NEO involved in hacking

**Angus** · 01-06-2003, 02:59 AM

Since NEO has decided to involve itself in hacking Microsoft's XBox key, I have removed all traces of NEO from any PCs under my control, and asked the project organizers to remove me from their membership, and delete all stats associated with my accounts.

I do not in any way want to be involved with such a project.

Perhaps Free-DC as an orgnaization(?) should consider the wiseness of having it's name associated with a professed hacking project.

Angus

**rus6** · 01-06-2003, 03:52 AM

I stopped running the Neo client a little while back trying to get 5K in the dnet RC5-72 challenge...

:shocked:

I wasn't aware that Neo was even running this project... Before you mentioned it, guess I hadn't checked out the Neo home page in a while!

As I haven't downloaded a new client recently:

- Are there separate clients?
- Or can you choose to only run one or the other?

I know a lot of free-dc people have denoted a lot of time to a legit cracking challenge and I don't think that work should be discarded. I got the impresion from the stats page that the projects are quite separate.

However I know I won't be running Neo again on the work machines anymore...

**Supp** · 01-06-2003, 10:56 AM

You can choose project you'd like to run.

You can even download separate client for RSA-576 only.

**Angus** · 01-06-2003, 11:06 AM

You can choose project you'd like to run.

That's not the point.

It is grossly irresponsible for NEO to subject its participants to potential legal problems without prior notice, and the chance to dis-associate, before they (NEO) start doing something shady.

It is "NEO" that will be known as a hacker project, not 'those people that choose to run the hacker portion of the NEO project".

**Supp** · 01-06-2003, 11:36 AM

I was just answering rus6 questions...

And fortunately, I live in country, where such things like DMCA don't stink in air.

**PY 222** · 01-06-2003, 02:45 PM

So, is Free-DC, a well known team in the Distributed Computing arena, going to do something regarding this to protect its interest regarding this latest incident?

I for one, did not noticed that NEO Dev Team was going to do something like that until I read this forum and went to check their frontpage.

Since I have met my objective of pushing Free-DC past the 1 million mark, I think, I too will stop running NEO until as such time, we as a team deemed it to be more appropriate to pursue this DC project.

**Angus** · 01-06-2003, 11:36 PM

It appears that NEO is taking the XBOX project offline.

I just got this in an email from Mike Curry:

. We are taking the xbox offline for good... I will remove your account shortly

**Supp** · 01-06-2003, 11:55 PM

Their entire site's offline now (forbidden access)

**Angus** · 01-07-2003, 12:12 AM

Well, their web master resigned from the project tonight, maybe he took the server with him.

**PY 222** · 01-07-2003, 01:28 AM

Well... looks like the NEO project has just lost some valuable people.

I guess it is no more a viable project to invest our CPU cycles in. Scratch one off our list.

**Supp** · 01-07-2003, 01:36 AM

seems to be that way.

So, where are you moving now?
(looking for general direction

)

**IronBits** · 01-07-2003, 02:05 AM

How about dnet or DF maybe...

**Supp** · 01-07-2003, 02:10 AM

dnet ... 3000+ years to go (

)
df ... don't have such powerfull inet connection

shiFt!

**PY 222** · 01-07-2003, 02:21 AM

I have moved some to d.net to do the good fight. Hopefully you would join us there

**alpha** · 01-07-2003, 02:38 AM

Supp: After your contributions to ECCp-109, I'm suprised not to see you in the ECC2 rankings?

**Supp** · 01-07-2003, 07:15 AM

Fleet's mostly in dry dock, I want to return in full strength

so, next week...we'll see at ECC2

(good idea!)

**IronBits** · 01-07-2003, 10:04 AM

Well, the boys at The Neo Project have made a new rule - If you're inactive in the project for 30 days, they have setup an automatic script to delete you from the stats! This is in response the the many legitiment DC'ers that have been working this project since it started that have decided to quit because of the new Neo client that also tries to crack the Xbox encryption.

http://www.dcers.com/news.php?cod=61
and more here http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...thread&tid=109

**Angus** · 01-07-2003, 10:55 AM

Hmmmmmm

The NEO announcement about removing inactive members seems to have disappeared along with all the XBOX forum threads.

**Tax Bracket** · 01-08-2003, 11:51 AM

Article on New Scientist about this, here...

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993235

**Angus** · 01-08-2003, 01:36 PM

It appears NEO has not totally abandoned the XBOX hack project:

Never underestimate the power of Neo... Things are still in the works, but I guess you'll have to wait and see. There need to be a couple changes...

Mike Curry, NEO team member on their forum.

Stand by for the new NEO TROJAN client

**Marc_1** · 01-08-2003, 02:33 PM

Looks like it's back on:

Stay tuned, we will have a new separate client ready for continuing the Xbox Challenge. With the recent media frenzy we stopped the project to research the legal aspect before preceding any further, it seemed ok until we started receiving 75,000 unique hits per day.

From the front page at The Neo Project

Marc

**Angus** · 01-08-2003, 04:01 PM

It appears that NEO wants to be known as a hacker organization.

I would like to repeat the question posed earlier:

Does Free-DC want to be connected to such an organization?

My opinion is that we should dissolve the Free-DC NEO team, and have it removed from their stats.

Perhaps we can take a poll of the team members....

**rus6** · 01-08-2003, 04:26 PM

My view is that we should just stop crunching on move onto other projects...

I'd prefer not to see my stats disappear...

**Angus** · 01-08-2003, 07:51 PM

Made the big-time news:

News Article

Of course, it's not the same as being /.'d again.....

**Angus** · 01-08-2003, 09:45 PM

It appears other teams are leaving en-masse in protest of the XBOX hack:

NEO forum link

**KountrKlchr** · 01-09-2003, 12:02 AM

being a newbie, and know very little about everything, i would like to mention an update on their website (neo project's)

January 8, 2003

Xbox Challenge - Yeah, We're back and back strong!

Stay tuned, we will have a new separate client ready for continuing the Xbox Challenge. With the recent media frenzy we stopped the project to research the legal aspect before preceding any further, it seemed ok until we started receiving 75,000 unique hits per day.

looks like the decision to recant their anti-social views has been reversed.

**PY 222** · 01-09-2003, 01:24 AM

Well, I have stopped NEO on all the machines that was running it and uninstalled it.

Should we do more?

**Angus** · 01-09-2003, 01:57 AM

1 PY 222 315,535
2 MAGNAV0X 280,441
3 RUS6 141,648
4 IRONBITS 121,614
5 WYSOCKI 121,079
6 NITROUSINE 17,552
7 PFB 2,028
8 BELLBOX 1,932
9 SUPP 830
10 ALPHA 105

These are the only 10 people showing submitted results for NEO.
(Mine have already been removed at my request)

I think we can get some kind of consensus between us on whether to have the team 'removed' from the stats.

As I have stated before, I don't like the idea of having the Free-DC name associated with a site/project promoting and providing means of hacking of Microsoft private keys. Let's just call it a bad experience, get out, and go on to something worthwhile.

Angus

**PY 222** · 01-09-2003, 02:44 AM

Actually, stats are the main reason why I am involved in DC altogether and I have been very excited to be No. 1 on the Free-DC NEO team.

If we get consensus regarding the removal of Free-DC from the NEO stats, then I would support it.

**Bellbox** · 01-09-2003, 02:48 AM

I'd have no problem with the stats removed.

**alpha** · 01-09-2003, 03:05 AM

I don't mind being removed either.

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