• John (unregistered) in reply to konamiman

    Isn't it obvious? To artificially drive prices up in other regions. PAL regions suffer from this the most. In Australia, it can cost $110 for a new PS3 game. How much in America? Less than half that. I could buy a PS3 game from the United States and even with the international shipping fees, would be drastically cheaper than buying it from any store in Australia.

    Damn, I've got to sell my Wii to get a PS3.

  • TRB (unregistered) in reply to Vile Jimmy
    Vile Jimmy:
    JimmyVile:
    <snipped trolltard rubbish>
    Troll or retard? I'm voting retard.
    I'm voting trolltard.
  • Wizard Stan (unregistered) in reply to konamiman

    Different countries have different rules. Rules regarding sales, promotions, content, intellectual property, etc... Some games are rated differently, some need to have changes, and some are flat out banned in certain countries. Region locking puts reasonable restrictions in place for such things. There's also the currency exchanges to consider. It's possible that buying from another country might cost less, and your region probably doesn't like that. Moving money out of the country causes the value of the currency to go down. Also taxes: Government likes to get their cut. For existing IP, the game maker may not be licensed to distribute in that region. If a movie comes out and a publisher wants to make a game for it, they may only pay to acquire the license for North America. Say the movie did great there, but was a flop in Europe. Why pay licensing fees to distribute a game to a region where it's expected to do poorly? Differences in hardware also applies. The difference between 50hz and 60hz can really cause some games problems, if they rely on the vsync for any reason.

  • (cs) in reply to Hector Martin (aka marcan)
    Hector Martin (aka marcan):
    JimmyVile:
    I really can't see how people can rationalize the impact they have on piracy with their tinkering.
    You'd be surprised to see the lengths we've gone to to avoid catering to the piracy community. And the flamewars that have gone with that. And how much we hate piracy. There's no need to blame the entire tinkering community for the work of one or two guys.
    Well, to be fair, there's a definite desire for that sort of thing, so there would always be someone who'd do that sort of thing.
    Hector Martin (aka marcan):
    By the way, we don't support "backups" either, because (and we'll definitely agree on this) 99% of people who claim they want to use "backups" really want to pirate games.
    That's now, when the system is new. Try 5 years from now, when your Twilight Princess (or whatever the zelda game was) doesn't play anymore. I've broken one game-DVD and a lot of my old game-CDs are illegible, and I know that my younger siblings have managed to break some games. The problem is, of course, that 'normal' people (including my father) wouldn't think about piracy normally, but when your only option is to fork over €40 for a new copy it might chafe a bit.

    TRWTF here is Nintendo's reluctance to support any kind of homebrews. If they had an actual communication channel to their homebrew content creators, they'd have an incredible mass of people helping them fight piracy as well. Still, if they had a channel to the homebrewers, there wouldn't be that much of a need to find the latest exploit and ...well, exploit it.

  • JimmyVile (unregistered) in reply to Rehevkor
    Rehevkor:
    JimmyVile:
    For the most part it seems that the homebrew scene caters to the geeks who want to see what they can do with the system. Sure, there are those that use these powers for evil, but the intentions of the majority of the community are pure.

    I don't know if I should laugh or cry. This is completely false. 99% of all users use the hacks to avoid paying for games as much as possible.

    It's very nice and creative when people hack consoles "to see what it can do", "express themselves" or do it "because [s]God[/s] Mario told them to". But it is always used as a means to get free games. Always. I really can't see how people can rationalize the impact they have on piracy with their tinkering.

    \Video Game journalist \Game Developer

    I hear that 99% of statistics are made up on the spot.

    Take a poll, ask your friends, visit/moderate a main-stream game site, visit (informal) game conventions, or just read your local game-dev monthlies. I'm not a researcher and I left my piracy log book is in my other pants.

    Very commendable that the modders try to discourage piracy and I give you all big hugs and kisses from the bottom of my wallet. :D

    ...but for every lawful good modder there is a chaotic evil bastard who puts a hack online and whoops the shit hits the mainstream fan and downloads go through the roof while sales tank.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to JimM

    11000111100101110000110011101110110111001100001110110000011101010100010010010000001000000001101001111010101001100001001111001101011100111001000100010000100000011100011110010000111101011111000110101000011100100110111101000110001101010101000010111011010110110111111111110000110110111000111000011110101000010001100010011110110001110010111110010011110100010110010100000000000100011011110101110010000110101110111010101100110000101010110011011110001100101010000001000001000001111111000001100100100011000010100000010011101000110001111101011011000010110111011101100101111111111000101101000100101101001011011011111111110010010011001110000100101101100100011011101011000010011100011111001111010111101000010110010010110101000000111010100011001111001000000000000011100111110011010110110100111100010100101000000100101101010001111101111011111111010111100000011011111001001101000101100111001100010110010010111010100011101011100110010001110000101100010011010111001100001011101110111110001101011111010110010010101111011110111101010010010010101111011111101000110110101110111111010010011011000110011011111100000000101100010001111001101011111000100111010110010011010011011100111111010001000010011100001001010000111001110111100110011011001110101110010101010111110011111010100011011111010101000101011001111101100001001101011000000010011111100001010011001101001011010111001011000110000001001110101101110111001000000011001101000001010110000010011111000100001010110001101010100101011010110101100101100001110010110010010000100101010010010110111101101011010011001010111100011100101001010110010010011001000010100100100000111100100100110001100001110111000101101100111100001110110111100100100011111001010110101100010110101001001101100111010011011100111101100001110010000111110010010010100011111111000000111100011011001100010011000111110101010101100001010100010111001010000110011010111100110011000011000011111001010100000101010011001000001001001110011100110011101001011110101101101000000101111111011110111100000101100011100110011101010010001100011000110110000111001100011111100101

  • Gorfblot (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    11000111100101110000110011101110110111001100001110110000011101010100010010010000001000000001101001111010101001100001001111001101011100111001000100010000100000011100011110010000111101011111000110101000011100100110111101000110001101010101000010111011010110110111111111110000110110111000111000011110101000010001100010011110110001110010111110010011110100010110010100000000000100011011110101110010000110101110111010101100110000101010110011011110001100101010000001000001000001111111000001100100100011000010100000010011101000110001111101011011000010110111011101100101111111111000101101000100101101001011011011111111110010010011001110000100101101100100011011101011000010011100011111001111010111101000010110010010110101000000111010100011001111001000000000000011100111110011010110110100111100010100101000000100101101010001111101111011111111010111100000011011111001001101000101100111001100010110010010111010100011101011100110010001110000101100010011010111001100001011101110111110001101011111010110010010101111011110111101010010010010101111011111101000110110101110111111010010011011000110011011111100000000101100010001111001101011111000100111010110010011010011011100111111010001000010011100001001010000111001110111100110011011001110101110010101010111110011111010100011011111010101000101011001111101100001001101011000000010011111100001010011001101001011010111001011000110000001001110101101110111001000000011001101000001010110000010011111000100001010110001101010100101011010110101100101100001110010110010010000100101010010010110111101101011010011001010111100011100101001010110010010011001000010100100100000111100100100110001100001110111000101101100111100001110110111100100100011111001010110101100010110101001001101100111010011011100111101100001110010000111110010010010100011111111000000111100011011001100010011000111110101010101100001010100010111001010000110011010111100110011000011000011111001010100000101010011001000001001001110011100110011101001011110101101101000000101111111011110111100000101100011100110011101010010001100011000110110000111001100011111100101

    What's that in Uniary? I have a need for some large base 1 numbers for a project due friday. Plz email me teh codez.

  • captcha: amet (unregistered) in reply to James
    James:
    Granted, that doesn't explain the VC games (I think they're the same "Wii Point" cost everywhere), but it's a prime business reason behind lockout for physical media.

    This one's easy. Nintendo distributes a lot of third-party games via VC. They have to get the rights to do this, and the original publishers may want to sell the distribution rights per country.

    Here's a side-wtf. I just noticed that the default "Your Name" field is "captcha: $captcha" where $captcha is the answer to the captcha which is required to post. Is that intentional? Doesn't that just mean that a bot could read that field? Has this been discussed before and I'm just slow?

  • SomeCoder (unregistered)

    Yeah, seems like the real WTF is that console makers (specifically Nintendo) aren't supporting homebrew. You know how much PR you get by letting people write games for your console? That PR can also turn into cash pretty easily.

    I can totally understand about the want to block piracy but as someone else already said, if they were supporting homebrew, the homebrewers would HELP them stop piracy.

    Nice article by the way. Very interesting information.

  • Machtyn (unregistered) in reply to Hector Martin (aka marcan)
    Hector Martin (aka marcan):
    By the way, we don't support "backups" either, because (and we'll definitely agree on this) 99% of people who claim they want to use "backups" really want to pirate games.

    \Wii hacker \Piracy flamewar specialist

    I guess you can count me in the 1%. I want to use my backups as my main play disk for those stupid games that require a disk to be in the drive (some PC games, all consoles). That way I don't destroy the original. It really irks me to have to pay twice, or more, for a game (especially when they approach $40+ per game)

  • John (unregistered)

    I had to laugh when I noticed that all the sponsored Google ads down the left of the page are for WiiKeys and R4DS cartridges. Looks like the big G has just put its stamp of approval on Wii/DS piracy and who the hell are we to argue with them?! Score another one for context sensitive advertising - perhaps tomorrow you could do an article about hash functions, who knows what good stuff Google might serve up to us...

  • Guido0 (unregistered)

    The important question is:

    Where can I get "Bob Ross Painting" for the PS3?

  • (cs)

    Up Down Up Down Left Right Left Right A B A B Start

  • Kyle (unregistered)
    JimmyVile:
    I don't know if I should laugh or cry. This is completely false. 99% of all users use the hacks to avoid paying for games as much as possible.
    Vile Jimmy:
    Troll or retard? I'm voting retard.
    Spitting out a completely meaningless statistic without citation or even justification is typically a defense of the mentally challenged. Therefore I vote retard.
  • Skippy (unregistered)

    Just want to point out that WiiConnect24 doesn't actually push new system firmware updates to consoles. All it does is send you a message saying there's an update available. You then have the option to download it or not. However, newer games tend to require the latest firmware to run and include a copy of it on retail discs (which you still have the option to not install, although then the game won't run).

  • Nerf Herder (unregistered)

    All you need to do to hack the Wii is to enter the following movements on your remote and you will have access to anything you want:

    up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A

    You're welcome

  • TimmyEvil (unregistered) in reply to JimmyVile

    ::but for every lawful good modder there is a chaotic evil bastard who puts a hack online and whoops the shit hits the mainstream fan and downloads go through the roof while sales tank.::

    Funny guy.

    Give me the chance to pay for what I want, and I'll give you the money.

    Examples: Quake 4 - worth $18, paid $20, released at $60 Spiderman 2 - worth $6, paid $0(waited for braodcast), released at $12 Mettalica "Magnetic Death" - worth $8, paid $0 (will never purchase), released at $25 Wizardy 8 - worth $120, paid $20, released at $45 Batman Begins - worth $14, paid $14 (IMAX), released at $12 NIN "The Slip" - worth $25, paid $160 (two concert tickets), released at $0

  • TimmyEvil (unregistered) in reply to JimmyVile

    ::but for every lawful good modder there is a chaotic evil bastard who puts a hack online and whoops the shit hits the mainstream fan and downloads go through the roof while sales tank.::

    Funny guy.

    Give me the chance to pay for what I want, and I'll give you the money.

    Examples: Quake 4 - worth $18, paid $20, released at $60 Spiderman 2 - worth $6, paid $0(waited for braodcast), released at $12 Mettalica "Magnetic Death" - worth $8, paid $0 (will never purchase), released at $25 Wizardy 8 - worth $120, paid $20, released at $45 Batman Begins - worth $14, paid $14 (IMAX), released at $12 NIN "The Slip" - worth $25, paid $160 (two concert tickets), released at $0

  • (cs)

    Wow, this is hilarious. As I long-time hackmii lurker I was stunned when I saw this popping up here. Brillant!

    I would still like to know how Nintendo responded to your open letter. But I guess you won't tell.

  • (cs) in reply to TRB
    TRB:
    Vile Jimmy:
    JimmyVile:
    <snipped trolltard rubbish>
    Troll or retard? I'm voting retard.
    I'm voting trolltard.

    I vote Wiitard

  • (cs)

    Not sure if this has been posted, but this is the website where this story originated (I recognized it right away):

    http://hackmii.com/

    You can check there for more details. For example, there were not just the one bug in Nintendo's save verifier code, but 4 or 5 bugs which could have been exploited to work around the checks. The reverse-engineered pseudo code looked of very poor quality indeed.

  • Hector Martin (aka marcan) (unregistered) in reply to cod3_complete
    cod3_complete:
    So I wonder where the disassembled code is being recovered from though. So is Hector reading it from the ROM or something?
    Ah, well, that's part of the fun from the beginnings of Wii Hacking. Long story short, they kept decryption keys in the top 12MB of external RAM (they have since moved to using internal RAM for that, but it's too late). In Gamecube mode (where we could already run homebrew, courtesy of modchips, since the games are unsigned, but it's also a sandbox where you can do nothing that the gamecube couldn't do), we have access to the bottom 8MB of that external RAM. By shorting out the address pins on the chip (using a pair of tweezers, hence "Twiizer attack" and "Team Twiizers"), we read out the top 12MB, dumped the keys, and decrypted and disassembled games and the firmware updates that they contain. Everything else follows from disassembling and analyzing them.

    The disassembly for the Zelda anti-hack in particular was obtained from online updates though. I wrote a program to "impersonate" a Wii during the update process (Wiimpersonator), and have it scheduled to run on a cron job at my server. It generates reports whenever it detects an update, and downloads and decrypts everything for later analysis. You can read up-to-date reports here. If you feel the need to grab anything yourself to look at (I'm not disitributing them due to copyright concerns), download the encrypted files from the Nintendo URLs mentioned in the logs, then decrypt using AES-128-CBC, using the relevant decrypted ETicket title key mentioned in the report (match up the TitleID with the URL - it's in hex in the URL), and the big-endian 16-bit content ID from the TMD dump (NOT CONTENT INDEX), padded with 14 zero bytes, as the IV.

    Example: this report (the update mentioned in the article), title 00000001-00000002 (system menu) executable (boot index) is index 8. The Content ID is 0000005B, downloadable here, the key is the 33 c5 c1 ... "Title key (decrypted)" from the report (I'm not posting it here in case Alex objects), and the IV is 00 08 and 14 zero bytes. You'll get a DOL executable file as a result in that case (if the first bytes are 00 00 01 00 and the rest looks sane, you did it right). Google for a DOL plugin for IDA if you feel like disassembling (it's PPC code).

    If you try contents from IOSes, you'll usually get a small loader prepended to an ELF file for the boot content, and plain vanilla ELF files for all of the other contents. Those will load in any ARM disassembler (the Wii's security CPU - Starlet, we call it (part of Hollywood, heh) - is an ARM core).

  • Kanazuchi (unregistered)

    At least Nintendo has gotten better about region encoding. The SNES was region encoded. In the hardware. Technically. Because a US SNES had these two plastic probes that fit into grooves in a US SNES cartridge. These grooves were absent in a Japanese SNES cartridge, so anyone trying to turn on an American SNES with a Japanese cart in it physically couldn't.

    Of course, hacking an American SNES for region encoding just required a screwdriver and an X-acto knife.

  • (cs)

    Sure that that is pseudo-code and not C++? :P

  • cod3_complete (unregistered) in reply to Hector Martin (aka marcan)

    Thanks for the reply Hector I'll definetely be reading and researching futher to build my 1337 rep :-)

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to Nick
    Nick:
    Belive it or not it's always harder to build a hack proof system than it is to hack one. My maxim in computer security is, "Once they have your hardware, they've already won."

    I would hope that it was a corporate decision and not a developer decision for them to roll their own crypto.

    More likely a developer decision. First there's the NIH syndrome, and second why would the developer NOT want people to dig into and extend the system? He's more likely than the corporate drone to know how popular it will make it and how to secure it using simple functions that will be easy to circumvent - as is clearly the case on the Wii.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    "You can code on the PS2 if you buy the Linux kit, but for the PS3 there's no large-scale initiative to give development tools to consumers."

    Erm, actually all PS3 models let you install Linux on them without buying anything extra.

  • (cs)

    You all have missed a lesson.

    Plant a bug in a game that allows arbitrary code execution - and BAM, a bestseller.

  • convicted felon (unregistered) in reply to Smash King
    Smash King:
    gabba:
    Let's see now -- gotta find the wtf. Ah, there it is! Idiotic corporate attempts to thwart the efforts of creative and enterprising customers. WTF?
    What about this one?
    There's even a utility to change the Wii's region, which is now being used for buying (yes, buying) WiiWare games that haven't been made available to all regions.
    Most of the video-game hacking does not hurt the console makers' accounts in any way. The guy already bought the Wii and the Twilight Princess. He might as well destroy the console while attempting to hack it, and obviously there wiill be no refund. If he has to buy a new console to replace the one he screwed, is Nintendo going to be not-too-pleased?

    And when they buy games that aren't available for their region they are actually doing a favor to Nintendo too.

    So, there are two major WTF here. The first and all too obvious is the use of "my personal homebrewed encryption" that is as secure as a jail cell made of candy bars; the second and more discussable is, as you said, going through a lot of effort to spoil the customer's fun and creativity for little to no gain.

    Go back to slashdot. Nintendo has always used DRM to restrict the code that can run on their machines. NES games, for example, all included the same "verifying" ROM. Indeed, an unauthorized third party game developer got sued to hell for selling NES games after breaking/slurping up their ROM. (Funnily enough, they used copyright law as the basis for their suit -- the third party's ROM was decided to be an unauthorized derived work)

    And there is certainly much to gain from console DRM. Anybody who thinks tinkerers make up the majority of console crackers is deluded. If that was true, you wouldn't see mod chips, advertising that they can play ripped/out-of-region games -- being sold all over the damn internet. You also wouldn't see people waiting to see which console was the most easily hacked -- the Dreamcast sold surprisingly well considering it had almost no game sales.

    I agree that console DRM is ultimately futile, but if it ends up taking 3 years to break through a DRM system, that is 3 years of no competition from piracy.

  • (cs)
    Two of the strings were the player's name (in my case, "Link"), and the horse's name (in my case, "Horsey").

    TRWTF is that you didn't abuse the naming feature and name Link "Ass".

  • (cs) in reply to JimmyVile
    JimmyVile:
    For the most part it seems that the homebrew scene caters to the geeks who want to see what they can do with the system. Sure, there are those that use these powers for evil, but the intentions of the majority of the community are pure.

    I don't know if I should laugh or cry. This is completely false. 99% of all users use the hacks to avoid paying for games as much as possible.

    It's very nice and creative when people hack consoles "to see what it can do", "express themselves" or do it "because [s]God[/s] Mario told them to". But it is always used as a means to get free games. Always. I really can't see how people can rationalize the impact they have on piracy with their tinkering.

    \Video Game journalist \Game Developer

    Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of homebrews and I disagree strongly with what JimmyVile said.

    Still, Alex, I'd like to nominate his post for Blue Color because he made an important contribution to the discussion and because your choice of Blue Color'ed posts does look a little biased otherwise ;)

  • PS3 runs Linux (unregistered)

    You can code on the PS2 if you buy the Linux kit, but for the PS3 there's no large-scale initiative to give development tools to consumers.

    The PS3 can run Linux. It's even supported. There's an Install Other OS option. Fedora and Yellow Dog Linux have images specifically for the PS3.

    The real WTF here is that the submitter didn't know that the PS3 is actually the cheapest Cell Development Kit on the market.

  • (cs)
    Microsoft has given the homebrew community a sandbox environment to work in with its XNA initiative. Still, it's run in a very locked-down managed environment with very limited resources (you can't access files outside of your individual game's allocated storage area, and you can't even grant read-only access to those files to other games).

    Just FYI, the commercial developers' kits for the Xbox360 are heavily restricted as well. Games can't access the file system directly and all game's data is stored in some sort of "Archive" though which you could access game data. You could access other games' data if it belonged to the same studio/publisher (eg all EA games can share data data) .

  • Surfing@Work (unregistered) in reply to JimmyVile
    JimmyVile:
    \Video Game journalist
    Translation: Has a blog
    JimmyVile:
    \\Game Developer
    Translation: Has downloaded Crystal Space
  • double (unregistered) in reply to Nikkelitous

    The linux flavour is Yellow Dog PPC, much nicer than the PS2's flaky Red Hat kernel. You can download it for free from: http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/

    p.s. why not just get a job in the games industry? good game developers are hard to find and if you can disassemble a console you'll make some decent money doing it for tipple A's.

  • bml (unregistered) in reply to JimmyVile

    I bought a PSP and wanted to play a homebrew version of NetHack. Sony updated the firmware to make that impossible(or rather painful). I also wanted to write some crappy homebrew games, but Sony would have none of that.

    I ended up giving my PSP to my brother.

    I love to support small indie developers by buying their games, but closed systems make those games impossible and the world is a worse place because of it.

    While you might think homebrew is "always" about free games it's not.

  • hans Larsen (unregistered) in reply to Surfing@Work
    Surfing@Work:
    JimmyVile:
    \Video Game journalist
    Translation: Has a blog
    JimmyVile:
    \\Game Developer
    Translation: Has downloaded Crystal Space
    Even against a troll, that's low. Crystal Space? Come on... the only way it could be lower is if you said the man did a 256-byte, mode 13 demo in the last year and called himself an asm guru because of it...
  • tona (unregistered) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    Not seeing a WTF.
    The WTF is in their security code. There's a difference between setting up a cheap lock correctly and setting up a great lock improperly. Nintendo did the latter when they coded their RSA signature checking function. As for the save file, I'd think of that more as a case of "celebrating too soon" :)
  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to JimmyVile
    JimmyVile:
    I don't know if I should laugh or cry. This is completely false. 99% of all users use the hacks to avoid paying for games as much as possible.
    If you are a game developer then we should be the ones "crying" because of all the jerks who are game developers.

    We understand that you hate competition and believe in artificial barriers because your allegedly "professional" games can't compete with a bunch of high school kids goofing off, but if Nintendo followed the Microsoft model, then there would be a legitimate channel for independant hobbyist game developers who would not have to hack their console.

    Maybe there are pirates, maybe not, but Nintendo's efforts to stamp out hobbyist games mean that the hacks are necessary, and if some people use them to pirate the games that's too damn bad for you. If it hurts you, tough titty - go develop for the XBox360 where the hacks don't have the same ligitimate justification.

    And I can not believe I just praised Microsoft's approach to software licensing. That's the real WTF here - MS is the company suppoting and encouraging hobbyist developers? Isn't that a sign of the coming apocolypse?

  • Anthony (unregistered) in reply to JimmyVile

    Something about those numbers... maybe its the smell, the color, or something else but they totally seem like they've been pulled out of an ass.

  • Nickc (unregistered)

    What's also somewhat intersting is that the same guys are making up for Nintendo's mistakes in other areas with things like Save Mii (http://savemii.net/).

  • (cs) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    Up Down Up Down Left Right Left Right A B A B Start

    If you're going to post the Konami Code, at least get it right:

    UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A START

  • psuedonymous (unregistered) in reply to Neosenshi

    What, you mean like the PS3? Pop in an Ubuntu (or Yellowdog, or SUSE, or Fedora, etc) Linux disc, hit "Install Operating System" from the system menu in the XMB, and voila!

  • 1 (unregistered) in reply to Gorfblot
    Gorfblot:
    Anonymous Coward:
    11000111100101110000110011101110110111001100001110110000011101010100010010010000001000000001101001111010101001100001001111001101011100111001000100010000100000011100011110010000111101011111000110101000011100100110111101000110001101010101000010111011010110110111111111110000110110111000111000011110101000010001100010011110110001110010111110010011110100010110010100000000000100011011110101110010000110101110111010101100110000101010110011011110001100101010000001000001000001111111000001100100100011000010100000010011101000110001111101011011000010110111011101100101111111111000101101000100101101001011011011111111110010010011001110000100101101100100011011101011000010011100011111001111010111101000010110010010110101000000111010100011001111001000000000000011100111110011010110110100111100010100101000000100101101010001111101111011111111010111100000011011111001001101000101100111001100010110010010111010100011101011100110010001110000101100010011010111001100001011101110111110001101011111010110010010101111011110111101010010010010101111011111101000110110101110111111010010011011000110011011111100000000101100010001111001101011111000100111010110010011010011011100111111010001000010011100001001010000111001110111100110011011001110101110010101010111110011111010100011011111010101000101011001111101100001001101011000000010011111100001010011001101001011010111001011000110000001001110101101110111001000000011001101000001010110000010011111000100001010110001101010100101011010110101100101100001110010110010010000100101010010010110111101101011010011001010111100011100101001010110010010011001000010100100100000111100100100110001100001110111000101101100111100001110110111100100100011111001010110101100010110101001001101100111010011011100111101100001110010000111110010010010100011111111000000111100011011001100010011000111110101010101100001010100010111001010000110011010111100110011000011000011111001010100000101010011001000001001001110011100110011101001011110101101101000000101111111011110111100000101100011100110011101010010001100011000110110000111001100011111100101

    What's that in Uniary? I have a need for some large base 1 numbers for a project due friday. Plz email me teh codez.

    A fuckload of ones.

  • Konami (unregistered) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    Up Down Up Down Left Right Left Right A B A B Start
    FAIL
  • nitehawk (unregistered) in reply to JimmyVile

    Nice troll.

    Most people in this forum likley have the means to buy any games they want. We "pirating" to get around the copy protection preventing us from playing games we legally bought.

  • WTF (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that you didn't even mention the epic hack they used to get the "core functions" in the first place, i.e. the twiizer hack. And I've been reading about the crypto bugs and so on since the beginning, and this is the first I've heard of throwing away 236 bytes.

    Proper Wii hack timeline:

    1. Modchips developed because DVD drive uses exact same (already defeated) security as Gamecube (WTF #1).
    2. Team Twiizers uses homebrew in Gamecube mode with Twiizer hack to dump system code from memory that was not supposed to be accessible in that mode.
    3. Decryption and analysis of dumped code reveals strncmp() bug (WTF #2).
    4. Knowing the signature flaw, they replace the main executable on a copy of a Wii game and successfully boot it. This flaw is not published because Nintendo can easily patch it; instead, they use it to probe for more exploits from the inside.
    5. Save game encryption key is found, which leads to discovery of buffer overflow in Zelda (WTF #3). This flaw is released, and homebrew begins.
    6. System Menu 3.3 update patches signature flaw, and checks for and removes hacked Zelda saves, but the save file checking routine has several massive bugs that render it useless. (WTF #4)

    WTF #5: The system's bootROM, which is effectively read-only, has the same signature checking bug (it checks the signature of the program it loads from the flash ROM), so once you're in, there's no way to prevent you from replacing the signed executable that runs with full system access immediately at startup (i.e. BootMii), and this flaw can never be fixed in existing Wiis, only new ones.

    There's a 6th WTF in how the bootROM (i.e. "boot1") is "effectively" read-only (you actually can modify it, but any modification will brick the console), but I don't know the details well enough to describe it.

    There, FTFY.

  • JimmyVile (unregistered) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    JimmyVile:
    I don't know if I should laugh or cry. This is completely false. 99% of all users use the hacks to avoid paying for games as much as possible.
    If you are a game developer then we should be the ones "crying" because of all the jerks who are game developers.

    We understand that you hate competition and believe in artificial barriers because your allegedly "professional" games can't compete with a bunch of high school kids goofing off, but if Nintendo followed the Microsoft model, then there would be a legitimate channel for independant hobbyist game developers who would not have to hack their console.

    Maybe there are pirates, maybe not, but Nintendo's efforts to stamp out hobbyist games mean that the hacks are necessary, and if some people use them to pirate the games that's too damn bad for you. If it hurts you, tough titty - go develop for the XBox360 where the hacks don't have the same ligitimate justification.

    And I can not believe I just praised Microsoft's approach to software licensing. That's the real WTF here - MS is the company suppoting and encouraging hobbyist developers? Isn't that a sign of the coming apocolypse?

    We don't make Wii games, but all the other "next-gen" platforms. And developers don't put in the copy protection, the publishers do. We hate them because they make our work much harder and we get all the hate-mail. :D

    And yes it sucks, but it is understandable. A lot of games don't even make it past the break-even point, and some publishers (don't know which ones, not ours at least) put all the risk on the shoulders of de devvers just to save their own necks. A lot of them go down because they simply never get the investment back.

    Look at Sin:ep1 for a nice example of a game destroyed by piracy, or look at popcap/xylom-games with a piracy rating of 95% (Look it up in GameDeveloper a few months back i think, big interview) Ok, it's not console but it gives a idea about the impact of piracy.

    People seem to think that making and running homebrew is some kind devine right. It's not. Buy the thing. Play the games. Don't get me wrong; go nuts with your soldering iron if you want to. Mod it/pack it/paint it orange, it's your party. Yes. Publishers are bastards with all their regions, tricks and diabolical release schedules but don't pretend modding is innocent.

    I see all the toes I stepped on with my 99% "statistic". Screaming for sources when it's clear there are none kinda stops any discussion. Next time I'll make it clear I'm speaking of personal experience and not quoting from Piracy Figures and Troll Statistics monthly. I'm just using the user base of a medium sized (for US standards) European game community I used to work for. Make it 90%..80%? 70% if you want to be more optimistic. It's still way too much!

  • Asiago Chow (unregistered) in reply to tona
    tona:
    Asiago Chow:
    Not seeing a WTF.
    The WTF is in their security code. There's a difference between setting up a cheap lock correctly and setting up a great lock improperly. Nintendo did the latter when they coded their RSA signature checking function.

    Still not with you on this one.

    Most of the value of locks, perhaps 99% in this case, is in being able to tell authorities (police, judges, etc), "We had a lock, we were using a lock, and they bypassed the lock." Why? Because it goes towards showing intent. Someone who wanders through an open or unlocked door can argue they didn't realize there was anything wrong with doing so. Someone who picks or forces the lock has a much harder time making that argument.

    That's true for your front door and the Wii's encryption.

    The difference, getting back to your point, is that the brand or type of lock is much easier to explain to a judge than the details of how it was installed. Using RSA or Schlage or any other name brand means you can say, "I had an industry standard lock from the manufacturer that supplies 82% of all locks used in this type of application. It was installed by professionals. I exercised due care and the harm existed only because the defendant took deliberate steps to circumvent my efforts." That's short, sweet, and the judges will get it. If OTOH you say, "I had my codemonkeys patch up something that seemed secure/I paid some guy behind the local wal-mart to make and install a lock for my door," the defendant might say, "I don't know what all that means but I didn't identify their 'security' as a lock and didn't realize I was bypassing 'security' when I went in."

    Nintendo used a name brand lock, had it installed by professionals, and can get the use of that lock when they sue commercial entities (3rd party game developers) and/or request law enforcement pursue criminal charges against unauthorized game distributors. The fact that people can bypass the lock is totally irrelevant to their use. Most houses have large glass windows right next to the front door. Some houses even have large glass windows in the doors. Anyone with a rock can enter those houses. That's OK because the purpose of the lock isn't to keep determined people out...it is to establish that those who got in were determined to do so.

    Nintendo isn't trying to safeguard precious data over some defined useful life. They are trying to establish that people who violate their licensing terms had to break the law to do so.

    To the extent I can see your point at all I think your perception of a WTF must be based on thinking that locks are always to provide the entire security and that it doesn't make sense to install a good lock on a glass door. That's true in a lawless "no rule but strength" type of world but the purpose of a society with a framework of laws is to reduce the individual security burden. To allow people to have windows and cheap locks. Nintendo knows that, is comfortable with the legal environment, and has built their system accordingly.

    Get rid of the DMCA and I bet Nintendo wouldn't be so lax.

  • Craig (unregistered) in reply to Hector Martin (aka marcan)

    [quote user=Hector Martin]By the way, we don't support "backups" either, because (and we'll definitely agree on this) 99% of people who claim they want to use "backups" really want to pirate games. [quote]

    Put me in that 1%. I really do just want to make backups. With 3 small children, discs get scratched very quickly. Even my discs, not just the kid's games. I'd rather jump through the hoops required to make a disc backup than explain to my 4 year old why he can't play his favorite game today, or have to stop playing my latest RPG until a new copy arrives from Amazon.

    I've modded every console since my PS1, all for backups. I had intended to import some games, but never got around to learning Kanji...

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