When you need to play illegitimate backups on a hacked Nintendo Switch, one of the most important tools you'll need are sigpatches; normally, custom firmware Atmosphere does not allow the running of pirated games, but these sigpatches allow users to install .NSP files that they've downloaded from the internet. As of today, though, one of the most notable and popular sources of sigpatches--user iTotalJustice's GitHub repository of them--has been removed permanently, through a DMCA takedown. The GitHub was still active as of earlier today, but if you try to access it now, you'll be redirected to a DMCA takedown form, filed by Nintendo of America.

Nintendo of America: The Nintendo Switch console and digital video games contain technological protection measures (“Technological Measures”) that permit the Nintendo Switch console to interact only with legitimate Nintendo digital video game files. This process protects Nintendo’s copyright-protected video games, including but not limited to those covered by U.S. Copyright Registration numbers PA0002213509 (Super Mario Maker 2); PA0002233840 (Animal Crossing: New Horizons); PA0002213908 (Luigi’s Mansion 3); and PA0002028142 (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) by preventing users from playing pirated copies of Nintendo’s video games on the Nintendo Switch console.

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[dogcsty]

If you know how to program in C# we could colaborate on it, I've written quite a few of the routines needed for it now, just a few to go and then design the layout. I only started on it a couple of days ago, today and for the rest of the week I am busy with work so won't be doing anymore until the weekend. There's python scripts already so there's no rush to get it done and basically ninty don't release that many FW updates to make this a rush job.

I know about the python scripts as I'm using them. I know c# but I was thinking of doing the routines in C or C++ so that it can be ported one day easily in a hombrew app. I'm busy during the week days but I'll have a week off in two weeks I'll be able to do something then but like you said there's no rush now.

 

[mrdude]

I know about the python scripts as I'm using them. I know c# but I was thinking of doing the routines in C or C++ so that it can be ported one day easily in a hombrew app. I'm busy during the week days but I'll have a week off in two weeks I'll be able to do something then but like you said there's no rush now.

Yep C would be good and probably a little faster as well, if you want to make a homebrew that would be good - that way all platforms would be covered. Python works on everything computer wise, c# works on windows, probably also linux, but homebrew would be best of all as scripts could be generated depending on Atmosphere versions on someones switch - also for the firmware that had installled.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I know about the python scripts as I'm using them. I know c# but I was thinking of doing the routines in C or C++ so that it can be ported one day easily in a hombrew app. I'm busy during the week days but I'll have a week off in two weeks I'll be able to do something then but like you said there's no rush now.

Ooooh a direct homebrew app for generating the sigpatches on-console?
Man that sounds like the most all-caps fuck you to Nintendo I've ever heard!

Running an app on Homebrew Launcher that automatically checks package3 and the firmware files to automatically generate the required IPS in the right path and add the changes to the patches.ini would be an absolute pipe dream of an accomplishment, hands down.

 

[luigui30012]

hello, the sigpatches are the same every time the firmware is updated or they must be done again

 

[dogcsty]

Yep C would be good and probably a little faster as well, if you want to make a homebrew that would be good - that way all platforms would be covered. Python works on everything computer wise, c# works on windows, probably also linux, but homebrew would be best of all as scripts could be generated depending on Atmosphere versions on someones switch - also for the firmware that had installled.

First of all your work along with others reversing this whole thing is unparalleled I followed the IPS patch thread and it was fascinating I can't thank you guys enough. And yes that was the idea. I will actively work on it in two weeks.

Ooooh a direct homebrew app for generating the sigpatches on-console?
Man that sounds like the most all-caps fuck you to Nintendo I've ever heard!

Running an app on Homebrew Launcher that automatically checks package3 and the firmware files to automatically generate the required IPS in the right path and add the changes to the patches.ini would be an absolute pipe dream of an accomplishment, hands down.

I find the fact that the switch executes the algorithm to sigpatch itself poetic and I'm highly motivated to work on this just for this fact alone.

 

[ShadowOne333]

First of all your work along with others reversing this whole thing is unparalleled I followed the IPS patch thread and it was fascinating I can't thank you guys enough. And yes that was the idea. I will actively work on it in two weeks.


I find the fact that the switch executes the algorithm to sigpatch itself poetic and I'm highly motivated to work on this just for this fact alone.

Godspeed.
May the work that you and mrdude do be the biggest middle finger to Nintendo
I will be keeping an eye on the progress!

 

[godreborn]

even as a legit user on the switch, I don't really understand why Nintendo draws attention to themselves by doing things like this, because it's just going to come back at them ten fold.

 

[CompSciOrBust]

Yeah, and homebrew forwarders aren't needed, are not supported by atmosphere, and will very much get you banned, if you ever decide to go online with cfw and forwarders installed.
Also no, you don't need signature patches for any legal homebrew, those two either just decided not to ship any nro and not be compatible with stock atmosphere, or where using the Nintendo sdk, in which case those nsps are illegal for them to share.
There is literally no technical reason for them to require signature patches.

Edit: yep, at least the helltaker one is build with unity, so unless the developer got an agreement with nintendo, which I doubt, the developer either broke the nda with Nintendo, or got the sdk illegally.


I was not talking about piracy in that part of my message.
Instead I talked about the legal usage with your own legal dumps, which is limited to the offline nand and single player only, and far more work to be worth it in most cases.

There are a few differences between how NSP homebrews and NRO homebrews are loaded. NRO files are relocatable and NSP files contain an NSO for their executable, which is static. That's a very minor thing but it is a clear and very obvious counter example to your claim.

There are also genuine reasons why you might want to use an unsigned NSP. The eshop is blocked in some countries (such as Russia) which makes acquiring legitimate digital titles impossible. If you were unlucky enough to buy a Switch with the sole intent of running homebrew, but it turned out that the game card slot was damaged (such as mine was when I bought my Mariko), then using sig patches to install a homebrew menu NSP is the only way to run homebrew in full memory mode. Even with a functional game card slot, if the eshop is blocked in your country you shouldn't be forced to buy a game just to run homebrew with full ram access. I exclusively use my Switch to write homebrew and the game engine which I have been working on for the past few years (video of a very early build: ) can not fit in to the memory provided by applet mode. If I was in Russia I would be forced to buy a physical game... orrrrr I could just install a HBM NSP. Why should I be forced to buy someone else's game just to create / play my own when something like sig patches are available and entirely legal? Because some people misuse them? No, that logic can fuck off.

 

[RednaxelaNnamtra]

There are a few differences between how NSP homebrews and NRO homebrews are loaded. NRO files are relocatable and NSP files contain an NSO for their executable, which is static. That's a very minor thing but it is a clear and very obvious counter example to your claim.

There are also genuine reasons why you might want to use an unsigned NSP. The eshop is blocked in some countries (such as Russia) which makes acquiring legitimate digital titles impossible. If you were unlucky enough to buy a Switch with the sole intent of running homebrew, but it turned out that the game card slot was damaged (such as mine was when I bought my Mariko), then using sig patches to install a homebrew menu NSP is the only way to run homebrew in full memory mode. Even with a functional game card slot, if the eshop is blocked in your country you shouldn't be forced to buy a game just to run homebrew with full ram access. I exclusively use my Switch to write homebrew and the game engine which I have been working on for the past few years (video of a very early build: ) can not fit in to the memory provided by applet mode. If I was in Russia I would be forced to buy a physical game... orrrrr I could just install a HBM NSP. Why should I be forced to buy someone else's game just to create / play my own when something like sig patches are available and entirely legal? Because some people misuse them? No, that logic can fuck off.

You know you can just change the region/create an account set to another region and download a free game/demo from that region, since the switch is region free? A friend from Russia is doing just that, it's just more annoying to add money to your account in that situation to actually buy full games, but bought games aren't required for homebrew.
This way you get access to the full memory, without gamecard access, and without doing ban worthy stuff, that's not supported by the cfw developers, and without the need to setup an emunand.

Also just because there are small differences between the formats, doesn't mean they aren't interchangeable while using the legal homebrew sdk that's build for just that format. Not sure if there is even a real reason to use nsp/xci as output for homebrew, besides removing homebrew only users from your userbase.
Most homebrre forwarder nsps also don't really work differently from the normal homebrew launcher that's started via holding R, they just include everything to setup the environment inside their nca file and then boot the homebrew nro.

Also it's not as black and white with the legality of signature patches, in some regions just circumventing a copy protection can be problematic, and removing the signature checks is just that, without adding real be if it's in terms of code execution.

 

[CompSciOrBust]

Also just because there are small differences between the formats, doesn't mean they aren't interchangeable while using the legal homebrew sdk that's build for just that format. Not sure if there is even a real reason to use nsp/xci as output for homebrew, besides removing homebrew only users from your userbase.
Most homebrre forwarder nsps also don't really work differently from the normal homebrew launcher that's started via holding R, they just include everything to setup the environment inside their nca file and then boot the homebrew nro.

The DKP toolchain is capable of compiling to an NSO file out of the box as long as you set up your makefile correctly, then you can use hactool to package homebrew as a 100% legal NSP file. There are legitimate reasons to want to do it, as an example, although it's not an issue now, it used to the case that NRO files couldn't launch the web applet because even if they packaged the whitelist in to RomFS Horizon would just use the URL whitelist from the base title. This was worked around using htmlmitm. SX Save Manager used to be distributed as an NSP file because SXOS was using an older version of Atmosphere and trying to launch the web applet to log in to the cloud save service would cause it to crash if it was running in title override mode.
This is still the case, you just don't notice it since Atmosphere forces all titles to use a whitelist from the SD Card instead of RomFS. Again, there are legitimate reasons to want to use a NSP file for homebrew instead of an NRO.

Edit: Even Atmosphere uses an NSP file for the HB Loader. Of course it's a system module NSP and not an installable NSP but it is still the same file format. There is nothing inherently illegal about NSP files.

 

[RednaxelaNnamtra]

The DKP toolchain is capable of compiling to an NSO file out of the box as long as you set up your makefile correctly, then you can use hactool to package homebrew as a 100% legal NSP file. There are legitimate reasons to want to do it, as an example, although it's not an issue now, it used to the case that NRO files couldn't launch the web applet because even if they packaged the whitelist in to RomFS Horizon would just use the URL whitelist from the base title. This was worked around using htmlmitm. SX Save Manager used to be distributed as an NSP file because SXOS was using an older version of Atmosphere and trying to launch the web applet to log in to the cloud save service would cause it to crash if it was running in title override mode.
This is still the case, you just don't notice it since Atmosphere forces all titles to use a whitelist from the SD Card instead of RomFS. Again, there are legitimate reasons to want to use a NSP file for homebrew instead of an NRO.

The 100% legal nsp is still an instant ban when going online while having them installed or in your play history, so if you only target it, you still exclude all cfw users with a simpel stock atmosphere homebrew only setup, while also removing every possibility to get support from the atmosphere team for problems.

And you said it yourself, the examples you used are now handled propperly, and nsps where only needed as a workaround for something missing in the default homebrew enviroment.
If there is a valid need for something, atmosphere normally adds fixes or workarounds for it, so talking to the atmosphere team is probably a better solution then using nsps, if you happen to stumble over one of the very few edge cases, that don't work out of the box.

 

[TotalJustice]

Ooooh a direct homebrew app for generating the sigpatches on-console?
Man that sounds like the most all-caps fuck you to Nintendo I've ever heard!

Running an app on Homebrew Launcher that automatically checks package3 and the firmware files to automatically generate the required IPS in the right path and add the changes to the patches.ini would be an absolute pipe dream of an accomplishment, hands down.

Can be a sysmod fwiw

 

[godreborn]

Can be a sysmod fwiw

I think your avatar represents how people feel with Nintendo going after your github, when the information is out there. haha

 

[ShadowOne333]

Can be a sysmod fwiw

Would the cherry on top of N's nonsense.
Would be lovely if it becomes a sysmod haha

 

[masagrator]

Can be a sysmod fwiw

Yeah, but then deal with tones of people why it doesn't work for them. With homebrew you have many ways to apply user friendly prompts about issues, not happening with sysmodule.

Anybody willing to write such sysmodule would need to deal with such pain.

 

[CompSciOrBust]

The 100% legal nsp is still an instant ban when going online while having them installed or in your play history, so if you only target it, you still exclude all cfw users with a simpel stock atmosphere homebrew only setup, while also removing every possibility to get support from the atmosphere team for problems.

And you said it yourself, the examples you used are now handled propperly, and nsps where only needed as a workaround for something missing in the default homebrew enviroment.
If there is a valid need for something, atmosphere normally adds fixes or workarounds for it, so talking to the atmosphere team is probably a better solution then using nsps, if you happen to stumble over one of the very few edge cases, that don't work out of the box.

Quite frankly I don't give two shits if I'm excluding people who only have a simple homebrew setup. I write homebrew for fun. Fwiw though I think it is a small minority of people who actually use CFW online.

A lot of people (me and Justice included) have had not great experiences dealing with the Atmosphere dev team. I'd rather use work arounds for edge cases than deal with them. I know this isn't an uncommon opinion among other developers. I'm sure they're perfectly nice people and I'm thankful for their work but I'd rather just take the easy route.

When you get to the root of it the patches were legal so Nintendo's take down was illegal. They're constantly pulling bullshit like this with fan projects and I don't understand why people are arguing in their favor.

 

[RednaxelaNnamtra]

Quite frankly I don't give two shits if I'm excluding people who only have a simple homebrew setup. I write homebrew for fun. Fwiw though I think it is a small minority of people who actually use CFW online.

A lot of people (me and Justice included) have had not great experiences dealing with the Atmosphere dev team. I'd rather use work arounds for edge cases than deal with them. I know this isn't an uncommon opinion among other developers. I'm sure they're perfectly nice people and I'm thankful for their work but I'd rather just take the easy route.

When you get to the root of it the patches were legal so Nintendo's take down was illegal. They're constantly pulling bullshit like this with fan projects and I don't understand why people are arguing in their favor.

With most guides showing people how to setup cfw only with offline emunand, yeah, that's probably a minority of users. Still I would guess that there is a bigger percentage part of users who know what they are actually doing in that part of the community, just because it's not what the guides show people.

When talking about the legality of the patches, it's not as cut and dry though.
Like I already mentioned, just circumventing copy protection can be illegal in some countries, and the patches do just that, and nothing else.
It's one of the reasons why atmosphere keeps them intact, to stay more on the legal side of the gray area it operates on.
And for the Fan projects, companies need to enforce their trademaks, or they could loose them, so they make sure to rather stay safe, then to lat that happen.

I still find it dumb to ignore the original target environment of the homebrew sdk and just release a nsp version, especially since you weren't even able to give me a more recent edge case that's not fixed yet, but in the end that's the developers decision, and not mine.

Btw, this doesn't mean I like how Nintendo handles things, and that there are no better ways to tackle these problems. For example valve shows that it's possible to have a more open approach to handle ips.
It's also already shown that piracy is not as evil as companies always think it is .

 

[Lather]

FK nintendo

 

[djwarcr]

Can be a sysmod fwiw

Just to inform you, theres a bug with your latest sigpatches affecting calling someone in ACNH, it crashes the switch

 

[Paco46]

Just to inform you, theres a bug with your latest sigpatches affecting calling someone in ACNH, it crashes the switch

Is this in regards to 14.1.2 patches?