Is anyone else worried

[Ondrashek06]

...that the next console will have an eFuse-based approach to homebrew?

Look at Samsung Knox - it's a tiny eFuse on the motherboard that trips when any unofficial firmware is detected, and once tripped, certain system features permanently lock and it's impossible to use them again unless you buy a new phone/motherboard.

Despite various efforts, no one managed to "spoof the fuse" and make the features work again, nor make firmware that doesn't trip the fuse.

Obviously, I have no idea about the differences between phone and console homebrewing so it might be impossible for Nintendo to use a similar approach, but such a thing might really thwart the homebrew scene.

 

[lordelan]

I don't think this is happening.

Also it's not comparable. Samsung detects whether super user aka root (e.g. Magisk) has been flashed and/or whether the bootloader has been unlocked which is even officially allowed by them, otherwise they'd lock the bootloader and exploits would have to be discovered. They just make you lose your warranty if you do it (they tell you so though) and yes they burn a fuse and prevent you from using their knox-exclusive features then.

As things currently work with hekate and Atmosphère, it's a little different. Nothing is flashed to the eMMC (otherwise we'd have a real coldboot btw). Instead a payload is sent every single time you coldboot the console, no matter if you use a dongle or modchip for this. Then the CFW is applied "on the fly" when booting Atmosphère.

This is how I understood things so take that with a grain of salt. People may correct me if I'm wrong.

Nintendo (or Nvidia/AMD) could of course come up with something else to burn fuses when something like hekate or a CFW is launched on the Switch 2 but then again people may find a way around it and if they don't, the worst case would be that it can't be used online any longer (something I don't really care about tbh).

Just my two cents. Only time will tell.

 

[linuxares]

KnoxPatch and tada... The fuse very much been spoofed.

No I don't think they will do any of that. And most likely could be defeated.

 

[Veho]

Companies are very excited about implementing remote shutdown mechanisms in everything, but legislation is slowly turning its eyes towards the whole issue, with the right to repair, right to software, ownership VS licensing issue and what not, and I think that actually remotely detonating someone's console for running no-no software will soon become illegal in some parts of the world, and consoles with that feature might have to be recalled/replaced at some point.
Whether Nintendo will cram the feature in before the window closes, or give up because they don't want to get their dong caught, remains to be seen.

 

[lordelan]

will soon become illegal in some parts of the world

This.
It's not as easy for a company as "let's do it this way and all problems are solved" if they are active globally, which obviously applies to Nintendo.
They can't do shit without an additional effort to make sure things behave differently in different countries to match individual laws. So I doubt they would go down this route.

 

[Payne]

and I think that actually remotely detonating someone's console for running no-no software will soon become illegal in some parts of the world

Reading this fixed my day

 

[linkinworm]

efuses don't really matter for homebrew, they traditionally just stop downgrades, and if theres no exploit available for X OS version, it wont make a difference anyway to need to get back to an exploitable firmware. Nintendo could go all out like xbox 360 and xbox one in which case modchips would be the only way forward regardless. the only reason the switch was so easy to hack in the 1st place was because of a silly backdoor for their recovery mode that they 100% will not make again. If anything thell make you need to tear down the entire console to get to such mode, and then again attach some sort of modchip to access.

And now that they have flash carts to contend with yet again, you can bet they are beefing up all points of security purely to stop piracy. The real hackers don't care about piracy, meaning modchips will probaly end up too expensive anyway

homebrew for switch 2 could need a mirical. if the rumors are true and the joycoins will just be magnetic, they remove a data entry point there. possibly only leaving the USB port as any physical access. and the only use for that would be to supply power hdmi and ethernet they could just lock out everything else. the card port is also an entry point but again only useful for piracy

to conclude, don't worry abuot it, homebrew will probably take years if at all if they close off all useful entry points as no ones found a point of access other than launch switches and modchips.

 

[DragonMals]

Worried about--

Oh. I thought this was an off topic thread.
Stuff like the thread title really confuses me up sometimes...

Is anyone else worried that the next console will have an eFuse-based approach to homebrew?

I ain't worried about anything at all, because no console is unhackabke. You might say the Xbox 360, but that is hack able provided that you know some soldering skills.

 

[Deleted member 702243]

it's just a fuse, as long as you control the software then you can just replace the fuse check or skip it entirely. which is what we're already doing on the switch