Hacking Are there any identifiable internal unencrypted system files of the Nintendo switch yet?

xdarkmario

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I was curious if we have any recognizable system files on a Nintendo switch system partition yet?
Like any file extensions we can identify?
E.g menu.lib
I'm quite curious as to playing around with the nand on a switch but the last time I checked quite a long time ago it was all encrypted gibberish with a bunch of ones and zeros.
 

hippy dave

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Each whole partition is encrypted, as well as the files inside it, so you won't see anything meaningful at all without doing at least one layer of decryption.
 
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Each whole partition is encrypted, as well as the files inside it, so you won't see anything meaningful at all without doing at least one layer of decryption.
What Dave said is correct. Additionally even if you get the files they will still be signed so there's no use in replacing anything. Just use Atmosphere's LayeredFS feature if you want to mod a system title. Also all of the interesting files on the nand will be NCA files so you'll need this tool to extract the binary / romfs. https://github.com/SciresM/hactool
 

WG481

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What Dave said is correct. Additionally even if you get the files they will still be signed so there's no use in replacing anything. Just use Atmosphere's LayeredFS feature if you want to mod a system title. Also all of the interesting files on the nand will be NCA files so you'll need this tool to extract the binary / romfs. https://github.com/SciresM/hactool
Then let's beat the ever-loving crap out of it.
Nothing is safe from a team.
 

WG481

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Yes but they've made sure that doesn't have any bugs either
Again, there's always a backdoor. We just need to find it.

The Xbox 360 didn't have a softmod, it had a hard mod that required drilling into a chip. We may be missing something in correlation with the JoyCons/System board.
 

CeeDee

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I'm of the mindset that bugs are kind of always gonna be there - no software is perfect.
But if experienced devs in the Switch scene have sunken hundreds of hours into it with no success, I doubt any of y'all who are far less experienced are going to magically find something they can't. There's no good reason to get your hopes up for that - your best bet is probably to get one of the modchips or a V1 Switch.
 

hippy dave

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It may not have any bugs, but there's always a point of entry. Otherwise, Nintendo wouldn't be able to repair consoles whose software is damaged.
Nintendo have their private signing keys that they can use to send legit payloads to RCM, or rewrite eMMC as they see fit. We don't.
The RCM payload is the "backdoor" you're talking about. It was useful to us in first-gen Switches because of the well-known bug, but that's gone in later models and there are no substitutes.

If you're talking about hardware hacks like drilling into a chip (ouch), we've already seen glitching hacks with the newer modchips, and that's likely to be the only kind of hack going forward.
 

hippy dave

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And this is what inside people are for.
Private keys are stored inside specialised secure machines that they can't be extracted from, and few people would have access to them anyway. Unless the president of Nintendo himself or someone similarly high up decides to leak the key for the lols of damaging their own business, hopes of an "insider" coming through with the goods are futile.
 
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