Hacking Discussion About card certificates...

[vickdu31]

Hi! I am making a new thread because I would like to discuss about cart certificates and how we could prevent ban. I will make a list of questions/ideas.

1. Is there any ban reported for using own dumps ?
2. Is there any ban reported for using shared private dumps ? (2-3 persons online)
3. Is there any ban reported from using wrong game cert ?
4. For people who tried playing online with BBB dump (no cert) does it ban the card or is it a full ban ?
5. Is there a way to figure out when the certificate is written on the card ? Is it game (title id) specific or card (as in storage card) specific ?
6. Is there any ban reported when the user never played online with a dump ? (Excluding messing up with CDN)

 

[jakkal]

Did you even check the ban wave thread
Why don't people like to read?

 

[vickdu31]

I did check but its not super clear, I would like to understand how certificates work anyway, if they are storage card specific and not tied to a game it would be interesting

 

[OhhSheetz]

Did you even check the ban wave thread
Why don't people like to read?

because it seems to be a lot easier to ask for everything to be brought to them in a silver platter. The group of us running threads to help find this information are doing it to help the community fix issues and understand situations, but apparently it doesn't seem to matter to some people >.<

Edit: Here, have a nice read about what is going on with certs, and how these are now game specific: https://www.reddit.com/r/SwitchHacks/comments/8rxg26/psa_strong_antipiracy_measures_implemented_by/

To try to answer some of your questions, It is nearly impossible to determine 100% what is going on, as Bans are happening slowly. But the following can be taken for certain: If more than one person use the same cert at the same time, at the very least the cert is bound to be banned, and even lead to console ban.

In regards to Injecting another game's cert, this COULD work if Nintendo doesn't care, but since they now have game specific certs, compared to the 3ds scene, this likely means if not already, then eventually people with mismatched certs will likely get banned.

 

[lolcatzuru]

Hi! I am making a new thread because I would like to discuss about cart certificates and how we could prevent ban. I will make a list of questions/ideas.

1. Is there any ban reported for using own dumps ?
2. Is there any ban reported for using shared private dumps ? (2-3 persons online)
3. Is there any ban reported from using wrong game cert ?
4. For people who tried playing online with BBB dump (no cert) does it ban the card or is it a full ban ?
5. Is there a way to figure out when the certificate is written on the card ? Is it game (title id) specific or card (as in storage card) specific ?
6. Is there any ban reported when the user never played online with a dump ? (Excluding messing up with CDN)

ugh, ill pick up the slack guys, we really need to caldor some of these people though.

1. I dont think so, its hard to know for sure, but apparently theres been some success with people dumping their own games . I will clarify they did not change the cert they merely did it for convenience.

2. We dont know the answer to this but ill tell you you are pushing your luck. Nintendo WILL know that multiple consoles are sharing the cert and probably ban all of you, or at the very least, ban that cert.

3. Yes, you will be absolutely banned from using a different cert, the Cert's are unique and changing them will almost certainly result in you getting banned.

4. It's random? id call nintendo and ask but i dont think theyll tell me..... we dont know how they ban or the scope of a ban, but ponder this, if a cart doesnt have a cert and appears online, whats the next logical thing to ban?

5. i dont know what this question is asking.

6. Again, we dont know this 100% so far it seems the most success is keeping games offline, i can tell you personally im not banned but i've been exclusively offline.

 

[vickdu31]

Thanks for the reply. My questions 3 and 5 are related.
I am trying to understand if they have a way to match game card cert and title id of the game (basically, did they record which game will be on the card during manufacturing process) or is it flashed later when they flash the game and they know which id is which cert. I would say probably yes but I wanted to know if there are ban report specifically doing this (assuming no layered fs).

I saw one post here where one guy got his own splatoon2 backup banned (card ban, no console ban) and then he inserted the cartidge (assuming its the same cert) and it worked online..

 

[lolcatzuru]

the whole ban process is random, i really feel like i didnt make this clear, ANYTHING you do online with a game that is in anyway modified will most definitely get you banned.

 

[leon315]

you will likely get banned even just running exploit/CFW;
as many people reported on other topics, nintendo 's going to ban cartdriges/dumps with same cert.;
no cart=100% flagged, it's just question of time when nintendo bans your console
for now, many people reported that it's possible using ur own genuine cert to play online with backup, but nintendo can still detect ur CFW and ban.
Still unknown on which criteria triggers ban.

 

[thaikhoa]

I'm using my own cert dump of 1-2 Switch to inject to all online ability BBB dumps. Been playing online all day and night/ never turn Wifi off since 1.1 update. NO BAN YET. I will be back when I got banned.

Finger crossing and enjoy playing.

 

[Zonark]

I would treat the game certs as a cd key for pc games all they do is program certain info to the card aka cd key which if you think about old school key gens they may be able to bust it. But each game is different maybe a different algorithm

 

[lolcatzuru]

There is no now, nor will there ever be a surefire way to play online like there was with the 3ds, nintendo has been VERY smart

I would treat the game certs as a cd key for pc games all they do is program certain info to the card aka cd key which if you think about old school key gens they may be able to bust it. But each game is different maybe a different algorithm

that is true, and there is ABSOLUTELY no way anyone could ever create a keygen for switch games.

 

[lolcatzuru]

and let me give a reason why that is, partly, it has to due with how nintendo store the infor they have on certs and what have you. They generate a cert, store it in a database, and then check that database when prompted. If you were to, hypothetically generate a cert ( which is definitely never going to be possible) then you'd have to generate one that meets 2 conditions or you STILL could be banned.

1. the Cert would have to exist within the database

2. The cert would have to either be completely unused or only used by one person.

and since neither can be met with 100% certainty, it isnt possible.

 

[vickdu31]

I understand that all of us will probably get ban at some point but they are not wizards and there are technical details that make a ban more likely or even possible.
I think it is totally impossible that nintendo knows if you enter just RCM mode unless there is some super low level logs that we havent found yet.
I wanted to analyse and try to understant how they ban consoles currently.
The ban process cannot be random, they have to find out who to ban and they have criteria which I would like to try to understand and ofcourse they will change in the near future.
The other issue is that we do not know the code of SX OS, they claim that it is totally detached from the OS (so it would run as a module within the album app) so in theory, it does not touch any OS file. I think AutoRCM is pretty easy for them to find so I will probably revert that one.
We are not running CFW like on PS3 where a lot of system files are modified and even then you would get ban mainly playing COD online, the rest was pretty safeWe do not know the meaning of the card certificate and how or if it is mapped to the game.
It is illegal for them to acces your SD card without your consent (your switch can access it but they cannot acces it remotely).

I understand there is not much information right now but I think it is better to analyse reports and try to understand how any of this work instead of just saying we will get ban no matter what so it doesnt matter...

 

[lolcatzuru]

I understand that all of us will probably get ban at some point but they are not wizards and there are technical details that make a ban more likely or even possible.
I think it is totally impossible that nintendo knows if you enter just RCM mode unless there is some super low level logs that we havent found yet.
I wanted to analyse and try to understant how they ban consoles currently.
The ban process cannot be random, they have to find out who to ban and they have criteria which I would like to try to understand and ofcourse they will change in the near future.
The other issue is that we do not know the code of SX OS, they claim that it is totally detached from the OS (so it would run as a module within the album app) so in theory, it does not touch any OS file. I think AutoRCM is pretty easy for them to find so I will probably revert that one.
We are not running CFW like on PS3 where a lot of system files are modified and even then you would get ban mainly playing COD online, the rest was pretty safeWe do not know the meaning of the card certificate and how or if it is mapped to the game.
It is illegal for them to acces your SD card without your consent (your switch can access it but they cannot acces it remotely).

I understand there is not much information right now but I think it is better to analyse reports and try to understand how any of this work instead of just saying we will get ban no matter what so it doesnt matter...

Welll the thing about the logs is that we have no idea, but i wanna clear things up.


Number 1, you bought the switch, you agreed to the terms of use, nothing is illegal, so get that myth out of your head.


Number 2. We dont know the parameters by which a ban takes place, what we do know is that the bans ( generally) have been happening with heavily shared carts and layeredFS. Currently, it doesnt seem like nintendo knows whats going on in something like, airplane mode persay at least right now, but that could VERY likely change with a firmware update.

Number 3. We do actually know exactly what a cert is for, a cert is another alphanumeric string that nintendo uses to check if a game is authentic, it is very similar to the old 3ds headers, however, unlike that process, which is boolean ( true or false) this checks the cert against a database to ensure that specific CERT lines up with whatever the title ID is, if it does not, boom, instant ban.

Number 4. the RCM exploit is foolproof, as im sure you know, it ias a physical hardware exploit that can't be patched, because the RCM module is read only, meaning that no amount of updates can change something that is read only.


TL;DR- The banning is happening when you use mods ( layeredFS) and widely shared carts online, however, some have reported going online with CFW and getting banned, however, online seems fine for the moment.

 

[Zonark]

There is no now, nor will there ever be a surefire way to play online like there was with the 3ds, nintendo has been VERY smart



that is true, and there is ABSOLUTELY no way anyone could ever create a keygen for switch games.

Even if someone tried to decrypt it I believe these are 256bit encryption’s even if someone did I’m sure the encryption is game specific




Ultimately given the token situation we would have to trick the server to accept access, the problem with this is we need to treat the certs as login credentials for online access. Basically if they deny you systems unique certs your banned indefinitely

Our best defense to prevent this would be to spoof other consoles information ultimately causing Nintendo not to ban people because they could be banning real people that didn’t do any and not the actual person doing it. Kinda like MAC address spoofing.

 

[vickdu31]

Do we have any proof of such a database used to verify game card cert against title id ?
I could imagine implementation without such a verification (unique card cert, ban if more than 1 online)

 

[lolcatzuru]

Do we have any proof of such a database used to verify game card cert against title id ?
I could imagine implementation without such a verification (unique card cert, ban if more than 1 online)

yes there is, because people have injected certs from one game, into another, and got banned.

 

[OhhSheetz]

yes there is, because people have injected certs from one game, into another, and got banned.

This one is still not 100% confirmed on either side. Highest percentage of bans seem to be layered FS. We have a few users who are playing online constantly on SX OS with injected roms from other games (cert from say mario kart for splatoon). Only time will tell at this point.

 

[fadx]

It's important to note that even if you used your own cert in a dump with SXOS 1.0, it isn't used. They now use the cert in your xci in 1.1. From what I've seen, the only people that used their own certs and were banned either used 1.0 online(and so their cert was irrelevant) or they used layeredFS.

 

[lolcatzuru]

It's important to note that even if you used your own cert in a dump with SXOS 1.0, it isn't used. They now use the cert in your xci in 1.1. From what I've seen, the only people that used their own certs and were banned either used 1.0 online(and so their cert was irrelevant) or they used layeredFS.

right, i mean using a cert for a game you own will probably be fine, but everything else is entirely too risky.