Eurogamer

Microsoft's new Xbox 360 dashboard update adds "boot to disc" functionality and visually tweaks gamercards. But an undisclosured feature is new anti-piracy measures for Call of Duties Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, and Halo: Reach.

Back in November we discussed how the Kinect dash locked out pirates from games such as Fable III and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Discs recieved new coding that would be looked for when the game was put inside an Xbox 360. Pirated or burned games are imperfect copies of the original, and the lack of this new AP 2.5 coding prevented them from loading. Not only that, the console was flagged for a ban on Xbox Live.

These AP 2.5 elements were first found on the FIFA 09 disc in 2008. Back then, however, the game didn't take full advantage of the coding. It's now clear that this was no one-time experiment, as AP 2.5 now appears in new game releases.

Microsoft's latest Xbox 360 Dashboard update forces through the requisite checks for its most popular online games – the two most recent Call of Duty titles - Warfare 2, Black Ops - and Halo: Reach.

This serves two purposes for Microsoft. These are by far the most popular Live-enabled Xbox 360 games, and anti-piracy measures help protect from potential cheats. Secondly, it is the quickest way to target a large volume of users using pirated software.

Expect the mighty Microsoft banhammer to descend soon.

But in the end it may be the hackers and pirates with the last cackle. The latest piracy-enabling DVD drive firmware contains counter-measures of its own, locking up the console if AP 2.5 is detected and no spoofed codes are on the burned disc. This seems to have the effect of freezing the 360 before the console is flagged for a ban. If this is indeed the case, new pirate releases of the games in question with injected AP 2.5 codes could counteract Microsoft's new initiative.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-360-update-anti-piracy-measures-blog-entry

it wont be long before SONY does the same thing, or is doing the same thing already. 

I still say flooding torrent sites with phony hacks that cause your console to brick is the best method because not only does it ups the risk by an huge margin people wont risk it. 

This is all about making things harder not necessarily impossible. The harder it is and the more likely the detection the more likely the casual person will think twice.

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Winner of the 2010 VGC Holiday sales prediction thread with an Average 1.6% accuracy rating. I am indeed awesome.

Kinect as seen by PS3 owners ...if you can pick at it   ...post it ... Did I mention the 360 was black and Shinny? Keeping Sigs obscure since 2007, Passed by the Sig police 5July10.

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I don't think that method is entirely legal. Spreading software with intent to harm, even if pirates is probably illegal to some extent.

but downloading the links are illegal as well because you are pirating 

Damn straight it should hurt those pirates!

My hat is off to Microsoft, keep it up.