Halo 2 is a drug against mod chips.

[Shockeye]

Linky-dinky-doo.

Hundreds of Xbox owners have reported in online forums in recent days that they were banned from Xbox Live, Microsoft's online gaming service, after trying to play "Halo 2" online with a modified console.

...

Initial Xbox Live antihacker measures focused on checking a console's BIOS--the software that controls basic functions of a computing device--to ensure it was running on original Microsoft software. Hackers got around those checks with switches and software dongles that temporarily turn off a mod chip before signing in to Xbox Live.

Recent updates to the Xbox Live service, made just before Tuesday's release of "Halo 2" was set to touch off a huge surge in Xbox Live subscriptions, appear to go much further, however. The service now apparently checks the console's hard drive and boots any machine with storage different than the 8GB or 10GB hard drive originally supplied with the console. Hard drive upgrades are one of the most common hacks for the Xbox, allowing it to serve as a digital media jukebox.

Online forums such as Xbox Scene and Team Xecuter have logged reports from hundreds of Xbox owners who previously were able to access Xbox Live with their modified consoles--typically outfitted with a mod chip and a bigger hard drive--but have been banned from the service since trying to go online with "Halo 2."

Let that be a lesson to ya!

[sidereal]

circa 2 weeks for an exploit

[WayAbvPar]

But until then:

Ha><><ors P\/\/ned by M$.

[Riggswolfe]

Am I supposed to feel sorry for these people?

[Gong]

hey, those wankers banned me too. unfortunately for them, I'm back.

however, not everyone with a modded xbox is evil/malicious/haxxor/whatever. the main reason I modded my xbox was to serve as the center of my home theater system. I could shell out $1000 for a dedicated media device, or put together a home theatre PC, or I could drop $50 for a modchip and use my xbox (which I already owned) as the main point. I can stream music off of my PC and play it through my surround sound setup. I can watch DVDs regardless of region. I can FTP into my xbox, upload movies from my PC, and watch them on the big TV. It was by far the most convenient and the cheapest solution for what I needed. It's never been possible, afaik, to play on Xbox Live while the modchip is turned on, since that has always resulted in a ban.  The latest bans are almost silly in that regard, because you still need to buy the game if you want to play it on Xbox Live. If you can't play it on xbox live, then that's all the more incentive to just pirate the game instead of actually paying for it.  There are quite a few teams out there developing opensource software for xbox, quite a lot of perfectly legal uses for a modded xbox. Granted,  I knew I was running the risk of getting banned from Xbox Live when I modded my box. I'm not going to cry about it, or bitch about how MS is unfair, whatever - I willingly broke the terms of agreement, so this is what happens.

The link is actually incorrect. What the latest shenanigans did was "marry" your EEPROM (unique xbox identifier) to the serial number of your xbox hard drive - this occurs when you sign into Xbox Live for the first time. Every subsequent time you log into Xbox Live, it checks to see if either your EEPROM or your hard drive serial# has changed. If one of them has changed, but not the other, then they know you've modified your xbox. If you change them both at the same time, then it simply looks like you've migrated your account to a new xbox. If you never sign into Xbox Live until AFTER you've modded your xbox, then you won't banned either, because it only 'marries' your initial configuration. The latest wave is a cute trick, but it isn't going to stop anyone who is really determined.

[Mesozoic]

The only time I would even start to care is when hacks and trainers show up online.  At that point, one of the prime selling points for XBL (for me) is gone.