking through the best way to hack it, which
really comes down to: take control over the Kinect software (even just being
able to see the binary would be ok, but being able to modify it would be
optimal), MITM the USB connection, and work from there.

I believe they're doing considerable processing on the Kinect itself, as
that's the only way to justify the 512MB RAM onboard. Will be interesting to
see what the actual data it sends back is.

Edit: Big reading fail on my part; 512Mbit, not 512MB. That's much more in
line with what I'd expect from a device not doing a whole lot.

~~~
jbermudes
It's going to be difficult to do a MITM attack because iirc, the 360 encrypts
the data going over USB so that 3rd-party peripheral makers have to get a
license from Microsoft to make a supported peripheral. Of course there always
seems to be some sort of chink in the armor like with Wii. But I'm sure
Microsoft is probably a lot better at writing operating systems compared to
someone like Nintendo.

(To those who are interested in this type of thing: In the Wii's case it was
using a pair of tweezers to glitch the memory chip into spewing Wii OS code
that revealed that Nintendo was using strncmp to compare SHA1 hashes instead
of memcmp which rendered the entire authentication system open to attack
because if you can create a hash that has a leading null-byte then it will not
be compared. So even though all games and firmware updates were RSA signed,
this exploit bypassed everything. )

~~~
daeken
Interesting. I wonder whether the crypto is done in software or in hardware.
If it's done in software, that's not so bad, but reversing hardware at that
level isn't my strong point. Now I want to do this even more...

~~~
eru
Where do you live? I have access to an XBox in Cambridge, UK. (And my
housemates have worked on the Kinectimals game.)

~~~
daeken
I'm in NYC (just moved here yesterday). I may well pick one up once I get
settled in an apartment. Was planning on grabbing a PS3, but I don't think I
can resist the temptation.

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zoowar
Ironically, Microsoft was founded on reverse engineering DOS. What if IBM had
built hardware that precluded MS-DOS from running? We are better off today,
regardless of how we feel about Microsoft. Hacking adds value.

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pmorici
<http://www.primesense.com/?p=487>

Looks like the company behind the technology in Kinect sells a reference
device and SDK.

~~~
daeken
While it'd be helpful if you wanted to take total control over the Kinect, it
won't get you very far in hacking the consumer device. The main issue would be
that their code running on the SoC is most likely primarily custom, to handle
encryption and all that fun stuff. Attacking it from the Xbox side would
almost definitely be the most effective means, at least insomuch as gaining
access to the same data that Xbox apps get.

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grantbachman
For a minute I thought Microsoft was offering the prize and thought about how
refreshing this is...Then I read the story.

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tocomment
I think it would be amazing to use kinect to control a robot. Is anyone
working on that?

