Hacking Chances of Customs intercepting flash carts?

[Xarsah16]

Hey all,

I'm a little worried about my recent purchase arriving to me.

I live in the United States, and I ordered two separate flash carts (AK2i and SCDSTwo) in separate orders from the Zhuzhuchina website a couple days ago and last night. They are shipped by China Post International Registered First Class airmail in a box.

What are the chances that either package will get held up by customs? Will they open up my packages and confiscate them or charge me an arm and a leg to get my packages back? The only thing within the packages should be my flash carts and any order invoice papers, no other items.

Have you had any experiences with this kind of problem? What happened? How did you resolve it? How long did it take you to get your package?

 

[kirbymaster101]

what are customs?

 

[Sora de Eclaune]

None of my friends got their flash cards held up by customs, so I don't think it'll be any problem for you.

what are customs?

Customs, meaning the guys that take packages and examine them for things like drugs and bombs and other illegal things.

 

[kirbymaster101]

whoa whoa does canada care about flashcarts?

 

[Sora de Eclaune]

whoa whoa does canada care about flashcarts?

Some countries do. I don't know about Canada, though.

 

[Qtis]

whoa whoa does canada care about flashcarts?

Basically any country could stop flashcarts for copyright infringement just like pirated CDs/DVDs. The probability is pretty much close to zero since they're technically a memory card for the DS (with the MicroSD being the onboard memory). At least that's what I was told in Finland (Nordic Country in Europe). Also another one said "as long as the item is not a direct copy of something else, it can be considered legal. Regardless of code being borrowed from somewhere". Mind you, we have quite harsh copyright legislation here.. Basically what SOPA/PIPA could do is already theoretically possible here

 

[Xarsah16]

whoa whoa does canada care about flashcarts?

If you already have your cart then you shouldn't be worried. If you don't flash it in front of government officials or police, you should be more than fine It is really hard to tell the difference from a regular cart and a flash cart when you're playing it inside your DS and not drawing attention to yourself. It's much more obvious while handling the cart, but most people don't know what a flash cart is.

Also, I'm worried because if my packages do get stopped, they might not know my intentions of playing homebrew and using the microSD for backup of computer files since I carry my DS with me a lot. (It's a convenient carrier for the card.) I've just blown $60 bucks on my flash carts and microSD cards so I don't want it to be wasted.

 

[elgarta]

I've ordered 2 flash carts from China to go to my girlfriends address in America and they arrived without a hitch. It was weird actually, they were ordered right after Christmas and they didn't even get delayed too long over the new year.

Anyway as stated already, it CAN happen but chances are low as long as the package doesn't stand out as being suspicious. Give them a reason to question it and the chances will go up a bit more

 

[mysticwaterfall]

The chances of it getting seized by customs are very, very low. Ive only ever heard of 2 legit cases of this happening, out of the countless numbers f orders there has to be.

 

[Fishaman P]

Well, customs only searches 1% of all packages, and then there's the fact that the US Supreme Court has ruled flashcarts legal.

I would say about the same chances of a Nokia phone breaking by dropping it.

 

[Xarsah16]

Well, customs only searches 1% of all packages, and then there's the fact that the US Supreme Court has ruled flashcarts legal.

I would say about the same chances of a Nokia phone breaking by dropping it.

Great Nokia analogy! I laughed. Isn't that so true. Thanks And with the assurance that the carts themselves are legal, that makes me feel much more at ease. Also, the relatively low 1% of cases where it happens. Obviously, my carts are not preloaded with games, and they are completely new and sealed. I have the tracking numbers to my orders, so I will be able to see where both of them are.

 

[kirbymaster101]

Im planning to buy ackeard2i from zhuzhu china should i worry or just suck it up and order it?

 

[Fishaman P]

The only thing you should be worrying about is the vendor.

 

[EnigmaBlade]

Yeah just go ahead and order it.

 

[the_randomizer]

then there's the fact that the US Supreme Court has ruled flashcarts legal.

Source?

 

[mysticwaterfall]

then there's the fact that the US Supreme Court has ruled flashcarts legal.

Source?

There isn't a source, because this never happened. The DCMA makes circumventing copy protection illegal, except in some instances. Flashcarts are not one of them.

 

[the_randomizer]

That's what I thought. Why jailbreaking iPhones is legal but not consoles is beyond me.

 

[Xarsah16]

Oh... well then that sucks about the legality... but at least my cart is now showing up in the next city over to me on the USPS tracking. I suspect it might get here tomorrow, which is not bad, about a week and a half. Very reasonable! My other order is still in Guangzhou, but that's to be expected given the time frame. At least I know one of my carts passed through customs successfully. The other I will wait and see. It was a great choice to order from Zhuzhuchina.

 

[elmnt61]

Once on a trip to HK I was randomly selected to get my baggage scanned and searched. I had lots of ... non-legit Wii games and DS games (from hong kong actually). Luckily they didn't find them--I was sweating, to say the least. They say the penalties are pretty steep in HK!! (Especially there, because they know exactly what these things look like. In the US, they'd see a blank DVD with "zelda" written on it and probably think nothing of it.)

 

[pyromaniac123]

Customs seem to be more focused on drugs, firearms and illegal weapons.As long as you aren't importing any of those you should be fine.