Xbox Live update kills hacking

Last week we told you about a promised update to the Xbox 360 dashboard.

Well, the update is here, but it's not quite what we expected. For starters, we were expecting lots of game bugfixes: those aren't here. The bugfixes that are there are minor: better network connections for Dutch players, better accuracy when calculating last time played, more helpful error messages and as well as various unspecified 'improvements' to the Guide.

However, one blogger has suggested that the true purpose of the update has been to thwart the one security hole found in the machine so far, to put a stop to hackers working on the system.

The hole has come about through a hacked demo disk that was made available. Unlike normal Xbox 360 games, the demo disk wasn't encrypted, allowing for hackers to get to grips with the file system. There has been speculation recently that this exploit was the first step towards opening up the Xbox 360.

Well, that has now been stopped, with the exploit apparently fixed as an 'undocumented feature' of the update. On the previous Xbox the hacked machines were locked down on live, leaving many gamers to buy one unmodified console for online play and one console to be hacked to pieces. Of course, with the lack of availability on the 360 right now, that's not really an option.

So, it rather seems that homebrew games and Linux will have to wait a little longer.

Has Microsoft thwarted hackers through the back door? Should it just open up the console, or is it right to vigourously defend the platform? Let us know what you think over in the forum.