Hi Engadget and Gizmodo… my name is January. Have we met?

Today, both Engadget and Gizmodo posted stories about an Xbox 360 dashboard update which fixes a security vulnerability that allows someone to run unsigned code. This was big news in the homebrew community a few days ago as it was publicly detailed (see here). Let me get a couple things straight: Dashboard Updates = Good. Reporting on those updates = good. However… here’s my problem.

Reporting on an update that occurred January 9, 2007 in March, and writing like the update is new and came out today, is both stupid and irresponsible. These sites have thousands of readers, and a ton of them are now turning on their Xbox 360’s looking for a dashboard update, and there isn’t one. For those keeping score, the exact time-line of events surrounding this exploit can be found here.

Another problem I have with Gizmodo’s story is they say:

What does this mean? Well, unless you’re one of the handful of people who are using the 360 to run Linux or to run burned games, you’ll be fine. For the rest, you’ll probably need to get a new Xbox 360 to play newer games or else run the risk of not being able to play any of your old pirated games.

Now, for the record, I do not have a modded Xbox 360. I do have a lot of friends that do, and who have a hell of lot of information about the firmware hacks, etc. This quote is completely false. The patch did nothing to stop people from playing pirated games. It only fixed the security hole that allowed for unsigned code to be run on the console (and in turn, stopped people from downgrading the kernel to run homebrew on the 360).

Please guys, don’t write things 3 months later and act like it just happened. And please don’t print up completely false statements. Do your research before you write this stuff up.