Hot: Wii Homebrew Loader!

[adamrgolf]

Epona is a trojan horse!

 

[jalaneme]

Yeah, except for the code that loads gamesaves is on the disc itself.

Also, a blacklist such as the one used for Datel products isn't that much of a technological feat, and wouldn't work in this case without banning Zelda entirely.


i see, i thought the gamesave was the exploit, not the disc itself, and i'm sure i read somewhere the person who did this exploit used a dol file or something to load the homebrew, and this is exactly what nintendo blocked in the action replays (before the wiikey update re enabled it again)

also if the homebrew exploit is on the disc nintendo can still change the actual data on the disc, they did that with Wii sports, there is 2 different versions of it, if nintendo do try to block this exploit it will be like the gta liberty city stories umd for psp where there are 2 versions of the game.

I've never seen jalaneme post in a topic without trying to crap all over it. I know you like being as negative as possible, but think before you type.Â

i'm not trying to be negative at all, i'm just saying don't get too excited yet because nintendo could block this exploit.

 

[dualscreenman]

How are you going to patch a game executable on a non-rewritable disk?

I'd be more worried about them making a new version that doesn't have this exploit.


they wouldn't need to change the code on the disc itself, they will change how the gamesaves are loaded and saved, also they can change how the Wii system works, nintendo were fast enough to block the freeloaders and action replays on the Wii, so there is no question as what nintendo can do, just don't keep your hopes up yet.


Saving and loading functions are on the disc which can't be patched. It would be quite a hassle if teh game had to refer to the bios every time it wanted to read data from a save file, no?

It is still possible to get around this of course. Nintendo could make an update that won't boot old copies of TP and send out free replacement discs. Not likely, but technically possible.


I've never seen jalaneme post in a topic without trying to crap all over it. I know you like being as negative as possible, but think before you type.

They could force the Wii to scan Zelda (or all) save files to search for modification before booting the game. They could cripple this one method by only scanning a Zelda save to see if Epona's name is appropriate but I'm sure they'd be able to come up with something, a way to encrypt saves so that modification could be detected perhaps? Maybe not for all games but disabling this exploit is totally within Nintendo's power!

I'm not trying to "crap all over" the thread either - I thought before I typed.

Well, a save file is going to be different every time you save, so searching for any sort of modification wouldn't work.
Searching for changes to Epona's name every time the Wii is booted may be the only way that NIntendo could stop the hack, though tbh, I just get this feeling that they won't do that (I know, neither logical nor debate material.)
Encryption wouldn't work since you can't patch the game, and the game wouldn't be expecting encryption.

@jalaneme
The savefile carries some bad data that triggers faulty loading code on the disc. That's the best way to think of it.

 

[MaHe]

While the exploit might be patchable, they can't do it until you manually update the firmware ...

 

[arctic_flame]

Load the supplied demo.elf file onto the SD card, starting at sector 2048; in other words, the 1 MB mark. On a Unix system (Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, etc), you can accomplish this with a command such as 'dd if=demo.elf of=/dev/diskname bs=512 seek=2048'.
Ok then, how exactly does one go about this using Windows?

Excuse my ignorance, but I'd like to give it a try! Will it work with other ELF files or only tetris?



http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/

I recently switched back to windows for some things, and couldn't bear the loss of such tools.


QUOTE(dualscreenman @ Feb 20 2008, 12:01 AM)Yeah, except for the code that loads gamesaves is on the disc itself.

Also, a blacklist such as the one used for Datel products isn't that much of a technological feat, and wouldn't work in this case without banning Zelda entirely.

Not really. You have to copy the game save from the SD card to the Wii. Just block the exploit's signature then. done.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Yep not to mention this already doesn't work on every copy of zelda tp.


Side note: I wonder how many people went out and bought zelda twilight princess and an SD gecko so they could play tetris..

 

[Shuny]

How are you going to patch a game executable on a non-rewritable disk?

I'd be more worried about them making a new version that doesn't have this exploit.

Just download an old TLOZ TP Iso

 

[dualscreenman]

@arctic_flame
Change the Epona string to something different, then.Since the hack requires a longer-than-normal string of characters, there are a near infinite number strings that would crash the game. As such, there would be near infinite save file signatures that would have to be blocked for that to work.

 

[Keylogger]

You can use this tool to convert any DOL file to an ELF file.

GCOS and EMUs should work I think

 

[Sinkhead]

@arctic_flame
Change the Epona string to something different, then.Since the hack requires a longer-than-normal string of characters, there are a near infinite number strings that would crash the game. As such, there would be near infinite save file signatures that would have to be blocked for that to work.

Can't they just check if the name is longer than a certain number of characters?

 

[jpxdude]

i'm trying to put the tetris.elf (renamed to demo.elf) on the SD card using the dd command in Terminal (OS X)

I have the elf file on the OS X desktop, and mounted my SD card called 'poo' When I try to put the DD command as specified in the README file of the hack, it won't work, either spits a 'Permission Denied' or 'Is a directory' error..

Can anyone help out please?

 

[dualscreenman]

@sinkhead
Yeah, I already conceded that this is probably the only possible way that the hack could be patched.

But, as I said in my previous post, I don't really think that the big N will take such measures to prevent a hack that poses no piracy threat (as of yet, heh heh). Something tells me that they just wouldn't go to the bother of modifying the SD Wii copying mechanism to check for a particular malformed save file. I believe they'd just be more likely to fix the exploit in newer versions of TP.

Eh, I don't know. I suppose we'll see what comes of this. Even if they do patch the copying mechanism, this will only stop us if we update. Also, all that is needed is for another exploit to be found. A few trifling firmware patches never stopped PSP homebrew! >:3

So in conclusion, long live Wii homebrew!

 

[webjedi]

So to do this Wii hack I need to find a horse and talk to some man?!?! Number one - will any horse do? Any special breed? And must it be a "man" or will a young boy do?

Thanks for any insight.

 

[dualscreenman]

The exploit/savefile will put you right where you need to be.

 

[KirbyPink]

I don´t get it? What does this actually do?

I read it 5 times and i still don´t get it. Anyone mind explain it?

 

[imgod22222]

So how did they write the tetris (i havent tested it yet) did they use the leaked wii SDK or do they have their own library or are they using the PPC library thats out for GC?

 

[superrob]

Time to get myself a Gamecube SD card reader

 

[cubin']

So does this mean we'll be seeing a fair bit of homebrew? Or are their eXtreme restrictions?

 

[superrob]

Well max file size of 8MB

 

[jpxdude]

i'm trying to put the tetris.elf (renamed to demo.elf) on the SD card using the dd command in Terminal (OS X)

I have the elf file on the OS X desktop, and mounted my SD card called 'poo'  When I try to put the DD command as specified in the README file of the hack, it won't work, either spits a 'Permission Denied' or 'Is a directory' error..

Can anyone help out please?

Has anyone actually tried to run the Tetris, or even the demo elf? I'm attempting to do so as per the instructions in the README, but I can't get the file (tetris.elf/demo.elf) dumped onto the SD card. I've tried using Terminal with the DD command. Anyone else had any success/words of wisdom they'd like to share?

-Edit: I have a Zelda working with the hack itself, and an SD Gecko. Just need to know how to DD the file to the SD card. Thanks in advance for any help!

-+Edit: Nevermind! I got it working using DD for windows eventually, the tetris.elf works brilliantly

This is the real deal! I can't wait to see what else comes next