Someone who's MS25 I flashed with 5.2d was banned over a week ago. He played some pre-releases and non stealth backups. Now his stepson also has a MS25 that I flashed with 5.2d as well. It was only on Live for 2 weeks in March this year. I know at least one non stealth back was played on Live during that time period.
The stepfather played on Live a lot, while the stepson doesn't play on Live at all. I suggested for them to switch consoles. I could flash the one that wasn't definitely banned with ixtreme and see if I could get it on Live. Well I did that 2 hours ago and it's doing fine on Live, i.e. no ban. Also it's not playing non stealth backups as advertised and all the stealth ones are working that I tried.
So after all this it seems to me, MS probably hasn't been logging since the fall update, but more like around month or less before the Spring update.
Odd's are Micro$oft didn't know that a logging system was going to be needed when they first released the XBOX 360 as they wouldn't have thought a simple firmware change on the drive could give the ability to play backups. This suggests that either the update prior to the spring update or possibly one before that introduced the logging software. I flashed my XBOX 360 before going online and have only ever played stealth backups and I'm still not banned, but since downloading the updates I have not reflashed - thus no changes to log. According to an xbox live ban tracker I came across, a huge majority of people with Xtreme 5.3 and the new Hitachi Stealth 2.4 were banned so it seems that by trying to avoid being banned they flashed their drives which was logged and got themselves banned. Maybe if they hadn't touched it they'd be on live still. Anyway (I might be wrong so don't flame me) my suggestion is if you've got a firmware on there (like Xtreme 5.2 as I have) and you're still on live don't update - unless you have the means to do it without turning the console on - i.e. a different xbox or a molex power adaptor, or with Team Xecuters Blaster 360 (but why fix something that isn't broken) and only play stealth backups.
I'm inclined to believe whatever logging took place began with whatever little update there was before the Spring update. Also I forgot to mention both 360s were flashed with 5.2d around sometime in November 2006. I can't remember the exact dates. Since I no one though the power source thing would be ban issue both used their own power during the flashes. With I flashed the unbanned one I used the banned one as the power source since I had to switch the cases anyway.
I flashed to 5.0a around nov/dec and have never re flashed. The only backups I play are stealth and I play the originals the very first time I run a game. Been playing h3 with no ban in sight using 5.0a so far.
This makes me believe your right about how long ms has been logging.
MS25, using only stealth backups, 5.3A flashed before Spring update, then applied the Spring update after flashing and still on Live. Important to note I was playing on Live with 5.2A before I applied the new firmware and Spring update.
I do not play my backups on Live however, but we all know that you get signed in for some games that have leaderboards, etc. so I'm not sure what's going on for some of you guys.
