Wasted Grunt used our newssubmit to tell us that a new project is aimed to find the key that is used on the Xbox to digitally sign the software that runs on this gaming console. Earlier projects have proven their usability to find keys, such as the RC5-64 project that recently decrypted a 64 bit key.
By using combined computer power - distributed networking - a supercomputer with a lot of calculating power is created. Unfortunately the Xbox key is a very big one and chances are that the project has to run many years before the key will be found.
You can download Neo 1.0.600 and start working on the Xbox challenge. We do not know if it is legal or not to participate in the Xbox challenge, we are looking for some legal advice as a donation to Neo. If this Xbox challenge is found illegal and/or are approached by M$, we will be ditching the Xbox project all together as we cannot afford the legal fees. |
If you want to join the search , just download the program and install it. Once launched select "XBOX Public Key Challenge" at the bottom of the programwindow.
Some FAQ's answered:
-80% to charity (chosen by user during sign-up)
-10% of the money goes to the person who's computer 'cracked' or 'completed' the current project or challenge
-10% goes to the NEO project for better equipment, bandwidth, etc.
-free xbox sent to the top 5 users
- Yes it will be available freely.
More information can be found on the website Xbox-Scene.com, altough the site is very slow at the moment. Also the website of the Neo project seems to suffer from high traffic.
Also CD Freaks participates in a distributed computing project. This project is designed to find a cure against cancer, you can read more here.
Source: Xbox-scene.com
