Hacking How can anyone be okay with Gateway's behavior?

[JonnyMohawk]

they said that getting the GENUINE LAUNCHER MIGHT BRICK YOU CONSOLE IF IS CORRUPTED.

annoying to see how people get brainwashed to defend other people that dont even know about

The original gateway launcher has a sanity check which verifies Launcher.dat, if it has been corrupted or changed it will not pass the sanity check and fail safe stopping the boot process before any of the ARM9 code can be run.

Clone cards disabled this sanity check so they could run their modified GW Launchers, which is the reason clone cards can get bricked.

It has already been tested by multiple users that if you modify Launcher.dat by even just 1 byte the sanity check will fail and stop loading the launcher, you will be safely rebooted brick free.



TL;DR You have almost zero chance of getting bricked if you use Gateways official launcher.

 

[someonewhodied]

Your analogy sucks, and I've got a better one for you:

Person A steals sandwiches from one location, and sells them at a large markup to hungry people at another place
Person B notices this, and attempts to copy his method, and offers his sandwiches at a lower price (undercutting Person A).
Buyers are pleased at the choice, and pleased at Person Bs lower prices.
Person A is pissed that Person B is copying his method and calls person B a "theif"
One day, Person A pours an unidentified substance onto his sandwhiches before selling them
Person B notices this, and attempts to do the same thing by stealing some of Person As "substance" during the night, and pouring it onto his own sandwiches
The next day, all of Person Bs customers die from cyonide poisoning. Person A laughs and says he switched the canister
Person A says he feels no remorose at all the deaths since he says he wasn't involved directly, and says Person Bs customers were "thieves" anyway


In the above example, Person A is the asshole.

Not quite, Person B still stole the stuff from person A anyways. He's still in the wrong for not identifying the substance first.

 

[gamesquest1]

Once again nobody dies.....why don't people get this....it's a games console not a life support machine

 

[DinohScene]

3rd party/unlicensed sure. Illegal can vary with jurisdiction.

as for the second line and worry about nothing except region locking, save locking, save transfer prevention, lack of game modification and more besides.

In 99% of the cases of Temp, it's illegal.
Used solely as a pirate device.

True, without flashcards, there's no game modding no homebrew no translation patches no save backup etc.
But honestly, we survived the 80's 90's and early 00's without backup devices.
Only for disc based games, some used a second memory card to back up saves.

 

[Kupie]

Your analogy sucks, and I've got a better one for you:

Person A steals sandwiches from one location, and sells them at a large markup to hungry people at another place
Person B notices this, and attempts to copy his method, and offers his sandwiches at a lower price (undercutting Person A).
Buyers are pleased at the choice, and pleased at Person Bs lower prices.
Person A is pissed that Person B is copying his method and calls person B a "theif"
One day, Person A pours an unidentified substance onto his sandwhiches before selling them
Person B notices this, and attempts to do the same thing by stealing some of Person As "substance" during the night, and pouring it onto his own sandwiches
The next day, all of Person Bs customers die from cyonide poisoning. Person A laughs and says he switched the canister
Person A says he feels no remorose at all the deaths since he says he wasn't involved directly, and says Person Bs customers were "thieves" anyway

In the above example, Person A is the asshole.

Too many sandwiches.

 

[gamesquest1]

Also you imply they copied his methods...they didn't they actually stole his ingredients.....unfortunately they stole his rat poison too that was stored near the ingredients

 

[FAST6191]

In 99% of the cases of Temp, it's illegal.
Used solely as a pirate device.

True, without flashcards, there's no game modding no homebrew no translation patches no save backup etc.
But honestly, we survived the 80's 90's and early 00's without backup devices.
Only for disc based games, some used a second memory card to back up saves.

Though I surely have to take intent into account most laws seem to come the other way and say things like "substantial non infringing uses".

On backup devices, by which I assume we are talking about saves, once saves became a thing and passwords started to die the devices popped up. Hell it was a good chunk of what Datel, Codebreakers and the like were doing throughout that time so you could even get such things in a real world shop.

 

[sonic2756]

The original gateway launcher has a sanity check which verifies Launcher.dat, if it has been corrupted or changed it will not pass the sanity check and fail safe stopping the boot process before any of the ARM9 code can be run.

Clone cards disabled this sanity check so they could run their modified GW Launchers, which is the reason clone cards can get bricked.

It has already been tested by multiple users that if you modify Launcher.dat by even just 1 byte the sanity check will fail and stop loading the launcher, you will be safely rebooted brick free.



TL;DR You have almost zero chance of getting bricked if you use Gateways official launcher.

Someone please give this person a cookie.

 

[DinohScene]

Though I surely have to take intent into account most laws seem to come the other way and say things like "substantial non infringing uses".

On backup devices, by which I assume we are talking about saves, once saves became a thing and passwords started to die the devices popped up. Hell it was a good chunk of what Datel, Codebreakers and the like were doing throughout that time so you could even get such things in a real world shop.

Those old Save cards which would connect via USB and or serial adapter and such?
Yeh I also remember those.
Cheat disks where also being sold in gamestores.
Never bought a cheating device tho ._.

 

[w0dash]

I am trying to think if I have observed it before for anything, I have certainly not seen it in flash cart circles yet. There were some rumblings about similar things to happen in car automotive diagnostics circles (various types of IDS if memory serves) but even there that would be closer to the first type.

There is a similiar case (not sure if this is what you were talking about) with the car diagnostic software + adapter VCDS, where many counterfeits from china exist.

The original software checks if you have a authentic dongle and tries to brick any fake device by overwriting the firmware of the internal FTDI seriell-to-usb converter.

 

[Flame]

but its people end of the day who makes Flashcarts, when you look back at history people do some bad/crazy things for the smallest things.


Flashcart scene is one shady scene end of the day. humans are scumbags by nature. you do the math.



welcome to life.

 

[gamesquest1]

but its people end of the day who makes Flashcarts, when you look back at history people do some bad/crazy things for the smallest things.


Flashcart scene is one shady scene end of the day. humans are scumbags by nature. you do the math.



welcome to life.

Are you actually bender....you sound like him too

 

[Maxternal]

Your analogy sucks, and I've got a better one for you:

Person A steals sandwiches from one location, and sells them at a large markup to hungry people at another place
Person B notices this, and attempts to copy his method, and offers his sandwiches at a lower price (undercutting Person A).
Buyers are pleased at the choice, and pleased at Person Bs lower prices.
Person A is pissed that Person B is copying his method and calls person B a "theif"
One day, Person A pours an unidentified substance onto his sandwhiches before selling them
Person B notices this, and attempts to do the same thing by stealing some of Person As "substance" during the night, and pouring it onto his own sandwiches
The next day, all of Person Bs customers die from cyonide poisoning. Person A laughs and says he switched the canister
Person A says he feels no remorse at all the deaths since he says he wasn't involved directly, and says Person Bs customers were "thieves" anyway

In the above example, Person A is the asshole.

Now, you just need to add the fact that neither sandwich vender was licensed and these sandwiches also have an ingredient that makes people super stealthy and most (but perhaps not all) were using these sandwich powers to become super thieves to steal ... ummm ... more .. umm .. normal sandwiches (the ones made by licensed game developers sandwich companies) since this is what the sandwiches were advertized for in the first place.
.... and then your analogy will be perfect.

This does not change the fact of how completely irresponsible and uncaring it was to put the code in there and then not really be clear about exactly what would happen to the customers of those who stole their code.

It does, however, add to the moral drama plaguing this situation.

 

[FAST6191]

There is a similiar case (not sure if this is what you were talking about) with the car diagnostic software + adapter VCDS, where many counterfeits from china exist.

The original software checks if you have a authentic dongle and tries to brick any fake device by overwriting the firmware of the internal FTDI seriell-to-usb converter.

I had not heard of the VAG stuff messing things around before, Ford and Jag's IDS stuff was what I was thinking off more but I have not confirmed it (it is cheap enough to go legit and I am certainly not going to be the one to kill an IDS unit). That said most VAG stuff I deal with it is either diagnostics manuals or goes over the legit bluetooth connectors. As the bluetooth stuff is the sole part of my IT existence that requires me to hunt down and configure old and specific versions of Java it can still die in a fire for all I care though.

 

[pedreters2]

Also you imply they copied his methods...they didn't they actually stole his ingredients.....unfortunately they stole his rat poison too that was stored near the ingredients

ROFL. This is probably the best one.

Wouldn't it be awesome if they release a way to fix the brick but only for GW users?

 

[Maxternal]

ROFL. This is probably the best one.

Wouldn't it be awesome if they release a way to fix the brick but only for GW users?

...effectively forcing competitor's customers to switch.
Sounds like ransomware to me.

... but there being ANY way to fix it would be nice, really.

 

[gamefan5]

Sounds like ransomware to me.

... but there being ANY way to fix it would be nice, really.

It's not impossible, apparently. (Said by the hackers) But it is extremely hard.

 

[Huntereb]

Why would they release a fix when it "Apparently" only effects users of clone cards? They already said they don't give a shit about anyone not using their products.

 

[Arras]

Also you imply they copied his methods...they didn't they actually stole his ingredients.....unfortunately they stole his rat poison too that was stored near the ingredients

One thing to note though. He KNEW they were going to steal his ingredients and placed the rat poison there on purpose.

 

[metroid maniac]

If the launcher simply hung on a bad check, it'd be completely reasonable.
Gateway's entitled to make their launcher simply not run. They're not entitled to cause active damage.