Objective
=========

How many people have modified their multimedia (audio, video, gaming)
consumer electronics in software or hardware to derive greater personal benefit
from that which it was originally designed?


Preamble
========

The public's attitudes towards Multimedia Consumer Electronics ("MCE")
and MCE content appear to have undergone a transformation with the
advent of the internet and an increasing reliance of MCE design on
software subsystems.

Examples like:

1.  Playstation and Xbox "mod" chips to disable region control and
allow copying of games,

2.  DVD Players with hidden menus/options like the Apex AD-600A to
allow MP3 playback, disable region control and Macrovision,

3.  TiVo boxes being modified to increase recording capacity, and

4.  Internet Applicances like the Xbox, TiVo, iOpener, Audrey and
WebSurfer being modified to transform the embedded computer into a
personal (Linux) computer,

demonstrate an increasingly savvy and quick reacting public to remake
off-the-shelf technology for their own increased personal good.

These modifications, or "hacks", can be software or hardware based.

There are probably more software hacks than hardware hacks, and some
reasons include:

1.  There are more people comfortable and skillful with software than
hardware,

2.  Software modifications can be made without any physical intrusion
or any physical evidence of warranty invalidation,

3.  Software modifications are also easier to describe and instruction
easier to distribute over media like the Internet.

There sometimes are minor hardware hacks required to unlock the
"backdoor" for software modification; for example the closure of a
jumper or the soldering of a single wire.  These will be considered,
for this question, to be software hacks as well.


The Question
============

There are three separate parts to the question:

I.   How many people purchase MCE machines with the preconceived
intent to "hack" them in software, based on what they have read on the
Internet and elsewhere?

II.  How many people purchase MCE machines with the preconceived
intent to "hack" them in hardware, based on what they have read on the
Internet and elsewhere?

III. How many people know how to precisely perform these hacks?


The Answer
==========

The references and answers for this question will most likely be of a
"grey" nature, given the question - we expect multiple sources of
information that may or may not conflict.

Our satisfaction is based on the quality, creativity, diversity and
quantity of the answer:

a. By creativity we mean, for example, inferring the number of people
who modify Sampo DVD drives by counting the registered users of
Area450's forums, and inferring the number of people who know about
the hack by counting the users who viewed key posts on the forum.

b. An answer of greater satisfaction would find hard numbers on this
based on a poll or market statistics.  For example, Lik-Sang has once
declared that 10% of its revenues are based on sales of modchips for
gaming consoles.

c. A supreme answer would provide a table (with references) with all
of the hacked MCEs in existence, the purpose of the hack, the number
of people who have learnt about the hack, and the number of people who
have performed the hack.

<Modified multi-media Consumer Electronics

Xbox to PC modification.
This uses the combination of a chip which is soldered into the Xbox
and the installation of software to allow the Linux operating system
to work.
The hack has been performed by 150,000 to 220,000 people. 1.66 – 2.4
percent of Xboxes worldwide.
Basic knowledge of the hack – 6-7 million.
Detailed knowledge of the hack approximately 900,000.

Mod chips
The addition of a chip to override territories and to allow the use of
copied/pirated games.
Number performing the hack – an estimated 10.5 –18.1 million
worldwide. In areas like Hong Kong as many as 80 percent of consoles.
Basic knowledge of the hack – an estimated 35 million.
Detailed knowledge of the hack – an estimated 900,000.

DVD
DeCSS hack – 5000
DiVX hack - Compresses a film to 600MB – 12 million copies of the
software downloaded
SX – allows users to swap MP3, image and video files - 100,000 users
have downloaded the program. 25,000 users were online using the
program.

TiVo, iOpener, Audrey and WebSurfer hacks.
These hacks are confined to the technology community. TiVo hacks for
example are dangerous to perform due to the risk of electrocution even
when the unit is switched off.
An estimated 900,000 would have knowledge of how to do the hack gained
from sources like Extreme Tech.
All types of internet appliance hack – 6825 active hackers.
TiVo – ExtractStream - 369 downloads of the software
Audrey – 1020 active hackers.
WebSurfer – 2219 active hackers.
iOpener – 20209 active hackers.



Xbox to PC references.
The reason that it represents such a small percentage of Xboxes is
that it is a procedure that requires technical knowledge and soldering
skills that most consumers do not possess. It tends to be confined to
the ‘technology community’.


Information sources.
I started by looking at postings to forums but found this to be not
particularly accurate when compared to figures gained from other
sources.

References.
According to USA Today an estimated 150,000 of 9 million Xboxes sold
worldwide have been turned into PC’s by hackers. This works out at
1.66 percent.
http://lists.microshaft.org/pipermail/dmca_discuss/2003-May/005075.html

According to Michael Steil a full version of Linux software for the
Xbox has been downloaded over 220,000 times. There were 6.7 million
Xboxes in use in USA, Europe and Japan in 2002.

Book by Andrew Huang called Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to
Reverse Engineering.
According to the Interactive Digital Software Association, xbox
hacking is more common in Asia than in North America.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/6322172.htm


The number of people who know how to do this.
To get an estimate of the number of people with knowledge of this
procedure I first looked at the circulations of the xbox magazines.
This would give an indication of the sort of numbers that take a
further interest in the capabilities of their machines. The two main
magazines are Official Xbox Magazine and Xbox Nation. Together they
have a circulation of 600,000.

Official xbox magazine has a circulation of 400,000
http://www.futurenetworkusa.com/news/2003/pr-2003-05-19.html
Xbox Nation magazine has a circulation of 200,000
http://www.ziffdavis.com/products/index.asp?page=xboxnation
Gaming magazines – circulation
http://gamegroup.ziffdavis.com/circulation/index.html

Since this transformation would be of benefit to PC users, I looked at
the circulation of the major PC magazine which is 6,081,000. Their
readers would likely have some knowledge that the modification could
be performed from various news stories.

However the technical knowledge to perform the modification is more
likely to be confined to visitors to  Extreme Tech which has 900,000
monthly visitors.

PC Magazine – circulation.
http://pcmagmedia.com/circulation/index.html

Extreme Tech is a website for hard core technologists and do it
yourself systems builders. It has an estimated 900,000 unique monthly
visitors. http://www.ziffdavis.com/products/index.asp?page=extremetech


Hacking sites like xboxhacker.com get 8,000 visitors per week.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-05-15-xbox_x.htm

I-hacked.com
Survey on article about hacking –136 responses.
http://www.i-hacked.com/modules.php?name=Surveys&pollID=10

X-box hacking – 3177 reads, 2342 reads.
http://www.i-hacked.com/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=2


X-box hacking book has sold between 450-500 copies.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2003/tc20030512_7451.htm



Mod chip references.

Enigmah 
These enable the security protection of the Xbox to be bypassed and
allow games from other regions to be played. They also allow the
playing of copied software.

450 Enigmah Mod chips were sold by David Rocci.
Site had over 100,000 registered users and received 140,000 hits per
day.
http://www.cybercrime.gov/rocciPlea.htm

Console24.com, a US based company selling mod chips has over 200,000
customers in 5 years of trading.
http://www.console24.com/t/company/

I found approximately 30 sites selling mod chips.

Lik Sang has 200,000 customers.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/fun.games/12/16/gamers.liksang/
Sales of mod chips account for less than 10 percent of total sales.
Assuming that 10 percent of customers bought mod chips, this gives a
figure of 20,000 units sold.
http://www.kcgeek.com/archives/interviews/interview_with_alex_kampl_of_liksang/010603.html

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,39020351,2123634,00.htm

According to Gartner at least 30% of games used on consoles are
pirated. According to Eddy Stevens chipping is widespread in Australia
with just about everyone having their consoles chipped. There were
20-25 people advertising in the Trading Post offering chipping
services in Sydney alone.  If the assumption is made that 30% of
consoles are chipped and that there are 35 million Playstation2 and
Xboxconsoles worldwide. This means that an estimated 10.5 million
consoles have been chipped.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/lawrpt/stories/s639926.htm

In Hong Kong it is estimated that between 80 and 90 percent of Xboxes
are chipped. 30,000 to 40,000 internet sites were until recently
selling mod chips.
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/july03/consolepiracy/index5.shtml

According to the Entertainment Software Association, US sales of
console games were $5.5 billion in 2002. Piracy accounts for loss of
sales of $3.2 billion in entertainment software. Sales of
entertainment software in 2002 were $6.9 billion. Piracy therefore
accounts for a  46 percent drop in sales.
http://www.theesa.com/pressroom.html

Considering there are 2.5 million consoles in Australia and that
chipping is widespread there this figure does not seem unreasonable.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/03/08/1015365740364.html

I also know from personal experience that chipping is extremely common
in the UK. By word of mouth it is extremely easy to find someone who
can chip a games console. It is also possible to buy professionally
pre-chipped consoles from retailers. For example
http://www.modchip-uk.co.uk/prodtype.asp?prodtype=53&ph=cat
Pstation.co.uk carries advertisements for chippers who offer to chip
machines and also sell pre-chipped consoles.
http://www.pstation.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?s=2dcf782c0b6a9b58cdb9ba4f104e685d&forumid=42



In Australia 330,000 Playstation 2 consoles have been sold.
http://www.bandt.com.au/articles/20/0c00d820.asp

More than 26 million Playstation 2 consoles have been sold worldwide.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/03/08/1015365740364.html

Types of chips include Enigmah, Messiah X, Xtender, HomebrewX  and
X-ecuter
http://www.vvsoft.fi/xboxsite/crsurvey/
http://www.xbreporter.com/xbox_mod_chip.php


Messiah X
http://www.inq7.net/inf/2002/jul/07/inf_hegotgame-1-1.htm


Philippines
http://www.inq7.net/inf/2002/jul/04/inf_hegotgame-1-1.htm

Mod chips are difficult to install.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-924666.html


Sony Playstation 2 
Magic 3.1 mod chip
Magic 3.6 mod chip
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:sGDQLkak3FoJ:sewpsc.sewp.nasa.gov/documents/security_mediapcsys.doc+%22enigmah%22+chip+mod+people&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

The EnigmahX project has been closed down.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/25921.html

Sites shut down as Sony threatens legal action.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/23334.html


DVD references

More than 5,000 copies of the DeCSS program were downloaded in 3
months.
http://www.totaldvd.com.au/grape/index.asp?storyid=187

DiVX more than 12 million people are estimated to have downloaded this
software.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2001/09/06/ecfdvd06.xml

SX – 100,000 users have downloaded the program
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-522365.html?legacy=zdnn


Hackers delay
http://www.digitalaudioguide.com/news/120499_hacker.htm
http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxix/2000.02.04/features/exclusive.html

TiVo
ExtractStream allows users of TiVo boxes to move compressed copies of
tv shows to their computers and beyond.
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/20/tivo_hack/print.html

How it works.
http://www.betanews.com/article.php3?sid=992004916


Extractstream has been downloaded 369 times at
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8091


iOpener hacks
The iOpener can be hacked by adding an IDE drive and installing Linux,
BeOs and Windows
http://www.retina.net/~jna/iopener/what.html


Audrey hacks

http://www.audreyhacking.com/

Audrey hacking.com has 800 registered users.
http://www.harperreed.org/portfolio/

Audrey coop had 220 members.
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Computers___Internet/Internet/Internet_Appliances?st=10&show_groups=1


Audrey hacking forum – 3170 posts
http://www.audreyhacking.com/forum/index.php?


WebSurfer
Linux hack
http://www.linux-hacker.net/websurfer/ws.html


I-Appliance BBS is a site for all types of internet appliance hacks.
It has 6825 registered members. There were 2219 postings on the
WebSurfer Technical forum and 20209 on the iOpener Technical forum.
http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl>


<Additional links:>

Music - File copying software – 20 million copies downloaded enabling
users to copy music.
http://www.necg.com.au/JustDoIPArchive/issue011207_107.shtml

Music - 27 million copies of file copying software downloaded.
http://www.grayzone.com/102.htm


<Search strategy:>

<"audreyhacking.com" users>
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22audreyhacking.com%22+users>

<"dvd players" decss downloaded>
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22dvd+players%22+decss+downloaded>

<"mod chips" "lik sang" customers>
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22mod+chips%22+%22lik+sang%22+customers>

<"pirate games" percent>
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22pirate+games%22+percent>

<"console piracy">
<://www.google.com/search?q=%22console+piracy%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1>

<"extractstream" downloaded>
<://www.google.com/search?q=%22extractstream%22+downloaded&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N>


<Hope this helps.>

---

Request for Answer Clarification by hrothgar-ga on 06 Sep 2003 18:42 PDT

Thank you for your answer.

It comprehensively and satisfactorily answers parts II and III of our
question, but we still are primarily interested in part I: software
hacks. For example, the Apex 600A is an example of a product that
anyone could purchase and unlock without knowledge of soldering, or
basic electronics.

There may be other DVD players or other consumer electronics devices
with such a software hack, and we are interested in as many of these
devices as you can find, with the number of people who know about such
hacks, and the number of people who purchase machines with the intent
to hack in mind.

Can you please answer part I with at least the same skill and
thoroughness you answered Part II and III?

Thank you.

---

Clarification of Answer by belindalevez-ga on 07 Sep 2003 05:48 PDT

<DVD hacks.
Estimated number of hacks (based on the percentage of pirated DVD’s):
In the U.S. – 12.4 million
Worldwide – 32 million

Remote hacks.
Many DVD’s can be hacked without software. All that is needed is the
machines remote control and access to the player’s front panel. These
hacks can be performed without affecting the machine’s warranty.

DVD Reviewer, the UK’s biggest online magazine,  lists 49 pages of
remote hacks that will convert DVD player into multi-region compatible
machines. Hacks are given for 341 machines.
http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/hackable.asp

More remote hacks.
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdhacks.php


How many people know about these hacks.

Knowledge about these hacks is very widespread. They have been
publiscised in DVD magazines and via the internet.

These hacks are particularly well publicised in the UK where DVD’s are
more expensive than in the U.S.A. What Hi–Fi Sound and Vision magazine
(circulation over 450,000), the UK’s best selling Hi-Fi magazine,
contained the following feature advising readers how they can hack
their machines and download cheaper DVD’s from the internet.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_674168.html

In the UK there has been an 850% increase in the seizure of pirated
DVDs. The seizure represent only 5% of pirated DVDs in the UK.
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:H0DLE4Qhh1UJ:203.105.32.167/crime/presentation/Povey_Keith/POVEY%2520Keith.doc+%22pirated+dvds%22+percent+uk&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Sales of pirate DVDs have risen by 80% in the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3158227.stm

Pirated DVDs account for 40% of sales. 
http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/general%20pdfs/valenti%20speech.PDF

In the U.S. 31 million DVD players have been sold to date.
http://www.recordingmedia.org/news/rmonews.html

Worldwide there are 80 million DVD players.
http://www.consumerdvreviews.com/news/0602/06252002_03.asp

DVD Review is the UK’s biggest DVD magazine. It has a circulation of
43,923 and has 40% of the DVD magazine market. Therefore in the UK
there are 109,807 people that read further about DVD issues.
http://www.dvdreview.co.uk/

Home Theater is the leading magazine in the U.S for the home
entertainment market – circulation 104,000
http://www.primedia.com/divisions/cmmg/hometheatermag/

Scwann DVD Advance
Circulation 54,901
https://www.schwann.com/dvdadvance/pdf/DVD_Adv_Media_Kit.pdf


Software hacks.

Apex 600A
DVD player that also plays MP3 and video CD/CD Rom media.
http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/conel/apex600a/apex600a.htm

DVD Region free software
Allows DVD’s to be watched from all regions.
DVD – Region -Free - downloaded 4618 times.
DVD region - Free  1.31 – downloaded 8889 times
DVD region – Free v1.30 – downloaded 7594 times

Copying software
DVD shrink – v3.0 beta 5 – downloaded 6326 times
DVDFab 0.17.0 – downloaded 6686 times
DVDZone v1.2.3 – downloaded 3581 times
DVDFAb 0.16.0 – downloaded 2261 times
DVD Copy 1.1 – downloaded 6830 times
DVDFab v0.15.2 – downloaded 842 times
DVD X Copy XPRESS v2.5.2 – downloaded 7647 times
CloneDVD v1.1.7.1 – downloaded 5393 times
Chopper XP v2.7 – allows you to extract a part of a DVD – downloaded
2487 times
DVD Shrink v2.3 – downloaded 3122 times
DVD2One 1.2 – downloaded 729 times
DVDFab 0.15.1 – downloaded 666 times.
DoItFast4U! version 1.1.1 – downloaded 1032 times.
http://dvd.box.sk/index.php?pid=dvdr_soft&prj=info&pol=0&rid=7496

Arstechnica has 465 members taking part in the forums.
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=cfrm&s=50009562

Eazy VCD
Software for copying DVD’s
The site has had 91660 hits
http://www.eazyvcd.tk/

DVD2SVCD
Allows the copying of DVD’s so that they can be backed up.
Visitors to the site 250 6974
http://www.dvd2dvd.org/

Sony camcorder hack
Enables DV-in
http://dvin.chez.tiscali.fr/


Xbox hack.
Chameleon – a plug in mod chip that requires no soldering. At least
345 people have tried this product and provided a rating.
http://easybuy2000.com/store/xbox/chameleon_adapter.shtml>


<Hope this helps.>

Thank you for your help!