Hacking the Xbox

And you thought your Xbox was only for games…According to Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, a recent MIT grad, you can get around the many security features in an Xbox console and take control of the device, essentially converting it into a computer that costs less than $200. He has written a book, Hacking the Xbox, which outlines the steps.

In an interview in the current issue of Giant Robot [a magazine], Huang describes some of the cool ways people are using hacked Xboxes. He has a few that are configured to run Linux; his hacked Xboxes do everything computers can do—web, email, word processing, and spreadsheets. He’s read about people in third-world nations who are retrofitting them for educational purposes. One of the oddest things he has seen is people making a “Beowulf cluster,” chaining Xboxes together to make them into a supercomputer.

For more information, check out the Hacking the Xbox website. Or go to the bookstore and read pages 83-84 of Giant Robot Issue 30.