Xbox Serial Number Statistics

Slashdot had a story recently on how in 1942, the allies were able to estimate the number of German taks produced based on the serial numbers of the tanks. In 2010, a German hacker is doing the exact same thing with Xboxes. This article describes the generic approach, shows some results, and provides previously unreleased raw data of 14,000 Xbox serials so you can do your own statistics! read more

Dangerous Xbox 360 Update Killing Homebrew

On Tuesday, Microsoft has released an Xbox 360 software update that overwrites the first stage bootloader of the system. Although there have been numerous software updates for Microsoft’s gaming console in the past, this is the first one to overwrite the vital boot block. Any failure while updating this will break the Xbox 360 beyond repair. Statistics from other systems have shown that about one in a thousand bootloader updates goes wrong, and unless Microsoft has a novel solution to this problem, this puts tens of thousands of Xboxes at risk. read more