After the vicious DDoS attacks from Lizard Squad to PSN and Xbox Live ruining christmas day for a lot of people, today a group called H4LT leaked on twitter a mega link containing the November version of the Software Development Kit for Xbox One, opening the road for developers to make their own homebrew apps for the console.
Hey, @Xbox! We thought we'd drop on by and End 2014 with a Bang ;) https://t.co/dQH9CIPrb0 — H4LT (@notHALT) 30 Dicembre 2014
After a few hours, H4LT also leaked the documentation for the SDK on the same twitter account.
Documentation for the SDK available: https://t.co/chv86kLt65 — H4LT (@notHALT) 30 Dicembre 2014
Bear in mind that this leak will not let anyone mod their consoles or release their own software for the system. To release an application or game on the Xbox One, you still need to go through Microsoft's official publishing program. But it will surely allow people to fumble with the SDK and possibly look for vulnerabilities in the system. The Tech Game managed to have the guys from H4LT to answer some questions about their motives of these actions. They claim to do it to encourage the spread of creativity and allow progress to be achieved faster. They hope that releasing the SDK to the public, will be the first step towards homebrew applications being present on the Xbox One. They also claim to have other leaks to release in the near future but do not offer much detail on those.
This new hit on Xbox One bears no dire consequences for the users like recent other attacks did. Still, it means that Microsoft will have a good deal of headaches to deal with starting the new year.
What's your opinion on this leak? Does the possibility to use independent homebrew software on the Xbox One justify this kind of actions? Will it bring harm to the brand? Tell us in the comments.
EDIT: H4LT dismissed the claims to be an hacking group. The article has been edited to reflect that. When responding to articles saying that they posted the following:
Apparently we are a hacker group, did you declare that for us? — H4LT (@notHALT) 31 Dicembre 2014
