USA v. Crippen - A Retrospective by Andrew 'Bunnie' Huang Options

[Xbox-Scene]

USA v. Crippen - A Retrospective by Andrew 'Bunnie' Huang Posted by XanTium | December 4 16:46 EST | News Category: Xbox360

As we know now the USA v. Crippen [Xbox Modder] case has been dismissed by the prosecutors. Andrew "Bunnie" Huang was supposed to testify as expert witness. Today "Bunnie" posted some key concepts on his blog of what he was gonna present in the case: [QUOTE] While the true facts are not as simple, raw facts are essentially useless to a jury. The real challenge for me personally was to take a world of technical jargon full of one-way hashes, modular exponentiation, prime numbers, finite fields of characteristic two, stealth sectors, lead-ins, lead-outs, and reflectivity measurements using a laser and a four-quadrant photodetector and boil it down into a set of factually correct statements that any lay jury could not only understand, but feel confident enough to use to decide upon two felony counts. So, for the purpose of encouraging discussion, criticism, and education, here are some of the key concepts I was to present in the case. [/QUOTE] Check out bunniestudios.com for a nice simplified version of how the 'Xbox360 ODD modification' works, but here's his 'conclusion': [QUOTE] In the case that the “answer table” is lacking from the disk inserted into the ODD, the disk will not play. Thus, the question is: given that the user of the modified Xbox360 (in this case, the private investigators and agents that the government hired) must also materially participate in the “process” by providing an “answer table”, is the mod alone sufficient to justify felonious conduct? [/QUOTE] Full Story: bunniestudios.com

[trasixes]

meh, bunnie just sounds full of himself these days. The trial ended before he was asked to testify, and he's sad his "technical prowess" was not on display, so we get the "what if I had testified..." blog post. Why else does his name keep popping up? Factually speaking, bunnie hasn't been relevant since the early days of the xbox 1.

In his summary, he leaves out the part where the MS expert reminds him how he's still just a noob on their playground.

[crazycrak]

I think the big words and diagrams would of just pissed off the average jury. I'd like to think im pretty knowledgeable when it comes to this stuff. But some of this I had to read again. I don't think making the average jury feel stupid would be a good strategy. Just my opinion. But then again im not a lawyer.

[supersonic124]

So did the guy win the case or no?

[Tatsh]

They should not have felt stupid. The whole point is to simplify and it's pretty hard to simplify this down other than similar to what he has done in his diagrams. It makes perfect sense and really anyone should be able to figure it out (or better yet, something that never happens in the US, take notes; jury usually takes notes but not good ones I bet).

Cryptography began with shifting letters (or symbols) in different ways with no keys for decryption or any kind of a signature. The receiver knew how to unscramble. Unfortunately most people don't seem to be aware of this and get scared when they hear uncommon prefixes that end in -ography or -ology.

Computers were made FOR cryptography in the first place. Recall all the war machines (blinking light boxes and sometimes mechanical devices) of WWII whose main function was to encrypt/decrypt and send messages. Interestingly, in a WWII class or history class I have never heard much mention about these. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_cipher

meh, bunnie just sounds full of himself these days. The trial ended before he was asked to testify, and he's sad his "technical prowess" was not on display, so we get the "what if I had testified..." blog post. Why else does his name keep popping up? Factually speaking, bunnie hasn't been relevant since the early days of the xbox 1.

In his summary, he leaves out the part where the MS expert reminds him how he's still just a noob on their playground.

I tend to agree. He seems to know about the firmware hack (researched?) but from this I can gather he was either unwilling to explain to the C/R system or did not even know about it. It makes for a big part of the hack IMO, much more important than the initialisation part. And it's probably the most important part to code correctly if one wishes to stay unbanned but keep going on Xbox LIVE (something I totally hate about it; ban all the pirates; I really do not care).

I'm not sure he's 'just a noob' but he certainly has not been active with Xbox 360. Unfortunately he is the only who is known for hacking, wrote the book, and a lot of people have used not just for Xbox1 but for general purposes, such as how to solder, and more. He does get to spend his time with many curiosities (and get paid) and is very smart.

[lordvader129]

So did the guy win the case or no?

yes and no, the prosecution dropped the charges, so Crippen didnt really "win" but hes not going to jail either

[HotKnife420]

meh, bunnie just sounds full of himself these days. The trial ended before he was asked to testify, and he's sad his "technical prowess" was not on display, so we get the "what if I had testified..." blog post. Why else does his name keep popping up? Factually speaking, bunnie hasn't been relevant since the early days of the xbox 1.

In his summary, he leaves out the part where the MS expert reminds him how he's still just a noob on their playground.

I didn't get that feeling at all from reading it. The whole point of it (other than simplifying the process to understand "what" is being done), was in the 2nd to last paragraph:

Thus, the question is: given that the user of the modified Xbox360 (in this case, the private investigators and agents that the government hired) must also materially participate in the “process” by providing an “answer table”, is the mod alone sufficient to justify felonious conduct?

Basically, because this case was dismissed, it did not set a precedent for us to have a "clear answer" to this question. Bunnie simply explains that the firmware mod itself doesn't circumvent copy protection, because the system still needs to verify the watermark, as well as the signature. Since the console will still verify the watermark and signature, the security is not explicitly compromised. Furthermore, the user will need to have their copy to contain the data of the watermark (though it's not an actual watermark), and the signature, so the real argument could be that the user is guilty of forging the watermark, while the person who modified the drive didn't change the disc authentication process (other than allowing the drive to accept the same data in other ways).

[xboxhaxorz]

Hmm that bit about allowing the drive to accept data in different ways seems great. Technically they would have no case if that is true and the jury understood that. In the end its up to the jury or judge if they feel he was a pirate they could find him guilty. I rather just stay out of the legal system all together. Although i may bring this by my lawyer and ask him about it. Who knows he might say ya technically you arent breaking the law.

[lordvader129]

Hmm that bit about allowing the drive to accept data in different ways seems great. Technically they would have no case if that is true and the jury understood that. In the end its up to the jury or judge if they feel he was a pirate they could find him guilty. I rather just stay out of the legal system all together. Although i may bring this by my lawyer and ask him about it. Who knows he might say ya technically you arent breaking the law.

it depends if the jury decides that making a drive "accept data in different ways" constitutes circumventing copy protection, IMO it does, and is therefore still illegal

i'm glad for crippen this is over, but im disappointed we dont have a legal precedent, but im sure there will be another case in the future

[death69inc]

In plain English

The case was dropped as the prosecution dropped the ball
When the judge pointed out the issues with the case, soon after they dropped the case
If they would have lost this case it would have gave legal precedence to the modding of 360s and they did not wish to chance this one a flimsy case
There will be another case once the prosecution has all there ducks in a row.


In truth (my opinion) I do not see them ever winning a case against the person modding systems (unless they create and sell illegal copies).
I have not read the complete millennium act but I doubt they took the right to have copies of your personal destructible media ... if so you must be able to use such media for personal use hence modded drive is needed.
in past copyright cases including disc based media you where able to have copies of all disc based media and up till the millennium act you could make up to 10 copies of any music cd and gift them without breaking the law.
Have it printed out somewhere for my records lol.
Either case we will see a case heard and go to trial but in the end it will be beaten and we will have legal president to mod systems.... as stated the law will not be broken till the user breaks the law and buys for creates a copy of a game they do not own and inserted in said system.

I suppose we will see.

[SNAAAKE]

yes and no, the prosecution dropped the charges, so Crippen didnt really "win" but hes not going to jail either

guessing they need more evidence of this "horrendous hacking crime"


jack bauer is on his way to integrate crippen right about now

[lordvader129]

guessing they need more evidence of this "horrendous hacking crime"
jack bauer is on his way to integrate crippen right about now

i dont think they needed more evidence, but they needed the evidence gathered in a legal way lol

[TheHCrip]

i dont think they needed more evidence, but they needed the evidence gathered in a legal way lol

In a legal way or not, there wasn't a 'meeting' that involved discussion of piracy or showing how a system works. Would you let someone video tape you while modding a console? I didn't think so, either. What bunny was going to say would have really helped. You guys are thinking that all 12 jurors have to see it our way while we really only need 3 or 4. If you take away Rosario, then there isn't even a case. To tell you guys the truth, they picked up a guy named Rafael Davis first. Since he wasn't able to touch Hitachi 79FL drives, I was referred. This is where things messed up. Rafael sold games to the private investigator, but I just did the mod. I had no knowledge about the games being sold & Rafael was supposed to hand deliver the system to me, not the client. If the PI brought any other drive, I would have still been under the radar. Remember, the ESA comes after pirates. My case wasn't a strong one for the prosecution because they couldn't make a direct link to modding & piracy. The legality issues was about Willfully. Were you in complete knowledge of breaking a crime? The judge even stated on the stand about how you can't play homebrew or back ups without circumvention. I could go on & on, but you'll have to buy the book or pay for the movie, lol

[H4L0G33K]

TheHCrip, are you part of the group busted in 07' (the modchip raids i believe it was dubbed)?

I have asked a few times if anyone knows what happened to those guys but haven't gotten an answer, then it donned on me that you may have been part of that group...

[TheHCrip]

No. That group was given a C&D order. I know a few guys that got hit back in 07 & they aren't doing anything when it comes to chips.


matt