Microsoft has moved to Phase 2 of its crackdown on players using & abusing their Xbox 360s, according ot Xboxic, Gamerscore, and others.

The first prong of this effort was to hunt down Game Save copies and disable them (see previous article). This is a nuisance for sports games and a problem for user-created content... but not fatal.

Yesterday, the big guns dropped. Microsoft has used the latest Xbox Live service update to detect kernel mods and unauthorized hard disk upgrades (no word on whether it catches the malicious DVD drive replacements that exposed a major piracy problem last spring and summer) and ban them from Xbox Live.

The choice has been to ban these people's Xbox 360s based on its console ID, not the player's Xbox Live account.