Hardware [FALSE] Foxconn accidentally leaks Wii-U private keys...

[DeadlyFoez]

Electronics manufacturer Foxconn has mistakenly placed the private keys and other design related documents for the Nintendo Wii-U on the public portion of their FTP server that they use for hosting drivers and software. The mistake was noticed by an engineer early Wednesday, but not before the documents had been downloaded more than a dozen times.


Foxconn is primarily an original design manufacturer, and its clients include major American, European and Japanese electronics and information technology companies. Notable products which the company manufactures include the iPad, iPhone, Kindle, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

The Wii-U is Nintendo's next generation console set to supersede the 2006 Nintendo Wii. Nintendo has been ramping up production for the October release date with over 1 million units having been already produced.

This is another blow to Foxconn's tarnished reputation that has been plagued in recent years by reports of employee suicides and specification leaks for the iPad2 while the unit was still in production. Attempts to seek comment from Foxconn's public relations department went unanswered.

Source EDIT: the article has been moved or removed. Weird. THanx tueidj for noticing.

HOLY SHIT BATMAN!!!! Does this mean it's too late for nintendo to turn back with already over 1 million consoles produced? Or do you think that they will revamp everything and trash those consoles so they can change the keys? How does this affect those games that are already nearly finished?

I wonder who were the lucky bastards to get their hands on those documents. Either way, if Nintendo somehow does decide to change the keys, the design documents and schematics have been leaked so it could make it easy for other hackers to reverse engineer the release day consoles.

Unbelievable.

 

[Pong20302000]

Oh my

Nintendo not happy i bet

 

[tueidj]

Um, source link goes to nothing of interest.

 

[SifJar]

Wow, that's a huge mess up. I see no way Nintendo could possibly release the WiiU with that sort of information in the hands of outsiders. The question is who those outsiders are though. Perhaps those individuals will do nothing with the files, or perhaps not even understand what they are looking at. Alternatively, they could start popping up on warez sites and torrent trackers around the net at any minute. Nintendo can't afford to take that risk, I am fairly sure.

I would say this will almost certainly result in a delay in the release of the WiiU. I'm sure Nintendo will use some damage control procedures to prevent this information being useful if it were to leak out, but that will take money, effort, and perhaps most importantly, time. I say most importantly, because delays upset consumers, which is very bad for business.

EDIT: Hmm, I should probably check source link before commenting like this, as tueidj said it leads nowhere interesting (just engadget home page). A google search also turns up nothing. Sure this shouldn't be in EoF?

 

[DeadlyFoez]

It probably wasn't up long enough to get google cached. My fault for not posting this up as soon as I saw it. My douche bag wife rushed me out the door to go grocery shopping and I figured I'd continue writing the post when I got back after checking if anyone else had already posted it up.

I wonder why it was taken down so quickly. I bet foxconn is in damage control mode.

 

[FireGrey]

We still haven't found the 3DS keys but we found out the Wii U keys before we knew the release date?
Interesting, I have high hopes for Wii U hacking.
Can a new firmware update fix this?

When I google searched about it, all i could see was this GBAtemp post.
We're a target!

 

[Foxi4]

The consoles are not shipped yet, they can still reflash them with a brand-new private key, this just means some serious overtime for the workers and programmers alike. Now, if it was the algorithm and the key, that'd be a different story entirely.

 

[SifJar]

We still haven't found the 3DS keys but we found out the Wii U keys before we knew the release date?
Interesting, I have high hopes for Wii U hacking.
Can a new firmware update fix this?

We didn't find them, some idiot leaked them. And yes, a new firmware can fix it. At one time I would have said no, but pretty much every key on the PS3 was known, and Sony managed to fix that so that updated consoles cannot use the hacks developed using the keys (downgrading is necessary to get homebrew/piracy). Although design documents and schematics will show a lot of the internal workings of the WiiU, which would be invaluable information to hackers and would save a vast amount of time instead of having to figure it all out, and would probably aid bypassing new protections added later.

The consoles are not shipped yet, they can still reflash them with a brand-new private key, this just means some serious overtime for the workers and programmers alike. Now, if it was the algorithm and the key, that'd be a different story entirely.

Generally speaking a very standard algorithm will be used. For most consoles, the algorithm is well known. That is useless without the key, which is the only important and private part.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

LMFAO!!! Maybe foxconn is trying to cover this up before Nintendo finds out about it.

One thing I find interesting in the article is that engadget never mentioned about how they came across this info, and they usually do mention that stuff. Even if it was a hacker that told them, then they say "an anonymous source".

 

[Fishaman P]

Well, at least a preliminary NAND dump will be useful.

It'd be interesting if we could make a DS/3DS emulator with the tablet as the touch screen and the TV as the top screen...

 

[Midna]

Waugh I don't really give a damn about the private key. They'll sort it out before launch. What I want to see is those design related documents

 

[Deleted_171835]

This is what happens when you hire poor Chinese workers to do cheap labour (assuming this is real of course).

But I guess the Wii U might be delayed a bit. I'm interested in seeing what was in the design docs, though.

 

[raulpica]

The consoles are not shipped yet, they can still reflash them with a brand-new private key, this just means some serious overtime for the workers and programmers alike. Now, if it was the algorithm and the key, that'd be a different story entirely.

Keys are usually stored in an unflashable part of the system (at least on the Wii) - so the early batches should be fully homebrewable.

Manually changing the faulty OTP would cost way more than re-manufacturing the entire motherboards.

I'm surely getting one at launch!

 

[Deleted member 194275]

The lack of other sources made me think that this artcile (already removed) is not true

 

[ProtoKun7]

What

A

Monumental

Fail.

If indeed true.

 

[wii knee]

It probably wasn't up long enough to get google cached. My fault for not posting this up as soon as I saw it. My douche bag wife rushed me out the door to go grocery shopping and I figured I'd continue writing the post when I got back after checking if anyone else had already posted it up.

I wonder why it was taken down so quickly. I bet foxconn is in damage control mode.

If she took you shopping for broccoli and t.p., agreed. If she took you shopping so that she could buy lingerie, it's all good. (Walmart has both these days).

 

[Foxi4]

The consoles are not shipped yet, they can still reflash them with a brand-new private key, this just means some serious overtime for the workers and programmers alike. Now, if it was the algorithm and the key, that'd be a different story entirely.

Keys are usually stored in an unflashable part of the system (at least on the Wii) - so the early batches should be fully homebrewable.

Manually changing the faulty OTP would cost way more than re-manufacturing the entire motherboards.

I'm surely getting one at launch!

Unflashable via the system, not unflashable via special hardware which is used on the manufacturing sites. All they really have to do is connect each and every NAND module separately and re-flash it.

 

[Flame]

damn i hoped they leaked 3DS key first... but its too soon, for both of the devices.

 

[SifJar]

Keys are usually stored in an unflashable part of the system (at least on the Wii) - so the early batches should be fully homebrewable.

Manually changing the faulty OTP would cost way more than re-manufacturing the entire motherboards.

I'm surely getting one at launch!

They could sign a new version of system software with the keys, and then embed a different common key within the system software, and use that for decrypting everything past the SM. This would allow them to sign all content (channels, disc based games etc.) with a different private key to the one used for the SM. With only the private key, you can't calculate the common key so it still wouldn't actually be possible to decrypt the SM and find the new common key for other content. Unless of course, the corresponding public key to the leaked private key is also leaked. No mention of it above, but if that's the case, the SM signed with the leaked private key could be decrypted and the new common key for everything else could be found. Still would keep the private key for everything else hidden.

Unflashable via the system, not unflashable via special hardware which is used on the manufacturing sites. All they really have to do is connect each and every NAND module separately and re-flash it.

Nope, OTP can ONLY be flashed one way. Every single byte by default is 0 in OTP. When it is being written, some bytes are changed to 1. It is impossible to change a byte back to 0 once it has been changed to 1. Bytes that are still 0 can be changed to 1, this can theoretically even be done by the system (if someone wanted to really mess up a Wii, they could change a few 0s in OTP to 1s).

You mention flashing NANDs - that has nothing to do with this. If keys are being stored in OTP, as they were on Wii, they cannot be reflashed (well, they can be increased in value by changing some 0s to 1s, but not properly rewritten to any new randomly generated key).

 

[Foxi4]

Nope, OTP can ONLY be flashed one way. Every single byte by default is 0 in OTP. When it is being written, some bytes are changed to 1. It is impossible to change a byte back to 0 once it has been changed to 1. Bytes that are still 0 can be changed to 1, this can theoretically even be done by the system (if someone wanted to really mess up a Wii, they could change a few 0s in OTP to 1s).

You mention flashing NANDs - that has nothing to do with this. If keys are being stored in OTP, as they were on Wii, they cannot be reflashed (well, they can be increased in value by changing some 0s to 1s, but not properly rewritten to any new randomly generated key).

Thing is, we don't know where they're stored, so we cannot assume that they cannot be reflashed.

Provided they are on a non-flashable chip then worst-case scenario, they just put new chips on the exact same motherboard. Either way, it means overtime.

No self-respecting manufacturer will release whole batches of vulnerable consoles knowing very well that they're going to be hacked within a nanosecond - it's too much of a risk and may lead to hacking the altered units later on, and they sure as hell aren't going to scrap them for razorblades.