Hacking Gateway update regarding rumors

[Queno138]

As much as I don't like what happened, and GW has to blame, this is my answer:

GW didn't brick devices, clone carts did.

GW is paranoid, and installed an alarm that will summon the police in 15 minutes,
and has 5 bull terriers and 3 huskies that will attack at any time.

The gates also auto locks with spikes guarding the boundary.

While these safety measures can potentially kill GW's children,
it is GW's responsibility to educate their children to not trip the alarm. (telling users not use clone carts).

It is clone cart's fault for not checking the perimeter of the house, disabling the alarm, etc. (did not detect kill code, did not remove kill code)

No owner will publicly tell thieves their security measures right? (GW won't say there is a kill code, or else thieves will circumvent it)

At the end, clone carts charged for a half priced service,
where they didn't even properly check the code.

How naive must they be, to leech off other people's work,
and expect no security measures to be put in place?


I feel really, really sad that users got bricked, but it's all collateral damage.


Let this be a lesson for all of us:

As long as we are using a service not created by us (especially not regulated by law),
we are forever at their whim.

Product updates, kill codes, stopping of service, everything.

Stop being entitled pricks and do a proper (and impartial) analysis.


(For the record, I don't mean to offend anyone, just saying..)

 

[gamesquest1]

It seems most people are starting to get the picture after cutting through the "GRRRRRR Y GATEZWAY STOP MY CLONE" Bull
Yeah the methods where very extreme but let's face it making bugs and sending messages to people telling them to just give up on their clone would never work unless their was some sort of threat that couldn't be undone by the clone workers....you can't remove the fear of this happening again....even if you remove the code the threat that gateway can do what they want remains

 

[MrOldboy]

As for Normatt, according to this topic he knew about this bricking code, and still released. I feel sorry for those who bricked as a result, because it wasn't Gateway that dicked them over, it was as good as Normatt himself INTENTIONALLY bricking them. HE chose to ignore it people, even if it was unintentionally. Don't blame gateway for having the code, blame him for releasing, whether for arrogance to recieve recognition, or laziness. Or maybe he wanted to ruin Gateway's image entirely for personal reasons? I dunno.

Regardless, I trust Gateway. As a business they went to extremes, but I doubt they'd intentionally screw over their users. THink about that. I can't blame them on a logical level. They screwed over competitors and players who tried to support them, the fact that Normatt goofed up was all his bad, he should have been more careful. While I feel sorry for both screwed over parties, the former at least will potentially need to support Nintendo and buy a new console altogether, so indirectly, nintendo benefits.

The issue with Normmatt's launcher is that Gateway knew that his launcher was modified, knew it could trigger the brick code. How can you trust a company that knowingly released an update that they knew would be used by Normmatt and then used by legit gateway customers. Customers who already bought your product. That is insane and no reasonable company would do such a thing. They didn't explicitly warn customers to not used Normmatt's launcher until bricks were aready being reported.

I already ordered GW card a few days ago and it arrives in two days so I'm already on the GW ship. But I do not trust them and before I use any future updates form them I'll have to wait until everyone scrubs the code they put out for anything nefarious.

 

[Aurora Wright]

It seems they don't know business basics
Exploitable consoles are getting rarer and rarer, instead of finding a way to "redirect" the few owners of said systems to their product (even the fact itself that Pokemon and AC wouldn't have worked with clones because their hardware can't be updated would have been an HUGE incentive for that), they destroy the exploitable consoles!

Also, I went close to bricking, having used normmatt's mod to use my old 3DS again, and I'll never support anyone who puts such hidden bombs in their code (even if it's never triggered, etc).

 

[Master X]

Can I just point out how funny this entire situiation is?

You know... About pirates not wanting people to steal their work?

 

[gamesquest1]

The issue with Normmatt's launcher is that Gateway knew that his launcher was modified, knew it could trigger the brick code. How can you trust a company that knowingly released an update that they knew would be used by Normmatt and then used by legit gateway customers. Customers who already bought your product. That is insane and no reasonable company would do such a thing. They didn't explicitly warn customers to not used Normmatt's launcher until bricks were aready being reported.

I already ordered GW card a few days ago and it arrives in two days so I'm already on the GW ship. But I do not trust them and before I use any future updates form them I'll have to wait until everyone scrubs the code they put out for anything nefarious.

At this point only gateway have made a safe launcher, normmatt who is one of the dev's who would be removing the code, was also one of the devs who "removed" the code in his region free mod.......that didn't go down to well did it?

The thing is gateway at no point said that hacks and mods of their firmware where safe, it not like they said YAY mormmatt made us a region free mod!!!!everyone go and use it!. It's surely the dev responsible for the mods duty to make sure it's safe before releasing.......do you think he went and asked gateway to check over his code before releasing?

 

[bkifft]

I'd say all respect I had for them disappeard but that doesn't mean much since I don't have much respect for them in the first place.
(and that's not even considering what would happen if that file got corrupted somehow in one of their "legit" hardware, since, you know, memory cards DO corrupt often on non-save power-offs ie battery runs out)

Just asking something out of curiosity: when the kill-switch is triggered after the conditions are fulfilled (ie. "this is not a GW card"), when does it actually brick the console? After a given period of time? In a random way or following a pattern/probability?
Thanks a lot for any answers.

As it stands now the launcher.dat gets checked at least twice:

first as a sanity check ("is the launcher defect?"), if it fails it will just stall (black screen, no brick). This check was disabled by the cloners and the region free patch.

second time for the brick check with a hint of RNG: "is the launcher modified? if so let's roll a D20. rolled a single digit? welcome to brickville, population you". this check was not patched out yet.

there could still be more evil stuff hidden.

the date seems to come into play as it's used as seed for the pseudo random number generator, on certain dates/times it's just more likely that the brick will trigger (aka you roll a single digit on the aforementioned D20).

 

[Axel Killer]

The issue with Normmatt's launcher is that Gateway knew that his launcher was modified, knew it could trigger the brick code. How can you trust a company that knowingly released an update that they knew would be used by Normmatt and then used by legit gateway customers. Customers who already bought your product. That is insane and no reasonable company would do such a thing. They didn't explicitly warn customers to not used Normmatt's launcher until bricks were aready being reported.

I already ordered GW card a few days ago and it arrives in two days so I'm already on the GW ship. But I do not trust them and before I use any future updates form them I'll have to wait until everyone scrubs the code they put out for anything nefarious.

wasnt normmatt's launcher relessed after gw 2.0b?

 

[cateater1]

woh, i'm gonna come back in a week when everythings calmed down. Just sold my 3dsxl anyway but i still got to offload my gateway card(s) cough trade forum cough. great timing.

 

[Skelletonike]

Well I never really liked gateway since I've been against piracy on the 3DS since I got a 3DS on it's release day.
I pirated way too many games in the DS days, to make up for it I've been buying all my 3DS games (and the DS ones that I liked). However this makes me dislike gateway all the more, to begin with the flashcart they made has only supported piracy so far, so, since in a way they are profiting from people that don't want to spend money in games (for the most part), they have no right for critizing others, it's like the pot calling the kettle black. z.z

Heck, the most interesting thing that was released was Normatt's region-free patch, which they had no problem in partially blaming too, without offering any useful insights or solution for the problem that they themselves created.

 

[Axel Killer]

At this point only gateway have made a safe launcher, normmatt who is one of the dev's who would be removing the code, was also one of the devs who "removed" the code in his region free mod.......that didn't go down to well did it?

The thing is gateway at no point said that hacks and mods of their firmware where safe, it not like they said YAY mormmatt made us a region free mod!!!!everyone go and use it!. It's surely the dev responsible for the mods duty to make sure it's safe before releasing.......do you think he went and asked gateway to check over his code before releasing?

region free mod was really stupid and i didnt understand it at all why would you want to do that to your 3ds lol

 

[gamesquest1]

They did release some useful info......don't use any mods of the gateway launcher......couldn't get more useful than that

 

[Queno138]

The issue with Normmatt's launcher is that Gateway knew that his launcher was modified, knew it could trigger the brick code. How can you trust a company that knowingly released an update that they knew would be used by Normmatt and then used by legit gateway customers. Customers who already bought your product. That is insane and no reasonable company would do such a thing. They didn't explicitly warn customers to not used Normmatt's launcher until bricks were aready being reported.

I already ordered GW card a few days ago and it arrives in two days so I'm already on the GW ship. But I do not trust them and before I use any future updates form them I'll have to wait until everyone scrubs the code they put out for anything nefarious.

Well technically you don't need GW to use Normmatt's launcher, as long as you know how to use a DS save game exploit,
or have a DS flashcart that still works.

I think the entire Normmatt situation was just bad timing;
He probably didn't know there was a kill code until recent events and he did a check.

A kind gesture (to create region free) gone wrong.

Shit happens. (Murphy's law)

 

[temp1312]

Am I 100% sure that bricks will not occur on unmodified GW? no.

That is the point. Even if GW team says:

We can reassure our users that our official (unmodified) Launcher firmware is free from such memory corruption and is 100% safe to use.

If you really bricked your console with a genuine GW card & launcher, you might be treated as a "clone producer claiming to be Gateway customers".
I don't expect GW could show regret about their extreme action, just want them to protect their users 100% for sure.

 

[MrOldboy]

At this point only gateway have made a safe launcher, normmatt who is one of the dev's who would be removing the code, was also one of the devs who "removed" the code in his region free mod.......that didn't go down to well did it?

The thing is gateway at no point said that hacks and mods of their firmware where safe, it not like they said YAY mormmatt made us a region free mod!!!!everyone go and use it!. It's surely the dev responsible for the mods duty to make sure it's safe before releasing.......do you think he went and asked gateway to check over his code before releasing?

Everyone is at fault here. That is my point. You can't trust gateway because they knew this could harm their own customers. Normmatt because he apparantly knew about the brick code and still released his launcher. And the clones, because, well they're clones and at first people even though it was because of shitty programming. The GW brick code was a conspiracy theory early on.

In the end as a new GW customer myself, I feel a bit betrayed. Sure its within GW's rights to protect their product, but to not warn customers beforehand is why people are pissed. They could have easily put out a news post that said "Hey, Normmatt's launcher is f'ing up over here, do not use it with the GW card." They didn't need to reveal they put the hidden brick code in. Or gone a much safer route than this.

 

[gamesquest1]

People seem to be grabbing the wrong end of the stick as usual........not one of these mods or edited launchers was released by gateway......gateway didn't release any edited/modded/hacked launcher files, so they didn't cause any bricks, is it their responsibility to go and hunt down every possible person who might edit their launcher and tell them not to?

 

[Axel Killer]

That is the point. Even if GW team says:


If you really bricked your console with a genuine GW card & launcher, you might be treated as a "clone producer claiming to be Gateway customers".
I don't expect GW could show regret about their extreme action, just want them to protect their users 100% for sure.

i didnt get bricked yet

 

[Axel Killer]

playing my 3ds with GW 2.0b emd GW7.1 occasionally i would get this grey screen but it fixes its self but mines is unmodified didnt touch nothing at all

 

[Arras]

region free mod was really stupid and i didnt understand it at all why would you want to do that to your 3ds lol

...because you want your 3DS to be region free? Without pirating games?

 

[Cyberdrive]

Why can't Gateway hire literate shills.