Hacking Acekard - Nintendo proof?

[Kingwad]

So Nintendo has been chasing flashcard with claims of violation of intellectual property violations, specifically that bootcodes have been lifted from Warioworld. If these allegations are true then it is clear that these cards have broken the law in their development. Could Acekard be saying to Nintendo "Here is our code. It is our code, and it is not your code. We have stolen nothing and we will show you how we have done it."?

Of course, if there is stolen code in that open-sourced blob, Acekard could have also just removed their jockstrap and yelled "betcha can't kick just one!"

 

[raulpica]

AceKard theorically is not Nintendo proof. Anything that boots without FlashMe is not Nintendo proof

 

[arctic_flame]

There's still no Illegal code in any flashcards. Until we get a half-decent explanation from the ESA, that's my line.

 

[Deleted User]

Please stop this. The use of copyrighted code was an issue before Martin Korth broke the encryption used on real code. Now it's history ! Nintendo want to buy some time right now to have flashcarts taken out of shelves.

 

[raulpica]

There's still no Illegal code in any flashcards. Until we get a half-decent explanation from the ESA, that's my line.

EDIT: Deufeufeu explained it.

 

[arctic_flame]

There's still no Illegal code in any flashcards. Until we get a half-decent explanation from the ESA, that's my line.

Yes, there is. They use the boot-code used by Nintendo to boot real games. They reverse-enginered it and used it to make the Slot-1 cart boot like a original game, otherwise it wouldn't even boot. See the DSLink. It misses that code and cannot boot without another pass-device.

Unfortunately, you're incorrect. The encryption on the DS header was cracked by Martin Korth (the writer of no$gba) by analysing the DS Bios dumps. Therefore, anyone can make a binary that the DS will boot. The DSLink was already put into production as this info was coming out.

 

[raulpica]

There's still no Illegal code in any flashcards. Until we get a half-decent explanation from the ESA, that's my line.

Yes, there is. They use the boot-code used by Nintendo to boot real games. They reverse-enginered it and used it to make the Slot-1 cart boot like a original game, otherwise it wouldn't even boot. See the DSLink. It misses that code and cannot boot without another pass-device.

Unfortunately, you're incorrect. The encryption on the DS header was cracked by Martin Korth (the writer of no$gba) by analysing the DS Bios dumps. Therefore, anyone can make a binary that the DS will boot. The DSLink was already put into production as this info was coming out.

Yeah, in fact I correct my previous post, if you see a little more up.

 

[enarky]

Header and encryption issues aside, who says flashcart manufacturers all use legally reverse engineered and freely available open source tools, like homebrew developers do? What if Nintendo could prove that their SDK was used to develop a cartridges firmware? That'd be clearly illegal, IMO.

EDIT: Forgot to add, from how I understand the reviews, only parts of the Acekard RPGs Firmware are open source? Does anyone have enough insight to tell if that other part wasn't created with Nintendo's tools?

And, woohoo, post #300.

 

[Veho]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the code supposed to be part of the game development license that publishers buy from Nintendo? I'm sure even writing your own code violates several clauses of something somewhere. Somehow.

The problem is that it's all in a legal gray area. Much like torrents, even though some people use them to transfer legal content, 99% use them for piracy. The "distribution of legal/open source/public license data" defense may work for a while because the law isn't clearly defined, but since it's a gray area, the side with more leverage can tilt the interpretation of the law in their own favour; in the case of torrents, this varies from country to country. Guess who has more leverage in this case.

 

[Deleted User]

Header and encryption issues aside, who says flashcart manufacturers all use legally reverse engineered and freely available open source tools, like homebrew developers do? What if Nintendo could prove that their SDK was used to develop a cartridges firmware? That'd be clearly illegal, IMO.
Most flashcarts menu uses libnds. And you know what ? I'm sure of it... There's some issue with using modified arm7 binary with the nintendo SDK. Nintendo forces develloper to use the official arm7 that takes in charge to initialize a lot of stuff used by the sdk. But to make a flashcart loader you have to make your own arm7. It's the only way you can boot another code.

EDIT: Forgot to add, from how I understand the reviews, only parts of the Acekard RPGs Firmware are open source? Does anyone have enough insight to tell if that other part wasn't created with Nintendo's tools?


Everything in the Acekard RPG is opensource. I won't enter into a lot of detail but the source is composed of
1) a library to control by the card register every input and output of the card
2) a libfat modification to take this into account (this way the menu can display both microsd and nand) + dldi patches (one for each)
3) a loader that is responsible for loading the menu at first run and any other games you launch after (it does the autopatch for dldi and do some patch like the ones for cheat or soft reset)
4) a menu which is nothing but a regular program using the 2) libfat and calling the loader

You can't directly modify the initial loader because it's not stored using the fat on Nand, I could tell you where it is located but I think it could lead to some big mess.

QUOTE

And, woohoo, post #300.

woohoo my daughter on the avatar !!

 

[enarky]

I was asking because I remembered a certain developer saying somewhere on the PH board that flashcart manufacturers had to use the Nintendo SDK for cartridge access. But now that I read it again he was only referring to SDK functions being overwritten.

EDIT: and, well, congratulations to your healthy daughter, I guess.