Hacking Letter history enquiry and work around? (would like to hide it)

[Ocarina]

Hi guys,

I do apologise if this has been asked a bunch of times before. Though I did my best search around for information and couldn't really come across anything. I guess words such as history and hacking are a bit vague huh?

So I've recently bought a Wii U and I've installed the HBC via Smash Stack in Wii Mode.

Originally I wasn't concerned about preserving this, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the HBC didn't actually create a record in the internal history. Therefore, I didn't receive the history letter one gets each day recording the play time of the HBC.

I thought this was cool, as if I wanted to simply uninstall the HBC now, I could do so with virtually no traces noticeable to most people.

This is just my own obsession and I totally get that a lot of people don't care about this. But, given the lack of information I could find, I was wondering if anyone knew a method in which I could edit wads and make them similar to that of my current HBC setup. Such that any installed unofficial channels wouldn't record their play time. I particularly would like this with USB Loader GX; perhaps it already does this by default, I'm not aware!

Is this in general very difficult? If so, I guess I would rather just load everything through the HBC if I can already avoid evidence of homebrew.
... Again, I originally didn't really care, but given I know I can reserve this now, I feel I might as well.

Thank you for reading, and I do certainly appreciate any information regarding this.

Cheers.

 

[Ryccardo]

Remember, the Wii (and DSi) doesn't have a real operating system running in the background (IOS is a rather limited kernel, only really there for (fully bypassable) security)

The play log is no exception: the Wii Menu records the time a channel was launched, Wii Menu runs again when you quit an official game, the time difference is calculated and written on the message board!

The HBC escapes logging only because it manually erases that file (see https://github.com/fail0verflow/hbc...bd829266/channel/channelapp/source/playtime.c) (and the Wii Menu doesn't react badly to that) (and some homebrews, like USB loaders with the appropriate configuration, recreate it with "corrected" info)

So, if you don't want something to appear in the play history, you have 2 options:
1- don't run it from the Wii Menu (protip: Priiloader has a title launcher, not that an emulator like in your example would require being run from a forwarder in the first place)
2- recompile your program after adding the log-disabling code linked above
3- both of the above

if I wanted to simply uninstall the HBC now, I could do so with virtually no traces noticeable to most people.

Just do a factory reset from the console settings, then?

Note that the file uid.sys in the nand is a "permanent" record (short of generating a blank NAND and installing system titles to it, then flashing it to the console) of any title ever installed, though you may debate "noticeable to most people"

 

[Ocarina]

Thank you for the prompt reply and information.

I certainly get it.

However, I'm not extremely knowledgeable in wii dol/wad code manipulation.
Would you possibly have an easiest recommended way (or a link to an article) to get that code you linked into a channel forwarder? For example into a USB Loader GX forwarder, in order for it not to record the channel's title within the message board?

All good if not, just checking.

Thank you for the help thus far!

 

[Ocarina]

Well regardless, it's good to know I could just restore the factory default settings and the console would appear original, if need be. Thanks for the information.