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• Xbox Sphinx Protocol

  21 octobre 2013, par Multimedia Mike — DRM, xbox

  I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of trying to read the Xbox DVD drive from Linux. Honestly, I’m trying to remember why I even care at this point. Perhaps it’s just my metagame of trying to understand how games and related technologies operate. In my last post of the matter, I determined that it is possible to hook an Xbox drive up to a PC using a standard 40-pin IDE interface and read data sectors. However, I learned that just because the Xbox optical drive is reading an Xbox disc, that doesn’t mean it’s just going to read the sectors in response to a host request.

  Oh goodness, no. The drive is going to make the host work for those sectors.

  To help understand the concept of locked/unlocked sectors on an Xbox disc, I offer this simplistic diagram :

  
  
  

  Any DVD drive (including the Xbox drive) is free to read those first 6992 sectors (about 14 MB of data) which just contain a short DVD video asking the user to insert the disc into a proper Xbox console. Reading the remaining sectors involves performing a sequence of SCSI commands that I have taken to calling the “Sphinx Protocol” for reasons I will explain later in this post.

  References
  Doing a little Googling after my last post on the matter produced this site hosting deep, technical Xbox information. It even has a page about exactly what I am trying to achieve : Use an Xbox DVD Drive in Your PC. The page provides a tool named dvdunlocker written by “The Specialist” to perform the necessary unlocking. The archive includes a compiled Windows binary as well as its source code. The source code is written in Delphi Pascal and leverages Windows SCSI APIs. Still, it is well commented and provides a roadmap, which I will try to describe in this post.

  Sphinx Protocol
  Here is a rough flowchart of the steps that are (probably) involved in the unlocking of those remaining sectors. I reverse engineered this based on the Pascal tool described in the previous section. Disclaimer : at the time of this writing, I haven’t tested all of the steps due to some Linux kernel problems, described later.

  
  
  

  Concerning the challenge/response table that the drive sends back, it’s large (0×664 / 1636 bytes), and not all of the bytes’ meanings are known. However, these are the bytes that seem to be necessary (all multi-byte numbers are big endian) :

   bytes 0-1        Size of mode page payload data (should be 0x0662)
   bytes 2-771      Unknown
   byte  772        Should be 1
   byte  773        Number of entries in challenge/response table
   bytes 774-1026   Encrypted challenge/response table
   bytes 1027-1186  Unknown
   bytes 1187-1230  Key basis (44 bytes)
   bytes 1231-1635  Unknown
  

  The challenge/response table is the interesting part, but it’s encrypted with RC4 a.k.a. ARCFOUR. The key is derived from the 44 bytes I have labeled “key basis”– cryptographic literature probably has a better term for it ; chime in if you know what that might be. An SHA-1 hash is computed over the 44 bytes.

  The resulting SHA-1 hash — the first part of it, to be exact — is fed as the key into the RC4 decryption. The output of SHA-1 contains 160 bits of information. 160 / 8 = 20 bytes of information. To express this as a printable hex digest requires 40 characters. The SHA-1 hash is converted to a hex digest and then the first 7 of the characters are fed into the RC4 initialization function as the key. Then, the RC4 decrypter does its work on the 253 bytes of the challenge/response table.

  So that’s why I took to calling this the “Sphinx Protocol” — I felt like I was being challenged with a bizarre riddle. Perhaps that describes a lot of cryptosystems, though You have to admit it sounds kind of cool.

  The challenge/response table contains 23 11-byte records. The format of this table is (again, multi-byte numbers are big-endian) :

   byte  0     This is 1 if this challenge/response pair is valid
   byte  1     Challenge ID
   bytes 2-5   Challenge
   byte  6     Response ID
   bytes 7-10  Response
  

  Example
  It’s useful to note that the challenge/response table and associated key is different for every disc (at least all the ones I have looked at). So this might be data that comes from the disc, since the values will always be the same for a given disc.

  Let’s examine Official Xbox Magazine disc #16 (Indiana Jones and The Emperor’s Tomb) :

  
  
  

  Before I decrypt the challenge/response table, it looks like this :

     0 : 180, 172 : 0xEB100059 ;  66 : 0xD56AFB56
     1 :  34,  71 : 0x8F9BF03A ; 192 : 0xC32CBDF8
     2 : 226, 216 : 0xA29B77F2 ;  12 : 0x4474A6F1
     3 :  72, 122 : 0x9F5ABF33 ; 255 : 0xC5E3C304
     4 :   1, 103 : 0x76142ADA ; 233 : 0xDE145D42 ****
     5 :  49, 193 : 0xA1CD6192 ; 189 : 0x2169DBA5
     6 : 182, 250 : 0x9977894F ;  96 : 0x5A929E2B
     7 : 148,  71 : 0x6DD10A54 ; 115 : 0xF0BDAC4F
     8 :  12,  45 : 0x5D5EB6FD ; 148 : 0x84E60A00
     9 :  99, 121 : 0xFEAED372 ; 201 : 0xDA9986F9
    10 : 172, 230 : 0xE6C0D0B4 ; 214 : 0x9050C250
    11 :  84,  65 : 0x95CB8775 ; 104 : 0x550886C6
    12 : 210,  65 : 0x1ED23619 ; 171 : 0x6DF4A35B
    13 :   2, 155 : 0xD0AAE1E0 ; 130 : 0x00D1FFCF
    14 :  40,   2 : 0x172EFEB8 ; 159 : 0x37E03E50
    15 :  49,  15 : 0x43E5E378 ; 223 : 0x267F9C9A
    16 : 240, 173 : 0x357D5D1C ; 250 : 0x24965D67
    17 :  80, 184 : 0x5E7AF1A3 ;  81 : 0x3A8F69A7
    18 : 154, 186 : 0x6626BEAC ; 245 : 0xE639540A
    19 : 231, 249 : 0xFABAAFB7 ; 227 : 0x4C686A07
    20 : 150, 186 : 0x9A6D7AA3 ; 133 : 0x25971CF0
    21 : 236, 192 : 0x5CD97DD4 ; 247 : 0x26655EFB
    22 :  68, 173 : 0xE2D372E4 ; 207 : 0x103FBF94
  there are 1 valid pairs in the list : 4
  

  My best clue that it’s not right is that there is only 1 valid entry (denoted by my tool using ****). The source I reverse engineered for this data indicates that there needs to be at least 2 valid pairs. After running the RC4 decryption on the table, it looks like this and I get far more valid pairs :

     0 :   1, 174 : 0xBD628255 ;   0 : 0x9F0A31AF ****
     1 :   2, 176 : 0x3151B341 ;   2 : 0x9C87C180
     2 :   3, 105 : 0x018879E5 ;   1 : 0xFF068B5C
     3 :   2,   7 : 0x1F316AAF ;   3 : 0xF420D3ED
     4 :   3,  73 : 0xC2EBFBE9 ;   0 : 0x17062B5B
     5 : 252, 163 : 0xFF14B5CB ; 236 : 0xAF813FBC
     6 :   2, 233 : 0x5EE95C49 ;   1 : 0x37AA5511
     7 :   1, 126 : 0xBD628255 ;   0 : 0x5BA3FBD4 ****
     8 :   3,   4 : 0xB68BFEE6 ;   3 : 0xA8F3B918
     9 :   3,  32 : 0xEA614943 ;   2 : 0xA678D715
    10 :   2, 248 : 0x1BDD374E ;   0 : 0x8D2AC2C7
    11 :   3,  17 : 0x0EABCE81 ;   2 : 0xC90A7242
    12 :   1, 186 : 0xBD628255 ;   0 : 0xC4820242 ****
    13 :   3, 145 : 0xB178F942 ;   3 : 0x4D78AD62
    14 :   3,  37 : 0x4A6CE5E2 ;   2 : 0xBF94E1C6
    15 :   1, 102 : 0xBD628255 ;   0 : 0xFFB83D8D ****
    16 :   3, 122 : 0xF97B0905 ;   1 : 0x38533125
    17 :   3, 197 : 0x57A6865D ;   2 : 0xA61D31EF
    18 :   3,  27 : 0xC7227D7C ;   2 : 0xA3F9BA1E
    19 :   1,  16 : 0xBD628255 ;   0 : 0x8557CCC8 ****
    20 :   2,  53 : 0x1DA9D156 ;   3 : 0xC9051754
    21 :   2,  90 : 0x3CD66BEE ;   3 : 0xFD851D3E
    22 :   1, 252 : 0xBD628255 ;   0 : 0xB3F22701 ****
  there are 6 valid pairs in the list : 0 7 12 15 19 22
  

  So, hopefully, I have the decryption correct.

  Also of note is that you only get one chance to get this unlocking correct– fail, and the drive won’t return a valid DVD structure block again. You will either need to reboot the Xbox or eject & close the tray before you get to try again.

  Problems Making It Work In Linux
  There are a couple of ways to play with SCSI protocols under Linux. In more recent kernels, block devices are named /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc. Each of these block devices has a corresponding character device named /dev/sg0, /dev/sg1, etc. ‘sg’ stands for SCSI generic. This character devices can be opened as readable and/or writable and SCSI commands can be freely written with write() and data retrieved with read(). Pretty powerful.

  Except that the one machine I still possess which supports 40-pin IDE/ATAPI devices is running Linux kernel 2.6.24 which dates back to early 2008 and it still enumerates the IDE block devices as /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, etc. There are no corresponding /dev/sgX character devices. What to do ? It seems that a program can still issue SCSI commands using an ioctl() facility named SG_IO.

  I was able to make the SG_IO ioctl() work for the most part (except for the discovery that the Xbox drive doesn’t respond to a basic SCSI Inquiry command). However, I ran into a serious limitation– a program can only open a /dev/hdX block device in read-only mode if the device corresponds to a read-only drive like, for example, a DVD-ROM drive. This means that a program can’t issue SCSI mode select commands to the drive, which counts as writing. This means that my tool can’t unlock the drive.

  Current Status
  So this is where my experiment is blocked right now. I have been trying to compile various Linux kernels to remedy the situation. But I always seem to find myself stuck in one of 2 situations, depending on the configuration options I choose : Either the drives are enumerated with the /dev/hdX convention and I am stuck in read-only mode (with no mode select) ; or the drives are enumerated with /dev/sdX along with corresponding /dev/sgN character devices, in which case the kernel does not recognize the Xbox DVD-ROM drive.

  This makes me wonder if there’s a discrepancy between the legacy ATA/ATAPI drivers (which sees the drive) and the newer SATA/PATA subsystem (which doesn’t see the drive). I also wonder about hacking the kernel logic to allow SCSI mode select logic to proceed to the device for a read-only file handle.

• Fill patterns

  26 avril 2008, par Mikko Koppanen — Imagick, PHP stuff

  My work life has been quite busy lately and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and blog. I have been touring around London and some parts of the northern England consulting and organizing some training here and there. Luckily I have had the chance to do some work on Imagick and the 2.2.0 beta release is getting closer. The internal structure was completely restructured and broken down into several smaller files. During this time Imagick was adapted to follow the PHP Coding Standards more closely. Still a work in progress

  I committed slightly modified version of this example to PHP Manual http://uk.php.net/manual/en/imagick.examples.php page a few days ago. The example illustrates using an image as a part of a named fill pattern. The fill pattern is used to annotate text but the named pattern could also be used to fill any shapes that allow fill to be specified (include circles, ellipses, rectangles, polygons etc etc). The code itself is pretty straight forward : Read the image, create the pattern and use the pattern as a fill.

  The ice formations image is from http://www.photoeverywhere.co.uk/west/winterholiday/slides/iceformations5679.htm.

  php

  < view plain text >

  1. < ?php
  2.  
  3. /* Create a new imagick object */
  4. $im = new Imagick( ’iceformations5679.JPG’ ) ;
  5.  
  6. /* Create imagickdraw object */
  7. $draw = new ImagickDraw() ;
  8.  
  9. /* Start a new pattern called "ice" */
  10. $draw->pushPattern( ’ice’ , 0 , 0 , 50 , 50 ) ;
  11.  
  12. /* Composite the image on the pattern */
  13. $draw->composite( Imagick: :COMPOSITE_OVER, 0, 0, 50, 50, $im ) ;
  14.  
  15. /* Close the pattern */
  16. $draw->popPattern() ;
  17.  
  18. /* Use the pattern called "ice" as the fill */
  19. $draw->setFillPatternURL( ’#ice’ ) ;
  20.  
  21. /* Set font size to 52 */
  22. $draw->setFontSize( 52 ) ;
  23.  
  24. /* Annotate some text */
  25. $draw->annotation( 5, 50, "Hello World !" ) ;
  26.  
  27. /* Create a new canvas and white image */
  28. $canvas = new Imagick() ;
  29. $canvas->newImage( 310, 70, "white" ) ;
  30.  
  31. /* Add black border around the resulting image */
  32. $canvas->borderImage( ’black’, 1, 1 ) ;
  33.  
  34. /* Draw the ImagickDraw on to the canvas */
  35. $canvas->drawImage( $draw ) ;
  36.  
  37. /* Set the format to PNG */
  38. $canvas->setImageFormat( ’png’ ) ;
  39.  
  40. /* Output the image */
  41. header( "Content-Type : image/png" ) ;
  42. echo $canvas ;
  43.  ?>

  And the result is here :

  

• On ALAC’s Open Sourcing

  1er novembre 2011, par Multimedia Mike — Codec Technology

  Apple open sourced their lossless audio codec last week. Pretty awesome ! I have a theory that, given enough time, absolutely every codec will be open source in one way or another.

  I know I shouldn’t bother reading internet conversation around any news related to multimedia technology. And if I do read it, I shouldn’t waste any effort getting annoyed about them. But here are some general corrections :

  • ALAC is not in the same league as — nor is it a suitable replacement for — MP3/AAC/Vorbis or any other commonly used perceptual audio codec. It’s not a matter of better or worse ; they’re just different families of codecs designed for different purposes.
  • Apple open sourced ALAC, not AAC– easy mistake, though there’s nothing to ‘open source’ about AAC (though people can, and will, argue about its absolute ‘open-ness’).
  • There’s not much technical room to argue between ALAC and FLAC, the leading open source lossless audio compressor. Both perform similarly in terms of codec speeds (screamingly fast) and compression efficiency (results vary slightly depending on source material).
  • Perhaps the most frustrating facet is the blithe ignorance about ALAC’s current open source status. While this event simply added an official “open source” status to the codec, ALAC has effectively been open source for a very long time. According to my notes, the ALAC decoding algorithm was reverse engineered in 2005 and added into FFmpeg in March of the same year. Then in 2008, Google — through their Summer of Code program — sponsored an open source ALAC encoder.

  From the multimedia-savvy who are versed in these concepts, the conversation revolves around which would win in a fight, ALAC or FLAC ? And who between Apple and FFmpeg/Libav has a faster ALAC decoder ? The faster and more efficient ALAC encoder ? I contend that these issues don’t really matter. If you have any experience working with lossless audio encoders, you know that they tend to be ridiculously fast to both encode and decode and that many different lossless codecs compress at roughly the same ratios.

  As for which encoder is the fastest : use whatever encoder is handiest and most familiar, either iTunes or FFmpeg/Libav.

  As for whether to use FLAC or ALAC — if you’ve already been using one or the other for years, keep on using it. Support isn’t going to vanish. If you’re deciding which to use for a new project, again, perhaps choose based on software you’re already familiar with. Also, consider hardware support– ALAC enjoys iPod support, FLAC is probably better supported in a variety of non-iPod devices, though that may change going forward due to this open sourcing event.

  For my part, I’m just ecstatic that the question of moral superiority based on open source status has been removed from the equation.

  Code-wise, I’m interested in studying the official ALAC code to see if it has any corner-case modes that the existing open source decoders don’t yet account for. The source makes mention of multichannel (i.e., greater than stereo) configurations, but I don’t know if that’s in FFmpeg/Libav.