Hacking Are we allowed to create a bounty thread for 9.2.0 CFW?

[Celice]

Sure. I'm just explaining what's different. The DS scene has a lot more open feel to it. With 3DS it's all locked away and hidden from the average user, unless they want to find the exploits themselves.

Not to mention the WiiU. The system is basically covered according to delroth and others, but no one releases info because a perceived lack of interest/use for homebrew, and a fear of enabling piracy.

Double-faced gatekeepers are sadly normal in the scene.

 

[TidusWulf]

Not to mention the WiiU. The system is basically covered according to delroth and others, but no one releases info because a perceived lack of interest/use for homebrew, and a fear of enabling piracy.

Double-faced gatekeepers are sadly normal in the scene.

I wonder what changed from the DS/Wii scene to the WiiU/3DS scene that made developers just not want to release anything even remotely related to piracy. Like, why did the 4.5 CFW have to be leaked? why couldn't it just be willingly distributed? the shift in attitude puzzles me.

 

[williamcesar2]

But look at the Wii. Lots of cIOS stuff, yet it's all free. I don't see why 3DS can't be the same. There were things you could buy to improve the 'wii experience' like USB Gecko, hard-mods, etc. But the core features of unlocking the device were provided free of charge and open source.

I just think 3DS dev would go a lot faster if the core exploits were opened up, and the 'special features' were locked away. Though I don't think it's all gateway's fault. Personally I think it's more of the people who made the CFW and didn't release it. There's literally no point. Why not? Unless the CFW people were the ones behind gateway, there's no benefit to them.

I said it and going to repeat: I guess some Devs(devs ''close to us'') are behind gateway

 

[ody81]

Sure. I'm just explaining what's different. The DS scene has a lot more open feel to it. With 3DS it's all locked away and hidden from the average user, unless they want to find the exploits themselves. That's not to say that Gateway isn't appreciated. I'm probably gonna buy one sooner or later. But if you can release parts for free, why not? The 9.2 CFW is obviously already made, as a simple google search would reveal. Yet it's not available. I'm guessing if it was the DS scene, we'd have it already, simply due to the openness. It just seems to me like gateway would get a lot more customers by releasing free stuff and having core and exclusive features on their card. The browser launcher working with non-gateway users is a good start. And probably got a lot of people to buy a gateway card.

But look at the Wii. Lots of cIOS stuff, yet it's all free. I don't see why 3DS can't be the same. There were things you could buy to improve the 'wii experience' like USB Gecko, hard-mods, etc. But the core features of unlocking the device were provided free of charge and open source.

I just think 3DS dev would go a lot faster if the core exploits were opened up, and the 'special features' were locked away. Though I don't think it's all gateway's fault. Personally I think it's more of the people who made the CFW and didn't release it. There's literally no point. Why not? Unless the CFW people were the ones behind gateway, there's no benefit to them.

Hmmm, not bad but still. i wouldn't call the DS even remotely open. You HAD to buy a flashcart, there was no alternative (besides Sudohax) and none were ever hinted at. A lot of the 'agony of choice' between R4 brands was false as well, one team would start up several other brands to give the impression of choice and a competitive markeplace.

Yup, there was a 4.5 CFW that got leaked, and there's stuff around the web about somebody's private 9.2 CFW work. But that's not gonna help the situation, one was never supposed to be leaked and the other will likely never be leaked or released.
It's pretty evident that the flashcart companies aren't holding back free CFW's on the 3ds, it's the personal views of the devs that are knowledgeable enough to make them. And that's understandable, nobody wants to wake up to a C&D, or a lawsuit. And sometimes people just don't want their work to be either used in a way they disagree with personal and don't want to play moral police, disallow piracy and deal with that hot potato. DRM/Limited access or freedom of choice. Tough choice for some.

And for the piracy/cfw argument at large, well, show me a system that's been killed due to piracy... PSP's had a great run of games a long long time after soft-modding was possible, let alone since the days of the tool battery.

As for special features, I wouldn't say they're locked away at all. With .3dsx and .cia devs have access to just about anything they might need.
And if an exploit is publicly known and out in the wild it changes nothing. The 4.5 MSET exploit is well known and usable, but nobody wants to release a CFW.

This is not going to change.. It's just the way it is. And yeah, if you grab a GW for homebrew you won't be disappointed, there's some excellent stuff already to use.
No I'm not a fanboy, when the next 'best thing' comes along, I'll be on that boat asap.

Good banter dude. Proper discussion.

 

[ody81]

I wonder what changed from the DS/Wii scene to the WiiU/3DS scene that made developers just not want to release anything even remotely related to piracy. Like, why did the 4.5 CFW have to be leaked? why couldn't it just be willingly distributed? the shift in attitude puzzles me.

That's what I've been asking, as I said earlier, historically piracy is rampant on any given platform but it hasn't killed one yet. A large portion of pirates simply don't buy anything or buy very little, these people don't factor in as 'lost profits'. If they can't pirate it, they probably won't buy it either much of the time. Plenty of dev studios recognise this fact and at least use pirates as a tool for word of mouth advertising. Not that that matters here.

Point is, piracy isn't really denting the market if the person in question was never going to buy anything anyway.
So it does seem an odd argument against a CFW, at the very least the pirate will have to buy the console. And that's something.

There has been a HUGE shift in attitude, and I too can't see where it comes from.

YARRRGGGHHH!!! (closest emote I could find to a pirate:\)

 

[TidusWulf]

That's what I've been asking, as I said earlier, historically piracy is rampant on any given platform but it hasn't killed one yet. A large portion of pirates simply don't buy anything or buy very little, these people don't factor in as 'lost profits'. If they can't pirate it, they probably won't buy it either much of the time. Plenty of dev studios recognise this fact and at least use pirates as a tool for word of mouth advertising. Not that that matters here.

Point is, piracy isn't really denting the market if the person in question was never going to buy anything anyway.
So it does seem an odd argument against a CFW, at the very least the pirate will have to buy the console. And that's something.

There has been a HUGE shift in attitude, and I too can't see where it comes from.

YARRRGGGHHH!!! (closest emote I could find to a pirate:\)

I used to work at Gamestop at the peak of DS piracy, and also for Verizon while it's dead siple to root and jailbreak and download apks for free. I can tell you that it is, without a doubt, the 0.1% of people who pirate. a lot of people buy. a LOT of people. I wish I could somehow stress this better, or show documentation of this, but the retail gaming industry is as strong as it's ever been.

 

[ody81]

I used to work at Gamestop at the peak of DS piracy, and also for Verizon while it's dead siple to root and jailbreak and download apks for free. I can tell you that it is, without a doubt, the 0.1% of people who pirate. a lot of people buy. a LOT of people. I wish I could somehow stress this better, or show documentation of this, but the retail gaming industry is as strong as it's ever been.

Exactly!
I pirate like a motherfucker myself, but I end up buying about 90% of that stuff later because I actually enjoy it.
I've just got zero cash on any given day something hits the shops and I can be impatient too.

But yeah, if anything what companies are realizing is that sometimes piracy can help a platform a little. Someone sees me play an android game I didn't buy, if they like the look of it they'll buy it because they don't know how to get and use .apks or just prefer to buy something they want instead of screwing around.

Now surely if companies understand this, the community at large understands this.

You're comment on the phone industry is perfect, if piracy affected any platform that much, it'd be iPhone/Android most of all but that's a flourishing marketplace, just look at the Nvidia tablet, Half-life 2 and Mount & Blade got ported to Android despite the unbelievable simplicity of piracy on that platform, and still, the money train's still right on time.

Edit: 90% of the stuff I enjoyed/loved.
That is me now though, and I wasn't always like this and I'm all for people pirating for whatever reason, it's your freedom to do what you want I still do it, I'm no saint, I just used myself as a quick example.

 

[Aurora Wright]

truth is if it was anything more than give me "r0m loader pl0x" i would happily donate, i.e a full open source and original project with documentation and write up etc........sorry fact is, the OP doesn't know what he wants, the pledgers dont know what they want....all this thread seems to want is a rom loader given out for free on a promise....which is a pathetic notion, and any dev who would think its a great idea would have to be stupid

aka "i chat BS and can't back it up"....yeah i already read those write ups and you stating the GW exploit and ninjhax are the same obviously proves you did not.....i mean you didnt even know ninjhax uses cubic ninja and not mii maker....the clue is in the name

I think you're right, if there's not heavy moderation and good organization on such an initiative it'll just end up in failure, as it's happening right now. And by the way I also meant an original project (I wouldn't accept stolen code), and if the code was commented it would be better. Even though I own a gateway (since they made 7.x decryption only possible to gw owners) I like open source alternatives.

 

[DrunkenMonk]

While I dont entirely disagree, I dont agree either.
I mean, theres a line for being too open and too closed.
Ouija ring any bells anybody?
Now thats a prime example of too far, though I agree pirates dont affect sales very much, since theyre not likely to buy anyway. (most are too young and have no money, or dont have the time to spend on games so dont feel like wasting it, or even just have too many things which are necessary to buy and dont have enough money left over) but I'm definitely agreeing that cfw would be great. No doubt about it

 

[Ericss]

Oh, and keeping money out of Gateway's hands is a bonus, too. It's one thing to allow people pirate games for free, it's another level of asshole to charge people $50 to pirate. I'd rather spend that money on open source products.

...So you're calling GW out for charging people to pirate by selling flashcarts, yet you started this bounty to basically have someone sell a CFW to us?

 

[mid-kid]

While I dont entirely disagree, I dont agree either.
I mean, theres a line for being too open and too closed.
Ouija ring any bells anybody?
Now thats a prime example of too far, though I agree pirates dont affect sales very much, since theyre not likely to buy anyway. (most are too young and have no money, or dont have the time to spend on games so dont feel like wasting it, or even just have too many things which are necessary to buy and dont have enough money left over) but I'm definitely agreeing that cfw would be great. No doubt about it

The Ouya is a bad example because they didn't get a lot of attention anyway.
That said, the ouya is based on android and is about as open as a regular android phone (unless your manufacturer is an idiot and doesn't let you root), and look at android:

You're comment on the phone industry is perfect, if piracy affected any platform that much, it'd be iPhone/Android most of all but that's a flourishing marketplace, just look at the Nvidia tablet, Half-life 2 and Mount & Blade got ported to Android despite the unbelievable simplicity of piracy on that platform, and still, the money train's still right on time.

Oh, and don't forget the PC, which while not being a console, gets a lot of great games anyway and is used widely by gamers. There's been a lot of DRM-free campaigns 'n stuff lately (f.e. Humble Bundle, GOG), and piracy is easy as ever, yet, there's enough money to go around.

 

[Nollog]

I wonder what changed from the DS/Wii scene to the WiiU/3DS scene that made developers just not want to release anything even remotely related to piracy. Like, why did the 4.5 CFW have to be leaked? why couldn't it just be willingly distributed? the shift in attitude puzzles me.

The Wii U and 3DS consoles have failed to capture the market on a similar scale to the Wii and DS, which were land mark cases.

Android devices lower in price and ease of publishing on the marketplace remove a lot of the interest.

The people left are either closest-pirates, or people who legitimately don't have an interest in the piracy, just want to mess around with the system and games to learn from or have fun with.

 

[nosklo]

$15 from me.

 

[tony_2018]

...So you're calling GW out for charging people to pirate by selling flashcarts, yet you started this bounty to basically have someone sell a CFW to us?

If its something desparately needed, for example Samsung s5 root bounty (and we did pay the bounty as promise and homeboy got the whole 18k) but in this case I"m seeing the majority of people donating not so much and I'm not even sure if people will pay up.

 

[Jhyrachy]

TL; DR about how this is not going to work and how to make it works

First of all, the bounty.
You have to consider this kind of work (especially if it's an opensource project with documentation and all) like a full time job.
Now let's consider the bounty:
Supposing it will reach 2000$ (highly improbable) this must be divided for the number of hours of the project.
I don't have so much informationa about this, but we can suppose that it's AT LEAST 500 hours of work
2000/500 = 4$/h
It's less then you will be paid in a call center.
If i had the skill to do it, i'll use my ability in something more rewarding.
Solution: increase the bounty at least around 10.000$ or find a programmer who will work for this wage, maybe for fun in his free time.

Second, bounty collect:
I can say: "I will pledge 100000$!"
But I'm not legally obligated to gave you the money when the project is finished.
Solution: This is a bit complex. We need someone to collect all the money and then to send it to the person who accomplish it.
This person must be trusted and he have to take all the responsability about the money. It's not easy to find this kind of person.
Usually, for this situation, the one in charge make a new prepaid card (empty) where all the people put their money (so that there is not to warry about "accidentally spent" money. Still, the persone must be a trusted one) and when the pledge is accomplished all the funds are transferred to the hacker's card.
Solution: find a really trustworthy people, maybe an admin, but i don't think they want to take this kind of responsability, so this is going to be really hard. Best way is to find a people with a clear name and reputation, with something behind that cannot simply "disappear", so he must be ok to send to some people of the forum the scan of his ID and others documents.
PS: someone talked about PayPal, we suppose that you send the money using the "Gift" option, so no refound option. Even if you sent it as a payment, "Digital Goods" is not allowed for privates, IIRC, so no refund option again, when it's sent it's sent.

Third, time frame:
We must decide the "Time Frame" for the project, we cannot leave hundreds of dollars in a card for yeas waiting for something to happen.
We have to set a limit, maybe 6 months or 1 year; if in this period we have some WIP or news (with proven images or code) about someone working on, we can extend it.
Otherwise close it and choose to refound people OR to send the money to a charity organisation (maybe American Red Cross or the Electronic Frontier Foundation )
Obviusly in both cases the money holder must provide proof that the money is coming back or where he sent the money
(Long time frame is why the "host" must be a person with a long post history who will stick around the forum and the scene for at least one more year

Fourth, anonimity:
This is not totally legal, so the hacker must decide to do not want relase it on github or other platform.
Also, i he want to receive the money in a untrackable way.
Solution: publish the work on a torrent site or a place like Mega, uploding using a vpn or similar service. About the payment, one solution must be converting the money to bitcoin and send the bitcoin to the devoloper, later, he can sell them to get his money (minus the fee of the exchange)

These are my 2cent, feel free to correct me or add something

 

[luney]

Ok yer all bitching about Gateway screwed this and Gateway screwed that. The fact of the matter is, they are a business. They have every right to protect their hard work and furthermore, they are a business. Of course they aren't going to give you a free way to do this. By your logic, Nintendo should just give you all of the games, every region, for free once you buy their consoles. In fact, once you buy a console, you should get all of their new consoles for free. Since they don't do this they are screwing the millions of their customers too. What Gateway has done is no different. They are the only flashcart company actually working to make things better for us, their customers. Not watching another company like a hawk and then reverse engineering all of said company's work and selling it to their customers as if they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Gateway doesn't have to give us any new features or updates. They could charge for every one of them. Hell why not, that's what sky did. Once the 10 game limit was figured out, they sold everyone a new card that bypasses it properly. Would I like to see a CFW? Absolutely. Only because that would be the best way to accomplish all of this cleanly and easily, with no hassles whatsoever. That is if it is a CFW like the ones we had for PSP. That was such a sweet solution. But I don't believe that level of hacking the 3DS is possible with a CFW. Not if the CFW's that have been released thus fare are examples of what a fully functioning CFW will be. But what do I know. I'm stupid enough to believe a company actually has a right to make money. Silly me!

Edit: I would gladly contribute $20 or $30 to this. Hell maybe more if it's what I expect a true CFW to be. I liked Foxi's idea. Those that actually contribute get it with an unlock code. After a set time it's released publicly and open source. One dev has already stated that it already exists. The sad thing is everyone was so busy fighting, it got lost 5 pages back. Maybe that dev should pm those that are serious and let us pay for it. I would love to have a CFW. I really miss the ease of use with my PSP.

 

[tony_2018]

TL; DR about how this is not going to work and how to make it works

First of all, the bounty.
You have to consider this kind of work (especially if it's an opensource project with documentation and all) like a full time job.
Now let's consider the bounty:
Supposing it will reach 2000$ (highly improbable) this must be divided for the number of hours of the project.
I don't have so much informationa about this, but we can suppose that it's AT LEAST 500 hours of work
2000/500 = 4$/h
It's less then you will be paid in a call center.
If i had the skill to do it, i'll use my ability in something more rewarding.
Solution: increase the bounty at least around 10.000$ or find a programmer who will work for this wage, maybe for fun in his free time.

Second, bounty collect:
I can say: "I will pledge 100000$!"
But I'm not legally obligated to gave you the money when the project is finished.
Solution: This is a bit complex. We need someone to collect all the money and then to send it to the person who accomplish it.
This person must be trusted and he have to take all the responsability about the money. It's not easy to find this kind of person.
Usually, for this situation, the one in charge make a new prepaid card (empty) where all the people put their money (so that there is not to warry about "accidentally spent" money. Still, the persone must be a trusted one) and when the pledge is accomplished all the funds are transferred to the hacker's card.
Solution: find a really trustworthy people, maybe an admin, but i don't think they want to take this kind of responsability, so this is going to be really hard. Best way is to find a people with a clear name and reputation, with something behind that cannot simply "disappear", so he must be ok to send to some people of the forum the scan of his ID and others documents.
PS: someone talked about PayPal, we suppose that you send the money using the "Gift" option, so no refound option. Even if you sent it as a payment, "Digital Goods" is not allowed for privates, IIRC, so no refund option again, when it's sent it's sent.

Third, time frame:
We must decide the "Time Frame" for the project, we cannot leave hundreds of dollars in a card for yeas waiting for something to happen.
We have to set a limit, maybe 6 months or 1 year; if in this period we have some WIP or news (with proven images or code) about someone working on, we can extend it.
Otherwise close it and choose to refound people OR to send the money to a charity organisation (maybe American Red Cross or the Electronic Frontier Foundation )
Obviusly in both cases the money holder must provide proof that the money is coming back or where he sent the money
(Long time frame is why the "host" must be a person with a long post history who will stick around the forum and the scene for at least one more year

Fourth, anonimity:
This is not totally legal, so the hacker must decide to do not want relase it on github or other platform.
Also, i he want to receive the money in a untrackable way.
Solution: publish the work on a torrent site or a place like Mega, uploding using a vpn or similar service. About the payment, one solution must be converting the money to bitcoin and send the bitcoin to the devoloper, later, he can sell them to get his money (minus the fee of the exchange)

These are my 2cent, feel free to correct me or add something

I said the exact same thing about someone collecting the bounty, and that person has to be someone legitimate, has a good rep in most console forums, and don't give a shit about whiners.

 

[johnbus]

Can I just say something about the DS scene, and how open it really was?

R4 sold almost entirely on its WOOD firmware, and when it turned out it was being used by clone competitors, they put brick code in WOOD so that it would destroy any card using it that wasn't up to their official specifications. People who bought clones willingly or were sold fake carts by shifty storefronts had to go with older versions, but when Spirit Tracks came out with its DRM that made controlling the train impossible with current firmwares, it degraded into an absolutely ruthless scene. Everyone stole everything they possibly could from everyone else just to get the damn game running, and the majority of cart dev teams died out since they couldn't get their cart to play the game. The Spirit Tracks DRM became the standard for any cart on the DS to live up to, or die trying.

Compared to the later half of the DS scene, the 3DS scene has it relatively easy. I have never heard of either Gateway or Sky3DS teams using brick code to kill clones or launching cyber attacks against one another to ensure only their carts work.

 

[tbb043]

it's another level of asshole to charge people $50 to pirate

I guess that makes Krikzz the king mother of all assholes for charging several times that for everdrives. Or maybe you're just wrongheaded. Lets go with door number two, monty.

 

[Deleted User]

You'd probably need to get in the range of $10,000+ for a bounty.

I got 5K in a Google Chromium exploit and they pay quite a bit if you can manage to document and display how it all works and malicious abilities.

Though I laugh when people cry about GW/MT Card/R4 for charging them to pirate. People bought flashcarts and Everdrives which cost the same if not more. Is it because a software option is available?

I just think back to when I developed for the iPhone - it was the same thing. People would pirate a 99 cent app. It makes me sad