Almost All Flash Kits Blocked Permanently

[YayMii]

I don't understand what they mean by IC. Integrated Chip? What do they mean by have Save IC and without save IC, and the burning of the FPGA board?

While I don't understand, I could understand why the SC DS2 isn't blocked. With it's own built in CPU, the moment you give it power it starts working. You don't need the DS to access the code on there manually. Turn the system on, card gets power, and starts workin on it's own. That means as soon as the 3DS powers up and starts reading the card, the DS2 is getting power and starting up on it's own. In those milliseconds, the 3DS is pinging and reading the responses from the card. All other cards can't fake the responses, and that's how they would be blocked. However, the DS2's CPU would receive those signals, and with it's own bios, it would be programmed to respond in a timely fashon and with the proper 'challenge responses' to trick the 3DS. The CPU gives the DS2 a hardware method of near 0-day bypassing.

Anyways, can I please be told what they meant by the IC and the burning of the FPGA board? Did the 3DS manage to find a way to overload the flashcarts, making them useless on every system?

I don't really know much about the technicalities of how flashcarts work, but the way I'm interpreting it as is this:

1. Most cards don't have a proper bypass chip on them, so they can't function on the new 3DS firmware ever.
2. Many that do have said chip on them can't be rewritten due to the data being fixed by the "main control program", and this could only be changed by the manufacturer.
And this would mean all flashcarts are blocked save for the DStwo and whatever R4 clones that do have proper rewritable bypass chips.

 

[jimmyemunoz]

So it's just like it sounds. Who thinks the different card manufacturers are going to reflash the FPGA chips?

 

[Xuang]

Dang, I updated but it's not like I'm using my 3ds since I already have a DSi

 

[Aurora Wright]

I don't understand what they mean by IC. Integrated Chip? What do they mean by have Save IC and without save IC, and the burning of the FPGA board?

While I don't understand, I could understand why the SC DS2 isn't blocked. With it's own built in CPU, the moment you give it power it starts working. You don't need the DS to access the code on there manually. Turn the system on, card gets power, and starts workin on it's own. That means as soon as the 3DS powers up and starts reading the card, the DS2 is getting power and starting up on it's own. In those milliseconds, the 3DS is pinging and reading the responses from the card. All other cards can't fake the responses, and that's how they would be blocked. However, the DS2's CPU would receive those signals, and with it's own bios, it would be programmed to respond in a timely fashon and with the proper 'challenge responses' to trick the 3DS. The CPU gives the DS2 a hardware method of near 0-day bypassing.

Anyways, can I please be told what they meant by the IC and the burning of the FPGA board? Did the 3DS manage to find a way to overload the flashcarts, making them useless on every system?

I don't really know much about the technicalities of how flashcarts work, but the way I'm interpreting it as is this:

1. Most cards don't have a proper bypass chip on them, so they can't function on the new 3DS firmware ever.
2. Many that do have said chip on them can't be rewritten due to the data being fixed by the "main control program", and this could only be changed by the manufacturer.
And this would mean all flashcarts are blocked save for the DStwo and whatever R4 clones that do have proper rewritable bypass chips.

It's simpler: according to yellows8 the firmware now checks if the inserted card has a save chip (eeprom). Saves are hold on these chips on a retail card, and most flashcards don't have it, they patch the game executable to save directly to the microSD.

 

[Dimensional]

I don't really know much about the technicalities of how flashcarts work, but the way I'm interpreting it as is this:

1. Most cards don't have a proper bypass chip on them, so they can't function on the new 3DS firmware ever.
2. Many that do have said chip on them can't be rewritten due to the data being fixed by the "main control program", and this could only be changed by the manufacturer.
And this would mean all flashcarts are blocked save for the DStwo and whatever R4 clones that do have proper rewritable bypass chips.

Ah. That would make sense. The CPU would count as the proper chip but it's rewritable, at least the bios is. All it would need is an update to the bios and a data file that the bios would link to at startup. The CPU is able to trick 3DS into thinking it has EEPROM.

 

[Xenirina]

Looks like my Acekard 2i is going be to useless now.
I'll order a DSTwo.

 

[Gahars]

And they're gone, like a flash (kit) in the pan...

please stop this gahars

Please, that was nothing. I just couldn't think of a good enough lead up for a Flashdance reference.

 

[KidIce]

I don't understand what they mean by IC. Integrated Chip? What do they mean by have Save IC and without save IC, and the burning of the FPGA board?

While I don't understand, I could understand why the SC DS2 isn't blocked. With it's own built in CPU, the moment you give it power it starts working. You don't need the DS to access the code on there manually. Turn the system on, card gets power, and starts workin on it's own. That means as soon as the 3DS powers up and starts reading the card, the DS2 is getting power and starting up on it's own. In those milliseconds, the 3DS is pinging and reading the responses from the card. All other cards can't fake the responses, and that's how they would be blocked. However, the DS2's CPU would receive those signals, and with it's own bios, it would be programmed to respond in a timely fashon and with the proper 'challenge responses' to trick the 3DS. The CPU gives the DS2 a hardware method of near 0-day bypassing.

Anyways, can I please be told what they meant by the IC and the burning of the FPGA board? Did the 3DS manage to find a way to overload the flashcarts, making them useless on every system?

IC stands for integrated circuit. Pretty much any chip you can think of is one. Think about laying out all the transistors and such needed for a chip on a bread board, those would not be integrated because they are not contained in one package. An integrated circuit in today's age has them all in silicon in one package.

It sounds like most flash cart manufacturers have not built the saver IC's into their FPGA's, and the unprotected space left is for not enough to create a saver IC there... When programing an FPGA you can chose what real estate is protected and what is not, most flash cart makers these days leave some of it unprotected so that you can flash it to combat updates from Nintendo. Thing is, most have probably only left what they felt was the minimum required unprotected. These are the carts that are blocked forever as they no longer have enough alterable real estate to build in the saver IC. Even if there is enough protected real estate, or some could be re-purposed to create the saver, only the manufacturer can alter protected space, hence the claim that the carts would need to be sent to the factory. Even if you have a JTAG you are going to need the keys to properly alter the protected space.

Apparently the SC team either has already created the saver IC on their FPGA or they left enough unprotected space to create one. My logic says the in-built CPU probably has nothing to do w/ it or the R4 that still works wouldn't. The problem is I see another way for Nintendo to block those carts that do have a saver IC on the FPGA, but I won't share... I don't want to give them ideas. I will say this, there is a finite list of exploitable games and if their next move is my idea (if they haven't already implemented it), that list just shrank a lot. Ultimately black listed headers coupled w/ the other two factors will pretty much kill DS flash carts on the 3DS if there is not enough unprotected real estate on their FPGA's.

 

[mysticwaterfall]

It's actually a preatty simple while very effective soloution. You have to wonder why they never tried it before.

Glad I upgraded to the DS2 when I got the 3ds. Even though I'm sure we will see new flashcards with the extra chip/space needed.

 

[jalaneme]

Don't forget the dsi, dsi xl, and 3ds systems running 4.3.0-10.

-another world

Only difference is on the dsi and dsixl there is no auto update, on the 3ds there is, well done to the clever peeps who kept their dsi's and lites.

 

[Hells Malice]

Thank god there's no reason to even update the 3DS. Would be a pain if there was.
I think I last updated my 3DS about a month after I bought it...and I don't even know why I did it then either.

 

[2ndApex]

Thank god there's no reason to even update the 3DS. Would be a pain if there was.
I think I last updated my 3DS about a month after I bought it...and I don't even know why I did it then either.

There's the eShop, but most people don't use it for anything but demos.

 

[TripleSMoon]

Hm... I sold my SuperCard DSTwo a while ago in favor of an R4 Gold, but never got around to it. Now I'm wondering if it's even worth it...

That said, I've been considering grabbing a DSLite for GBA games and easy flashcart use without any update mess anyway.

 

[Gh0sti]

I'm impressed Nintendo finally did this I'm glad I own a DS2 still and cant wait to get a 3DS to use this one sometime.

 

[NightsOwl]

Well, I've wanted to start buying all the stuff I've been pirating for all these years.

I'm gonna take this opportunity to do so. I'm too lazy to pay for a new card. I'll keep my Original R4 on my Lite for homebrew. Beat all the games I care about anyway.

 

[nl255]

I don't understand what they mean by IC. Integrated Chip? What do they mean by have Save IC and without save IC, and the burning of the FPGA board?

While I don't understand, I could understand why the SC DS2 isn't blocked. With it's own built in CPU, the moment you give it power it starts working. You don't need the DS to access the code on there manually. Turn the system on, card gets power, and starts workin on it's own. That means as soon as the 3DS powers up and starts reading the card, the DS2 is getting power and starting up on it's own. In those milliseconds, the 3DS is pinging and reading the responses from the card. All other cards can't fake the responses, and that's how they would be blocked. However, the DS2's CPU would receive those signals, and with it's own bios, it would be programmed to respond in a timely fashon and with the proper 'challenge responses' to trick the 3DS. The CPU gives the DS2 a hardware method of near 0-day bypassing.

Anyways, can I please be told what they meant by the IC and the burning of the FPGA board? Did the 3DS manage to find a way to overload the flashcarts, making them useless on every system?

Saver IC = the eeprom/flash chip that games used to store saved games.
FPGA = Field Programmable Gate Array, basically a CPU that can be completely reprogrammed (even with a completely different instruction set) with firmware updates.

From what I understand, if the game used (say, Danny Phantom) has a certain save chip (like 1M Flash) then the 3DS will check to see if the cart actually has a 1M flash save chip before allowing it to boot.

 

[Bowser-jr]

I have an R4 GOLD 3DS that supports the Wood firmware. I'm sure they'll come up with update soon. I mean, they did show a video of proof right? We don't really have much to worry about.

 

[notmeanymore]

Well now two of my friends are screwed because I talked them into buying AceKards some months back. I doubt a SCDS2 is in either one's budget so what exactly is a "xxx r4"?

 

[MelodieOctavia]

And they're gone, like a flash (kit) in the pan...

please stop this gahars

Please, that was nothing. I just couldn't think of a good enough lead up for a Flashdance reference.

Flash Carts! Ahhhhhhhhh! They blocked every one of us! (Crazy guitar riff)

Mucho internets if you even get the reference.

 

[notmeanymore]

don't forget the dsi, dsi xl, and 3ds systems running 4.3.0-10.

-another world

only difference is on the dsi and dsixl there is no auto update, on the 3ds there is, well done to the clever peeps who kept their dsi's and lites.

There's no auto update on 3DS either. It annoys me every time I open my 3DS because it asks if I want to update, but it doesn't go beyond that.
What would be nice right now (assuming that a CFW is not in the near future and that there really are only a few kits left that work and can't be fixed) is a smaller exploit that would allow for a modified eShop that doesn't have an update check.