Microsoft Hacks Off Xbox 360 Hackers
Oh mercy me, Microsoft bans modified Xbox 360s (not user accounts) from Xbox Live post-May 2007 update! Zero tolerance policy! The hive-mind has spoken! Cats and dogs not allowed to live together! It's the end of innovation as we know it!
Or is it?
A console jacked into an Ethernet hub or a wireless router attached to a broadband connection is just another computer on the network. It's hardware that runs software that lets you do stuff and--if you so choose--do some of that stuff with other people online. It's also a closed system, or to put that another way, it depends upon everyone's hardware and software speaking the same language and adhering to some fairly strict rules. If you start tinkering with the underlying architecture of the system, you risk unhinging something not just "locally," but "globally" as well. I can already anticipate the cynical response to this next point, but for better or worse, it's consensual standards that allow our computers to talk to each other.
