[ladyada]

there is an authentication scheme in the xbox/kinect. the authentication scheme is only required for the xbox to authenticate the camera, not the other way around (the camera only being usable with an xbox)

this is almost certainly not because microsoft loves us, but because their authentication scheme is done in hardware and the security of it is that the keys are in a chip that is a pain to decap and read. if they ever want to use the kinect with windows, they'll want to avoid any required authentication scheme where the keys are stored in software.