Hacking Is Sky3DS unblockable?

[MelonGx]

Nintendo temporary doesn't choose blocking Sky3DS, but chooses banning Sky3DS user's console.

 

[4ur0r]

Nintendo temporary doesn't choose blocking Sky3DS, but chooses banning Sky3DS user's console.

Yeah 'cause Gateway users didn't got banned, right?

 

[SolarisHeights]

if nintendo block sky3ds, you can still use it just as long as u dont update the firmware right?

 

[CyrilCommando]

Yeah 'cause Gateway users didn't got banned, right?

I think most Gateway users dumped their own games, so assuming Ninty uses headers to check, they couldn't have gotten banned.

Nintendo temporary doesn't choose blocking Sky3DS, but chooses banning Sky3DS user's console.

That assumes they can detect the device itself.

 

[tony_2018]

I think most Gateway users dumped their own games, so assuming Ninty uses headers to check, they couldn't have gotten banned.




That assumes they can detect the device itself.

We do have the ability to dump our own roms and pull headers with another app. But for some reason those who got banned, while using a GW, didn't think about the issue and didn't take those extra steps.

 

[phr3ak]

For what i know, companies have priorities when it comes to things like this. For instance, MS stopped banning people with softmods. Both XB360 softmods and Sky3DS only boot 1:1 games. They don't disrupt online gaming, you can't run any hack or cheat. But when it comes to things like RGH or GW, you're really messing with the system and could potentially mess with the legit online gamers. That's my hypothesis.

 

[Oishikatta]

For what i know, companies have priorities when it comes to things like this. For instance, MS stopped banning people with softmods. Both XB360 softmods and Sky3DS only boot 1:1 games. They don't disrupt online gaming, you can't run any hack or cheat. But when it comes to things like RGH or GW, you're really messing with the system and could potentially mess with the legit online gamers. That's my hypothesis.

Sky3ds is the majority of the bans. N* just wants the pirates to go away.

 

[Localhorst86]

This is just a theory and I have no way to back this up since Google wouldn't give me the answers I needed:

I believe the sky3ds is blockable but Nintendo wants to make sure they can reliably distinguish between a flashcart and a legit gamecartridge.

I assume the 3DS games use very fast flash storage for the ROM. "User grade" flash storage (as can be found in USB sticks and SD cards) behaves, presumably (again, a theory as I couldn't find any real numbers on this), behave a lot different in terms of access times transfer speed etc.

So by this assumption one might guess Ninty could do very basic timing checks on the inserted game to distinguish between their own flash and regular SD flash. Iirc, MS did something similar back on the 360 to detect iExtreme firmware on the drives. Here, it also took MS time to collect data to really make sure the timing discrepancies are not related to a faulty/worn drive or similar factors, presumably Nintendo is also doing just that. You don't want bad publicity because you accidentally false positively identified a bunch of kids' consoles and banned their device.

Again, just speculating out of the blue here. I live pretty close to NoE headquarters (~10km), maybe I could just walk in there and ask them (j/k)

 

[gamesquest1]

*snip*
I live pretty close to NoE headquarters (~10km), maybe I could just walk in there and ask them (j/k)

I think maybe you need Reggie Fils-A-Mech

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

I think most Gateway users dumped their own games

Looool.

 

[Kugz]

Looool.

I would say the strong majority of Gateway users are using public releases or CIA's, its a piracy tool just the same as SKY.

 

[CyrilCommando]

Looool.

lol. I should've never posted in this thread.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

I would say the strong majority of Gateway users are using public releases or CIA's, its a piracy tool just the same as SKY.

but but but homebrew! Its not piracy!

Yeah, nobody is buying Gateway for homebrew. Or 'backups'. Yes we all play the game of pretending we are on the up and up, but I'd be amazed if 1% of gateway users use only their own rom dumps. Or a single dump of their own.


I've said in another thread that Sky3ds can be blocked with two characters at the beginning of the 3ds's firmware code.

/*

No more sky3ds. So block. So easy.

But seriously though. I'm sure it can be blocked. Anything can be blocked. It might not be feasible to block it. Nintendo might just be that incompetent (look at the Wii). The only thing we know for sure is that it hasn't been blocked yet. Which is a great sign for longevity.

 

[Duo8]

This is just a theory and I have no way to back this up since Google wouldn't give me the answers I needed:

I believe the sky3ds is blockable but Nintendo wants to make sure they can reliably distinguish between a flashcart and a legit gamecartridge.

I assume the 3DS games use very fast flash storage for the ROM. "User grade" flash storage (as can be found in USB sticks and SD cards) behaves, presumably (again, a theory as I couldn't find any real numbers on this), behave a lot different in terms of access times transfer speed etc.

So by this assumption one might guess Ninty could do very basic timing checks on the inserted game to distinguish between their own flash and regular SD flash. Iirc, MS did something similar back on the 360 to detect iExtreme firmware on the drives. Here, it also took MS time to collect data to really make sure the timing discrepancies are not related to a faulty/worn drive or similar factors, presumably Nintendo is also doing just that. You don't want bad publicity because you accidentally false positively identified a bunch of kids' consoles and banned their device.

Again, just speculating out of the blue here. I live pretty close to NoE headquarters (~10km), maybe I could just walk in there and ask them (j/k)

They probably won't do speed checks. They don't allow devs to do that themselves AFAIK.

 

[elmoemo]

I think if the Sky3ds was so easily blocked. Nintendo would have blocked them already.Instead, Nintendo has only blocked online users for now. Which means they haven't figured out how to block the Sky3ds directly yet.

Unless Nintendo created sky3ds with a expiry bomb, to make extra money, wait until they've made enough then the bomb goes off and the cards are useless. Win win, Nintendo made money off sky 3ds, now that it doesn't work people have to buy retail (also if they wanted they could have it render the console useless as well making even more money from hardware sales)

 

[Kohmei]

If I was Nintendo, and I could block Sky3DS, I would implement the block such that it wasn't immediately obvious that the block was even in place.

e.g. Perhaps 9.3+ already has the block, but it's only set to become active at some given date, let's say March 15th. That way people erroneously assume 9.3+ to be safe and upgrade to it, when in fact it is not safe. Without knowing about the upcoming blackout, Nintendo would catch most exploitable consoles in their nets, whereas if they blocked it outright, people would simply not upgrade to the blocked firmware.

 

[0xFFFF]

Sky3DS is like Nazi's Enigma. Everyone thinks it's unbreakable, but then only an handful of people (like Turing) will be able to break it open. However, if Turing and his colleagues would disclose the newly found method to decrypt Germany's messages to the government, it would only take a weekend for Germany (in this case, Sky3DS) to change their design and become, again, "unbreakable".

 

[shinyquagsire23]

but but but homebrew! Its not piracy!

Yeah, nobody is buying Gateway for homebrew. Or 'backups'. Yes we all play the game of pretending we are on the up and up, but I'd be amazed if 1% of gateway users use only their own rom dumps. Or a single dump of their own.

Majority yes, but there are some very valid selling points besides piracy which enticed me into grabbing one personally. For me, I'm a ROM Hacker at heart. Homebrew is all fun and stuff, but my passion is in reverse engineering and modifying other works. I have a Fire Red disassembly project going on and I know the GBA Pokemon engines almost by heart at this point. sky3DS doesn't let me do much of any ROM modification, CFW is somewhat limited (and I didn't have a knowledgable way to downgrade and use it up until GW actually released), but Gateway gives me enough utility to actually really dig into 3DS ROMs, and I've been loving it so far.

I've also found Gateway's ROM dumping function to be quite useful as well. So far I've managed to take my copies of Cubic Ninja and Alpha Sapphire, dump them and have them fully decrypted. So far all I've really used the red cart for is testing my modified ROMs while I tweak repacking (faster to copy to an SD than install a .cia). Region free is definitely a big ticket item for me since I want to use the smaller N3DS and love it already, and .cias have been useful for dumping and researching saves. Of course, I'm probably in the vast minority here, but there's a lot of nifty things even for the end user, like translation patches which will probably be huge later.

 

[gamesquest1]

Majority yes, but there are some very valid selling points besides piracy which enticed me into grabbing one personally. For me, I'm a ROM Hacker at heart. Homebrew is all fun and stuff, but my passion is in reverse engineering and modifying other works. I have a Fire Red disassembly project going on and I know the GBA Pokemon engines almost by heart at this point. sky3DS doesn't let me do much of any ROM modification, CFW is somewhat limited (and I didn't have a knowledgable way to downgrade and use it up until GW actually released), but Gateway gives me enough utility to actually really dig into 3DS ROMs, and I've been loving it so far.

I've also found Gateway's ROM dumping function to be quite useful as well. So far I've managed to take my copies of Cubic Ninja and Alpha Sapphire, dump them and have them fully decrypted. So far all I've really used the red cart for is testing my modified ROMs while I tweak repacking (faster to copy to an SD than install a .cia). Region free is definitely a big ticket item for me since I want to use the smaller N3DS and love it already, and .cias have been useful for dumping and researching saves. Of course, I'm probably in the vast minority here, but there's a lot of nifty things even for the end user, like translation patches which will probably be huge later.

pretty much the same deal for me, ofc people will be like yeah yeah ROMZ, but in all honesty the only thing i really want from gateway is the extra stuff, rom modifications, homebrew save hacking etc, in my eyes thats the most important feature of the card

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

e.g. Perhaps 9.3+ already has the block, but it's only set to become active at some given date, let's say March 15th. That way people erroneously assume 9.3+ to be safe and upgrade to it, when in fact it is not safe. Without knowing about the upcoming blackout, Nintendo would catch most exploitable consoles in their nets, whereas if they blocked it outright, people would simply not upgrade to the blocked firmware.

Until people set their clocks back a day. Or month. Or year.

What most people don't understand is that Nintendo has to explain all of this stuff to their stockholders. Its better to say the hackers are so super brilliant that they can't figure it out than it is to explain how they intentionally let people pirate games for however long it was. Nintendo has a hard enough time with 3rd party support, so they need to look like every step they take is effective.