Hacking Nintendo against Flash Kit in Europe

[Toni Plutonij]

i do remember we had similar discussions a few months back when and b4 i joined. am i right toni or is my memory slipping?
i too want to see this email though

I do believe we did....I remember participating in quite few discussions on this matter...

 

[OSW]

My capped internet is giving me trouble uploading stuff but i managed to upload the most important part (the image attached to the email).
I've had this email a little while but i presumed it was just spam about a fake DSTT. But i remembered difference number 3.

 

[Toni Plutonij]

This is the first time I see this OSW!!

Thanks for the picture!
I see what is the "problem" now......I never saw some cart booting without that Nintendo logo in the beginning..

 

[Raven Darkheart]

i was always under the impression that flashcart devs had to use similar/same hardware to build their carts so going after the REAL would be redundant?

someone more familiar with the hardware setup can correct me at will

edit: i see it now. disregard all the bs i spewed in my op

 

[OSW]

Anyone know whether DSTT Advance is a fake DSTT? I haven't heard of it before

I assume it's fake but it looks like an improvement on the original lol!

the website
http://www.dstt-adv.com/

 

[TrolleyDave]

Anyone know whether DSTT Advance is a fake DSTT? I haven't heard of it before

I assume it's fake but it looks like an improvement on the original lol!

the website
http://www.dstt-adv.com/

I emailed DSTT about it and they confirmed it was a fake.

 

[TheSpade]

I'm personally wondering where CycloDS rests concerning this. Since it does not auto-boot, does it too contain the code that Nintendo is claiming violates copyright laws?

 

[carterman]

Question: Do we have an actual source on this?

 

[El Blacksheep]

nintendo will always need the hard core pirates

Erm, why?
People taking your stuff for free isn't a good thing last time I checked.

If you're looking from one point of view, you'll see that flashcarts actually sold quite a number of NDSs that probably wouldn't be sold if there isn't a way to pirate!
So on one hand, piracy sells hardware, but it's really bad for the software!

i can personally attest to this. it wasn't until i learned about flashcarts that i started thinking about buying a DS.
and when my spring break vacation to mexico got cancelled, that extra vacation money went to a new DS lite and m3 real.

 

[Tormendo]

I think the DSi is a Hardware against Flachkit's because the DSSotre can also download Games. A Music Player is init and more.

 

[Zanonymous]

Actually this DS Vision stuff could hurt Nintendo if it leads more people to finding out about the obviously better flashcards.
Also, cards do NOT in any way hurt software sales IF they are the reason someone buys a DS. If they didn't know, they would not buy a DS, and that would be worse, as they didn't buy the hardware either. Simple.

 

[Tormendo]

hmmm... you not right in all.

Also, cards do NOT in any way hurt software sales IF they are the reason someone buys a DS.

They hurt them, because when you have a flashkit you download more illegal software(Games'n'Music is the only flashkard without this support). Often to much

 

[Zanonymous]

hmmm... you not right in all.

Also, cards do NOT in any way hurt software sales IF they are the reason someone buys a DS.

They hurt them, because when you have a flashkit you download more illegal software(Games'n'Music is the only flashkard without this support). Often to much

So you're saying that I either
A) Buy DS for 130 USD and Cyclo/something and pirate. Nintendo makes the hardware sale money.
or
B) Since I don't know about cards, I don't buy anything. Nintendo makes nothing.

 

[Tormendo]

hmmm... you not right in all.

Also, cards do NOT in any way hurt software sales IF they are the reason someone buys a DS.

They hurt them, because when you have a flashkit you download more illegal software(Games'n'Music is the only flashkard without this support). Often to much

So you're saying that I either
A) Buy DS for 130 USD and Cyclo/something and pirate. Nintendo makes the hardware sale money.
or
B) Since I don't know about cards, I don't buy anything. Nintendo makes nothing.

Not the Hardware is the problem the Games are the Problems

 

[B4N5H33]

I think the DSi is a Hardware against Flachkit's because the DSSotre can also download Games. A Music Player is init and more.

i also think that BigN will try to make some hareware-modifications to the DSi to prevent the usage of flashcarts...but this will be - as always - only a matter of time until someone figures out how to bypass the protection.

and what stops the people willing to buy a flashcart from ordering them in a near foreign country or at dealextreme?

 

[Tormendo]

Yes you right

 

[Vague Rant]

nintendo will always need the hard core pirates
Erm, why?
People taking your stuff for free isn't a good thing last time I checked.

If you're looking from one point of view, you'll see that flashcarts actually sold quite a number of NDSs that probably wouldn't be sold if there isn't a way to pirate!
So on one hand, piracy sells hardware, but it's really bad for the software!

QUOTE(Zanonymous @ Oct 30 2008, 05:36 PM)

Buy DS for 130 USD and Cyclo/something and pirate. Nintendo makes the hardware sale money.

This argument is complete crap, hardware is almost always sold at a loss; is there any evidence that Nintendo actually makes money from DS hardware sales? The general business strategy is to sell your hardware at a loss and recoup those losses (and then profit) in software sales. Pirates completely subvert this strategy, so if they purchase hardware at a loss to its maker then never buy a game, both hardware and software developers lose out.

 

[754boy]

This argument is complete crap, hardware is almost always sold at a loss; is there any evidence that Nintendo actually makes money from DS hardware sales? The general business strategy is to sell your hardware at a loss and recoup those losses (and then profit) in software sales. Pirates completely subvert this strategy, so if they purchase hardware at a loss to its maker then never buy a game, both hardware and software developers lose out.

It's not crap in Nintendo's case. There's a reason they keep using old and underpowered hardware components to provide new experiences: Build it for cheap and sell it for profit. Look at that Wii, people buying it for the hell of it and Nintendo making money on each unit sold. Same thing goes for the DS.

 

[Cyan]

I'm personally wondering where CycloDS rests concerning this. Since it does not auto-boot, does it too contain the code that Nintendo is claiming violates copyright laws?

I just tried booting the DS with the CycloEvo, thinking it's not an autoboot so it will not affet it : There is the nintendo logo.
I removed the CycloDS, boot it and no more logo here.

So, in a way, the DS detect there is a compatible card.

 

[FAST6191]

In the US there was the Sega Vs Accolade thing ( http://cse.stanford.edu/class/cs201/projec...engineering.htm ). Now even if that failed (and it is a key ruling forming the basis of the electrical/computing industry) it would probably fall under the reverse engineering for compatibility "exception" of the DMCA.
This however is US law and European law is somewhat different (I have little knowledge of German and French law in this matter but a lot of this is common to Europe by way of European directives and participants from all the countries agreeing to various things at conventions), broadly speaking in many ways it is better (not quite so many stupid laws) but it many ways it is worse (a lot of stuff is not very clearly defined).

However I will add this is why you occasionally get older GBA homebrew coming without a header (or a "proper" header).

As for the matter at hand assuming the logo is indeed copyrightable* (trademark sure but then the vetting process which amounts to little more than pay us some money has the potential to be questioned) then they may have a leg to stand on.

On the other hand it could be dubbed fair use and as no company to my knowledge charges for updates to the software/loaders... so profiteering by means of software with the use of a copyrighted work belonging to someone else may not be an option. Fair use is not a very well defined term in Europe when compared to the US (in the UK at least strictly speaking you are not allowed to copy a CD but it is almost never pursued and is really only there as a get out clause (I can not necessarily sue a company for loss of my fair use rights because of their actions)).

*copyright is the protection of a work (a piece of art, a film, a song, some lyrics), trademark is the protection of a brand and usually extends to similar brands, servicemark is like trademark but for services (I mention only as software as a service (SaaS) is the buzzword of the moment) and patent law would probably not apply here (not to mention it would likely have to be a software patent which is a almost non-existent concept in Europe).

The logo needs to be there too effectively making a protection method and because of this it potentially falls under cryptography law which tends to read "if it is there (and implemented "properly") it is illegal to circumvent however useless the method is". Such a method I would argue does not constitute protection as no real method of stopping the area being read is in place.

It also depends on whether the logo was obtained via dubious means. This would mean the nitroSDK, parts have been leaked over the course of things in which case it would probably be similar to the nintendo vs atari in the US (the link above has a note on it) and more recently the majority of the original xbox homebrew) or via legitimate reverse engineering (in which case the logic behind sega vs accolade comes back). To prove such a thing would be mightly difficult as well (if the logo is not there then it does not work so there is little chance of "errors" being matched which is the usual method of proving a work has been copied).

At the end of the day Nintendo has lawyers on the payroll and even the biggest retailers (the likes of divineo) would be put under serious financial strain to mount a decent defence which seems to be the main method by which legal manoeuvres such as this work.

Best route, as I recall the logo is only a CRC16 of a small ish file. CRC16 is fairly weak and I should imagine not especially hard to generate a collision* for.
http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm#dscartridgeheader
0C0h 9Ch Nintendo Logo (compressed bitmap, same as in GBA Headers)
15Ch 2 Nintendo Logo Checksum, CRC-16 of [0C0h-15Bh], fixed CF56h

*a hash takes all the file and makes a number sequence to represent it (kind of like odd or even), a collision is where two different files produce the same hash (which statistically speaking has to happen for a file longer than the resulting hash but for a good algorithm for making sure a file is unchanged is very rare and incredibly hard to do anything with).
http://www.cryptography.com/cnews/hash.html

edit: Densetsu3000 is right, it seems I did get a bit parenthesis happy. Post tweaked a bit.