MUSIC

PROJECT REDSHARK

Turn your Xbox into a mobile media monstrosity.

By John Riney

I wanted a system for my car that could play my entire music collection. A sensible human being would have purchased an iPod and plugged it into the tape deck. But I had a dusty Xbox lying around, and I figured I could turn it into the foundation of a powerful car computing environment — something that I could play music with now and add more features to later.

The Xbox is just a PC wrapped up in fancy plastic, and I knew that hackers had gotten Linux working on it. Thus began Project Redshark, named after my old car — which, in turn, was named after the red convertible in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

After some beer-assisted research and de-velop-ment, I got it to work. Here’s a summary of how I did it, and you can see more details on my website ( rineysoft.com/xbox).

130 Make: Volume 08

1. Xbox, meet Linux. Linux, meet Xbox. First, I discovered that Microsoft doesn’t want people installing other operating systems on their game console! Who knew? Fortunately, the Xbox-Linux project ( xbox-linux.org) describes several work-arounds, including one hack that boots Linux on an Xbox without ever cracking its case. Sold!

The technique comes from the Xbox game MechAssault, the first version of which has an exploitable bug in its load/save code. If you load a properly crafted savegame into MechAssault from an Xbox memory cartridge, the box will crash, allowing you to run foreign code. (You can also load the fatal savegame from a USB stick, using an Xbox-to-USB adapter cable.)

The payload of this exploit then runs a Linux kernel from the Xbox’s hard drive or from a disc

Photography by John Riney /Illustration by Damien Scogin