Hacking Why add anti-piracy measures to Devolution ?

[wiismodrome]

Here's what happens when Devolution loads a game, by my understanding (simplified more than Rydian's diagram, seeing as you apparently couldn't cope with it):

Thanks for the personal attack. While I may think that the person who wrote Devolution is a good programmer, I have very little respect for the way he and those who support him treat others. Nor do I think that most of the people who have attacked me have been helpful, although some have at least made a civil attempt to clarify the situation. Far too many here have been very mean-spirited and not anywhere close to respectful. In the future, I plan to report all such posts.

Select game -> Run apploader from game -> Check for DVV -> (if DVV doesn't exist, verify game and create DVV) -> load game

The bit in red is where IOS crashes (or rather, did crash, seeing as it is now fixed). Nothing after that happens at all. Part of the code that is on the original disc causes the IOS in use to crash. Therefore, the whole program crashes. It does NOT fail verification, because it does not get to that point.

EDIT: And running the apploader is NOT part of the AP process. It has to be done regardless, to load the game (it happens every time you load the disc via the disc channel or on a GC as well). So it crashing has nothing to do with AP.

The above may be correct. I cannot corroborate that fact. There is one person who could explain the exact sequence of events and provide evidence showing this to be the case, but this individual has been unwilling to provide the necessary evidence. Rather, I have been belittled and told to look at logs which I cannot produce because I lack the necessary hardware.

 

[SifJar]

Thanks for the personal attack. While I may think that the person who wrote Devolution is a good programmer, I have very little respect for the way he and those who support him treat others. Nor do I think that most of the people who have attacked me have been helpful, although some have at least made a civil attempt to clarify the situation. Far too many here have been very mean-spirited and not anywhere close to respectful. In the future, I plan to report all such posts.

I'm sorry you feel that way, it was not intended as a personal attack. I was genuinely trying to help you understand. (I later realised the wording of my perhaps wasn't the best and you'll note that I changed it 7 minutes before you made your post; this was at least partly to attempt and avoid offending you). I guess in the future, I now plan not to bother trying to help you understand, in case I accidentally attack you personally again.

 

[gtmtnbiker]

@tueid, I appreciate you trying to explain things to wiismodrome. Personally, I would have given up after a couple of responses and then just ignoring him. Instead, I would fix bugs or just do things in life that I enjoy. Kudos to you for putting a very useful application together!

 

[crono141]

He's trolling alright, but not for the reason you think. He's trying to get info out of tueid about the verification process in order to help others start cracking it.

 

[retKHAAAN]

I don't know a whole lot about wii programming. My experience is limited to to the compiling/testing/uploading I did for the GX team a couple years ago and helping Tj_cool & company with the complete softmod guide. I'm having a hard time though seeing how someone can fail to grasp what's been laid out so far in this thread... At this point I'm leaning towards the above "gathering intel to crack" theory.

 

[gtmtnbiker]

I don't have a problem with someone trying to crack the AP but I think it would be better to do it on your own by looking at the *.dol in a binary editor, disassembling it. Then you can start patching it, adding prints to trace the flow, etc. I would view it as a good puzzle to solve.

 

[DEFIANT]

And so it begins.

 

[Maxternal]

assuming that was his intention, I'm sure you're all against him getting any cracking hints because you just blew his cover

 

[Rydian]

He's trolling alright, but not for the reason you think. He's trying to get info out of tueid about the verification process in order to help others start cracking it.

Actually I doubt this. If that was his intent he'd likely be asking for deeper information, the same kind that was being explored earlier in the thread with the hex dumps and file comparison and the theories on what the "seed" (assuming it's just a random sig, even) is.

 

[Maxternal]

theories on what the "seed" (assuming it's just a random sig, even) is.

My personal theory is that it's something to do with the "SHA" or "AES" in this diagram

Spoiler: diagram

salted with the the files' timestamp(s), assuming that's why if you move the DVV within the same partition or just rename it and then put it back it will still work but when [member='tueidj'] started talking about accessing the files by just their sector numbers to support other file systems through the loaders, I realized he would no longer have access to the timestamps which shot that theory. I'm sure it could be something to do with using some number as a random seed but I don't know enough about encryption to make more than a mildly educated guess. Anyway, just speculation.

 

[Shano56]

I like the AP, well the idea of an AP. That way i dont have to help noobs who are like "pls help y wont my games i downloaded play on my wii!!!" However, i wish the DCC files weren't so damn fragile. I have a small USB drive so i move files and games on and off my drive somewhat occasionally. I also use it for multiple things so it gets formatted a lot.

 

[SifJar]

I like the AP, well the idea of an AP. That way i dont have to help noobs who are like "pls help y wont my games i downloaded play on my wii!!!" However, i wish the DCC files weren't so damn fragile. I have a small USB drive so i move files and games on and off my drive somewhat occasionally. I also use it for multiple things so it gets formatted a lot.

I would imagine (although cannot confirm either way) that a disk imaging tool such as http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/home-edition/ might be able to copy a disk and keep the DVV files intact (although you'd have to copy everything else as well, but if you're going to format the disk, you may well want to backup everything anyway)

 

[Maxternal]

I would imagine (although cannot confirm either way) that a disk imaging tool such as http://www.easeus.co...y/home-edition/ might be able to copy a disk and keep the DVV files intact (although you'd have to copy everything else as well, but if you're going to format the disk, you may well want to backup everything anyway)

I know the logs that have been posted for debugging mention the name of the USB drive and it's serial number. I'm not sure if that's included somehow in the DVV but as long as you plan on putting it back onto the same physical disk, that wouldn't matter and might work.

 

[crono141]

Just wish I hadn't lost my Eternal Darkness disk. I've also got a gauntlet dark legacy disk that I got used that is so scratched I know it won't rip correctly.

 

[Chaz.]

I'm still using GC backups through disc.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Just wish I hadn't lost my Eternal Darkness disk. I've also got a gauntlet dark legacy disk that I got used that is so scratched I know it won't rip correctly.

You can get the ISO "elsewhere" and verify it with the retail disc.

 

[crono141]

Just wish I hadn't lost my Eternal Darkness disk. I've also got a gauntlet dark legacy disk that I got used that is so scratched I know it won't rip correctly.

You can get the ISO "elsewhere" and verify it with the retail disc.

Provided "elsewhere" provides a 1:1 backup. Which almost none do. I'll give it a shot though.

 

[wiismodrome]

Also assuming that your original disc can still be read well enough to pass disc verification.

 

[Shano56]

I like the AP, well the idea of an AP. That way i dont have to help noobs who are like "pls help y wont my games i downloaded play on my wii!!!" However, i wish the DCC files weren't so damn fragile. I have a small USB drive so i move files and games on and off my drive somewhat occasionally. I also use it for multiple things so it gets formatted a lot.

I would imagine (although cannot confirm either way) that a disk imaging tool such as http://www.easeus.co...y/home-edition/ might be able to copy a disk and keep the DVV files intact (although you'd have to copy everything else as well, but if you're going to format the disk, you may well want to backup everything anyway)

Thanks for the tip. I might try that...or just go out and buy a bigger hard drive xD

 

[SifJar]

Also assuming that your original disc can still be read well enough to pass disc verification.

Only the first 8 bytes or something like that are needed, there's a reasonable chance that the scratches don't cover those particular bytes provided the disc isn't completely destroyed.