Almost All Flash Kits Blocked Permanently

[signz]

Well, that kinda sucks for you guys with a 3DS and without a SCDS2. I, too, wonder what the other teams are gonna do now.

 

[Chrisssj2]

SO let me get this straight? This topic is making my head spin...

First it says ALL flashcards are blocked but then... No wait. SupercardDStwo is fine..? Can anyone confirm this themselves?

 

[porkiewpyne]

SO let me get this straight? This topic is making my head spin...

First it says ALL flashcards are blocked but then... No wait. SupercardDStwo is fine..? Can anyone confirm this themselves?

ALMOST all. There's quite a difference.

 

[Pong20302000]

SO let me get this straight? This topic is making my head spin...

First it says ALL flashcards are blocked but then... No wait. SupercardDStwo is fine..? Can anyone confirm this themselves?

ALMOST all. There's quite a difference.

Supercard DSTwo
R4ids.cn R4i Gold
r4idsn.com R4
these are the known survivors so far that can receive an update for 4.4.0-10

 

[bazamuffin]

Supercard DSTwo
R4ids.cn R4i Gold
r4idsn.com R4
these are the known survivors so far that can receive an update for 4.4.0-10

So glad I switched from AK2i to R4i Gold 3DS (R4ids.cn)

 

[Pong20302000]

Supercard DSTwo
R4ids.cn R4i Gold
r4idsn.com R4
these are the known survivors so far that can receive an update for 4.4.0-10

So glad I switched from AK2i to R4i Gold 3DS (R4ids.cn)

yea, they're a well built card

trying to keep on top of this whole IC chip issue on my firmware thread LOL

 

[FAST6191]

I said it on IRC last night but 2007 vintage me that saw savelist functionality going away when the ever so slightly more simple to use R4 style save patching took off feels vindicated once more.

The technical side of things, others have taken some of it but I feel like going as well.
http://hackmii.com/2010/02/lawsuit-coming-in-3-2-1/ covers how DS flash carts used to work on the DSi and 3ds.
The short version is DS games have several places where code can be launched from and one of these (namely the overlays) went kind of unchecked which is how flash carts got in. There is only a limited amount of potential titles here as the overlays needed to load early on and automatically and once the DSi was released all new DS games carried additional security which could not be faked.
First Nintendo checked for a proper icon and name which is why carts stopped having their own ones and instead used the name of the game they faked.
Then Nintendo started to check the game that was faked, these initial checks were fairly simple and easy to work around which is why some of the teams made the effort to keep their original faked game working (others just rebuilt for a new ROM). This happened a few times.
Nintendo then made proper "random" checks so it turned to just finding a new game every time, some teams found an overlay that did not launch immediately but a few seconds in which is why you had a choice of updates for some if you did not need 3ds/DSi compatibility.

If what the Supercard people have said is true then this time Nintendo started to check the save is what "should be"- as mentioned in the opening sentence most flash carts once the R4 got big decided to instead just patch games rather than make a list of saves and emulate the save chip (EEPROM and Flash are brutally simple to emulate down to the timings and signals compatibility level in CPLD and FPGA type programmable devices as indeed they were for said devices with savelists). Supercard brought back the idea of the save list/save chip emulation in their DSTwo's clean mode thing to have games work until their AP could be cracked (the old EZ5 lost the savelist way back when as it was dropped to compete with the "drag and drop but update your kernel occasionally/every few days" R4, but for years and years it could use it to run games before they were cracked/patched) hence their possibly being able to work around this update and others not being so lucky. I imagine the only reason some R4 named cards still work is because Nintendo have not got a broad fix (it is why some cards do not get kicked during updates- it is the only reason I can imagine the EZ5i stuck around through a couple of updates) but are still playing whack a mole with the cards and as there are a few dozen individual ones from a few dozen sites all doing their own thing getting them all is a fair ask. For the record as well/to hopefully help someone the save hardware is fairly general use ( http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm#dscartridgebackup ) as you probably saw with the issues surrounding save dumping when pokemon got the pokewalker- they sat the IR communications on the save bus (behind a selector switch) which had not been done before.
If then most cards do not have the capability to emulate a save chip of the appropriate form (and it would have been easier to just accept signals and convert them accordingly rather than emulate it) then they are indeed blocked unless a custom firmware for the 3ds comes down, to answer the question of could it happen to the DSi I see no reason why it could not happen.

Spoiler: Silly rambling

It will not happen and I see anyone even slightly worried about it I will have to laugh (not to mention they have had the option for years and have not done it) but theoretically it could even happen to the original DS (DSlite had a bit more protected firmware so I am not sure how that works unless the game told you to short SL1 yourself) as it had a firmware chip that was updated to add wifi (at which point you would just get a copy of ppflash from http://www.darkfader.net/ds/ and use it to reset it if you did not have flashme).

 

[Rydian]

Even the R4i Gold(r4ids.cn) team confirmed they got the flashcart working on the 4.4.0-10

Yes, and the R4i Gold 3DS model is a "class2" cart, not a "class1".

I'm a little confused as to what makes the DSTwo and R4i Gold capable of circumventing this block that other flashcarts apparently cannot, like the Acekard 2i.

• The DSTwo and R4i Gold are not read unless they have a MicroSD in them.
  Even after putting a MicroSD in the DSTwo, however, it has to be one that has the correct software on it, or you get the DSi/3DS error.
  (The R4i Gold can try to boot without the correct MicroSD.)
  
• The AK2i, however, can show an icon and try to boot without a MicroSD. The AK2i is using an older design where the boot data is all stored on the AK2i itself.

Normally this just means that the AK2i has a harder time updating since it's not as flexible in the updates it can take (which users have seen, since it can take a month for an update now), while other carts like the R4i Gold and DSTwo can update quicker and easier.

However if the quote is specifically talking about data on the flash cart that in some cases (like the Ak2i) is not rewriteable, then the Ak2i is likely to be permanently stuck at an older firmware.

Now, here's where things get interesting!

The below is info given to me by a different flash cart team (not supercard, I've had no contact with them), back when I was mag staff.

Flashcards can be divided to several classes according to their structure.
Class1: AK2i,Iedge, R4ids Gold(Non-3DS), R4iDSN(Non-3DS), R4I-SDHC, R4I-SDHC(3DS version), DSONEi and etc
Class2: DSTOW, ismmart, iplayer, EZVi, iPlayer, R4ids 3DS , R4iDSN 3DS and etc
Class3: iCyclo

[...]

We can say Class1 may be blocked some day in the future.

Rather foreboding, isn't it? That conversation happened last May.

If both of these pieces of info hold true, then it seems most or all of the carts in the "Class1" list might be unable to run anymore.

Anyways, can I please be told what they meant by the IC and the burning of the FPGA board?

Flash carts use FPGAs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array
They're like programmable processors, and they have parts that are locked (to writing) and parts that can be unlocked. Flash carts re-write the unlocked parts when they update in order to write new DS cart header/ROM data on them to give the carts a new "identity" so they get around DSi/3DS updates.

It seems that how complex and re-writable carts are varies highly. For example the original R4 model cannot be rewritten at all (and has very little storage space), which is why it was never able to be updated for the DSi and 3DS. On the other hand the HWID44 Acekard 2i, while having rewritable portions, doesn't include as much space for updates as the HWID88 model, which is most likely why the HWID44 model stopped updating a while back (it just could no longer fit all the data needed). Newer flash carts are even more complex and have larger amounts of rewriteable space/data.

If this news is true (the inability to update has not been confirmed by the actual "class1" model teams), then Nintendo targeted the AK2i and others in it's class based on certain static (unable to be modified) parts of the FPGA, while more complex carts like the DSTwo retain the ability to modify the targeted data to match what Nintendo's looking for.

tl;dr So it seems the 3DS checks for more than just valid headers now, and unfortunately "class1" carts can only have their header data modified, they were never built to reconfigure themselves to a bigger extent (while other carts can be).

Did the 3DS manage to find a way to overload the flashcarts, making them useless on every system?

There's no bricking.

Weren't there a limited capable headers that could be exploited, why don't Nintendo just end it.

Because they they'd have to go around and modify the data on all the DS carts that were sold between the first game and the creation of the DSi, or they wouldn't be able to run on the DSi/3DS.

As this was an update to the firmware part could this not also affect the DSi & DSiXL with an update?

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how much of the cart booting process can be modified.

 

[astrangeone]

Yay - time to go back to the DS Lite for flashcart fun, I think. (I kept my silver DS Lite for a reason.)

I have an R4i3DS, M3i Zero - but I rarely use these on my 3DS - it's more for gaming and streetpass.

 

[Foxi4]

Obviously Valwin is referring to 3DS mode, if so you can't bash him as the 3DS is nowhere to be exploited at this current date.

However saying 'never' lol What is made by man, can be broken into.

Agreed with the second part, but the way I see it, the DS sandbox is as much a part of the 3DS's firmware as any other module it contains, so saying that its security measures were top-notch out of the box is a little bit of a stretch, hence my comment.

The 3DS - believe it or not - is still early in its life-cycle. The DS was released in 21st November 2004, and the first devices to allow execution of homebrew code were created March 4th 2005, and weren't even sold to the public yet (I'm referring to Natrium's PassMe - correct me if I'm wrong on this one), and that's only because of a hardware flaw - GBA emulation was native, so a hacker could re-direct execution of code to read from the GBA slot, provided a game with a vulnerable header (containing a pointer) was inserted in the PassMe. The 3DS has no such hardware-related vulnerability (or none were found so-far), so it's obviously taking a while longer.

 

[jalaneme]

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.

It's intrusive and you can't get rid off it, on dsi you don't get that and because my net connection on my dsi is permanently off as I use the 3ds for eshop, and yes we need a firmware bypass for eshop and online gaming too, people would love to still play online with out those forced update prompts all the time, you could turn off wireless on 3ds but as soon as the update downloaded to your 3ds even in offline mode it will stay there forever till you update, plus streetpass and spotpass make turning off the wireless switch much difficult.

Also what happens when Nintendo phase out the dsi's completely? Ds lites have stopped production so dsi's are the only ones left.

 

[WongZhanWenMelvi]

Well this blocking of AK2i sucks. I was contemplating getting a 3DS (superior graphics) to complement my DS Lite (GBA support) system. No wonder my favorite shop stopped selling Acekards and just went with R4i Golds.

 

[Qtis]

Interesting times! Now to get the popcorn and wait what will happen to the DSTwo & Co. in the future


@[member='Rydian']: It could be good to note that Class 3 is also blocked so far since the iCyclo hasn't been updated after the save checking update before. I presume it could be circumvented if someone was able to alter the iCyclo bootloader/firmware, but so far it's a no-go. That leaves us with Class 2 and the carts there. Is there any ideas in the future of blocking the rest of them in one way or the other?

 

[jalaneme]

Meh... who cares?

DS Lite + original R4 + Wood = Problem solved.

Even better:

Dsi xl+Supercard dstwo+16gb micro sd= end of the world

 

[McHaggis]

It makes you wonder if Nintendo have recently hired an expert that came up with the idea, or were tipped off. I suspect that they could also block the remaining class2 flash cards permanently by finding other unique hardware differences. Take the DSTWO, for instance, which has a built-in CPU. If DS homebrew can detect and take advantage of this additional CPU, what's stopping Nintendo from running a small amount of code that does the same when a card is inserted?

 

[VMM]

I'm still wondering why Nintendo didn't do this before.
The system is almost a year and half,
and this is a simple security check that could be done even at the release of 3DS.

This is bad news for gbatemp community,
and we can say Nintendo won this round at blocking flashcards.
The thing that I'm most afraid is of what could come next.
DSTwo is working and R4i Gold will probably work,
but with the security being tightened even more,
we may have 100% of flashcards blocked in few time.

 

[Langin]

I must say nice job Nintendo for doing things right, finally they've fucked all those stupid people who don't know R4 is illegal

Why am I so annoyed? Well one reason, consumers at the toy shop ask this: 'Do you have an R4 Card? Why not? Wait why is it illegal?'

*sigh*

When I was a pirate I really felt bad I couldn't enjoy my games but now... *smiles* yeah now I feel good!

 

[narutopet112]

Glad that I have a supercard dstwo.

 

[WiiUBricker]

There is nothing better than a DS lite + Cyclo DS (not iEVO) anyway. Good built quality, cart fits perfectly in the card slot, native GBA support with an expansion pack, nive GUI, doesn't eat the battery's power that much, unbrickable, most games run out of the box (some new games require external AP fixes since team cyclops is no more), and finally DS games look exactly how they are supposed to look (no bigger pixels, no stupid upscaling).

 

[VMM]

There is nothing better than a DS lite + Cyclo DS (not iEVO) anyway. Good built quality, cart fits perfectly in the card slot, native GBA support with an expansion pack, nive GUI, doesn't eat the battery's power that much, unbrickable, most games run out of the box (some new games require external AP fixes since team cyclops is no more), and finally DS games look exactly how they are supposed to look (no bigger pixels, no stupid upscaling).

Acekard 2i(HW81) and R4i Gold(www.r4ids.cn) fit perfectly in the DSLite stot
Acekard uses Akaio and R4i Gold uses Wood.
Both have great kernels, with instant updates,
that makes it almost unnecesary to do AP patches.
They share the same amazing theme scheme,
and have low battery consumption.

With all that said, I believe they are better for DSLite usage,
than Cyclo iEvo.