New information suggests that Microsoft may have unveiled a new disc type that verifies authenticity online.
A tech blogger recently noticed that after updating his copy of FIFA’09, the game had altered “[…]the flags that specify what media the game is allowed to run[…]” He continutes:
“Originally it was allowed to boot from a standard original Xbox 360 disc, however now it is only allowed to boot from a new media type which is basically an updated version of the original Xbox 360 disc type.”
This implies that Microsoft has unveiled a new DVD disc type for current games in order to prevent game piracy. The blog hints that these new discs will connect to a Microsoft server, where they’ll be given a security check to prove they’re authentic discs and not pirated copies. The blog author continues:
“Current Xbox 360 dvd-drive hacks work since the challenge/response pairs are stored in the security sector on the disc, meaning that all possible challenge/responses are known in advance. The best way for MS to solve this problem is to use challenge/response pairs that are not known in advance to the dvd-drive. So if a hacked dvd-drive receives an unknown challenge it will not have the correct repsonse [sic] to send back, therefore the authentication will fail and the copied game will not boot.”
Given that many Xbox 360 games require system updates to play, avoiding these server side security checks by refusing to connect the 360 to the internet will be difficult. This certainly seems like it will make things much more difficult for pirates, who will now have to interrupt the communication between Microsoft servers and the system to play pirated games. Whether or not Microsoft will be handing out bans or punishment for accounts using pirated discs that fail the security check remains to be seen.
Source: Xorloser.com (Via N4G)
