I personally think that there is no real "hack". People are just using the 4.1-4.5 exploit that we all know, and they just modify the Loader.dat on their SD cards. And then they come on some forums and OH MY GOD i'm such a god, look at me, I hacked the 3DS!!
Nah. We need real proofs.
even if it is using the 4.1-4.5 exploit, it is running homebrew and that is still more than what can publicly be done today. if someone releases a version of the hack that we can use without gateway, that is still a huge piece of progress.