if you don't mind me asking, (since you are here) for unpatched units Is 7.0 software cfw exploit realistic or not? I don't mean now or the near future.
(I don't want to hold you by the books since you already do so much for the community, and would be really rude and unrealistic to ask for a time or date. As I'd imagine your more busy keeping up with Nintendo's shenanigans per update and continued implementation/expanding features of atmosphere)
But I heard that 7.0 is the last software entry point that can have cfw. Has something got in the way of that by any chance?
That's a super "eventually" thing.
On < 8.x Erista units, TrustZone can be compromised if you control the bpmp at wake-from-sleep.
In practice, this means a full userland compromise is needed.
You can maybe do some stuff with tsec or GPU dma if you compromise nvservices, but it needs research and isn't straightforward.
So, pieces needed for cfw on a < 8.0.0 erista console:
* Console is not update nagged (this is unfixable).
* Browser exploit.
* nvservices exploit.
* Further userland escalation.
* TrustZone compromise.
Stuff we have:
* TrustZone compromise.
Stuff we kind of have:
* Browser exploit (I have a webkit 0-day, but I would like to avoid burning it for something like this when it might be useful to me if I want to look at PS5 or a future console).
* The userland escalation bit via tsec or gpu, but this would probably be 50-100 hours of research/work once an nvservices compromise is in hand.
Stuff we don't have:
* nvservices compromise.
Nvservices is pretty dogshit from a security pov, and it's all nvidia code and not Nintendo code -- this means it's lower security.
I'm sure nvservices vulnerabilities exist to be found, but I don't actually have one.
Combining all those factors, it's just super low priority. I expect "eventually" it'll happen, but like...don't expect it any time soon, and it's not an area of active work on my part, especially since it would be so much work and so few people will benefit from it.
So what, am I seriously just going to shell out $60 when Nintendo releases another game I want?
Even ignoring the fact that I and other hackers don't support and aren't motivated by piracy, it may surprise you to learn that the fact that you don't want to pay for games doesn't make exploitable bugs magically exist.
Perhaps a clear analogy: I'd prefer not to have to pay my rent. Unfortunately my apartment's lease, like Mariko units, doesn't have any exploitable bugs. My not wanting to pay my rent doesn't make any bugs exist in my lease.
My options, then, are to pay my rent or live somewhere else.
Your options are to buy switch games, or not play games on your switch.