Homebrew Nintendo taps RSA for encryption

[Luse]

Nintendo plans to use RSA's software to protect games during Wi-Fi play and file sharing.

Nintendo announced today that it has licensed micro and full versions of RSA's BSAFE encryption schemes for use in the DS handheld. Nintendo will use the encryption to protect games when they are played or shared over the DS's Wi-Fi connection, and to prevent gamers from pirating demos. "Nintendo's use of our technology in its portable game console is a great endorsement," said Rick Welch, vice president of developer solutions and professional services at RSA Security. No word yet on when RSA encryption will be implemented in the DS.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/02/02/news_6117777.html

 

[Opium]

damn

there goes that ally for dumping roms

 

[DeMoN]

They're getting smarter and smarter by the minute.
But that just means we can't play Pirated games multiplayer, this has no effect on loners like me.

 

[root02]

ya know, if you look on the back of the DS, there's a nice little RSA logo there

[[email protected] /]# logoff

 

[evolutioner]

NOOOOOOOO! does that mean there's no more hope for playing pirated nds wif friends?the horroR!!!!! the

horror!!!!

 

[th3sandm4n]

I'm pretty sure that it'll just take time. There is always a way around these "protections" they put on games

 

[fintendo]

I'm pretty sure that it'll just take time. There is always a way around these "protections" they put on games

That's right. Did anyone see VIPER GC coming? But let's hope it won't take too long for this one to be cracked...

 

[TonyCool]

No... I think RSA security will allow to not being able to intercept boot code send from one DS to another, so you can't copy it wirelessly...

 

[NexDS]

The RSA secured Wi-Fi games just bring some challenge to the crackers and I' pretty sure that they'll be crackable.

Otherwise if they won't...

 

[Dragonlord]

i doubt this gets far... security in wireless lan is like trying to swim accross a fast current river. i would be surprised if that is not cracked in reasonable time

.

 

[Lily]

I roll my eyes at all the 'it will be cracked' people..as if RSA's BSAFE encryption technology could be broken by a home PC and an enthusiast with too much time on their hands!

Face facts, as technology improves and proprietary formats continue to gain consumer acceptance (say what you will, you're buying the stuff!), piracy will go from being commonplace to being a thing of the past, or a thing of great difficulty. Just buy your DS games for goodness sake, it's not going to kill you.

Plus, when you buy them, you'll actually spend money on the few games you really want, as opposed to pirating a bunch that you never play..

 

[NexDS]

Face facts, as technology improves and proprietary formats continue to gain consumer acceptance (say what you will, you're buying the stuff!), piracy will go from being commonplace to being a thing of the past, or a thing of great difficulty. Just buy your DS games for goodness sake, it's not going to kill you.

That's true, but as technology improves (like you said), so will the piracy improve and it won't gonna be a thing of the past for at least in a while.

 

[Dragonlord]

the problem is though that you encrypt the data transfer... once you got the mechanisme and the key (usually integrated in the cartridge) you have what you want. you don't need to break the encryption just break the cartridge

 

[Myke]

I roll my eyes at all the 'it will be cracked' people..as if RSA's BSAFE encryption technology could be broken by a home PC and an enthusiast with too much time on their hands!

Face facts, as technology improves and proprietary formats continue to gain consumer acceptance (say what you will, you're buying the stuff!), piracy will go from being commonplace to being a thing of the past, or a thing of great difficulty. Just buy your DS games for goodness sake, it's not going to kill you.

Plus, when you buy them, you'll actually spend money on the few games you really want, as opposed to pirating a bunch that you never play..

totally disagree there has been piracy since way before I can remember. since tapes were invented since vcrs were invented. what makes you think that one day it's just going to poof?

and there are always ways around buying stuff......

as nexDS said. As technology improves, so will piracy.

 

[Mehdi]

I agree with Myke.

If there's a will there will always be a way.

 

[Lily]

*smiles*

I've always agreed with 'when there's a will there's a way', and 'if it can be created, it can be uncreated' .. but it requires supercomputer power and a long amount of time to crunch an RSA key. If it's a different key per game, then what's the point? Piracy will never be achieved on a single game by game basis..

I understand trying to break it for the fun of it, but it just wouldn't result in a legitimate pirate use. If there was one key for all games, that would be something different, but that isn't the route Nintendo seems to be going - which is smart.

None of the RSA encryption will affect homebrew, and that's really all I worry about. Keep the platform accessible!

 

[TonyCool]

But... what's the problem about games having RSA encrypting wireless data transfer?? The only problem I see is there will no way (or it's really difficult) to know what NDS is "saying" to another, what's sending or receiving...

If there's somehow to easily dump a NDS card and to copy it into a backup device, and then play that backup back on the NDS, then what's the matter? Unless there's a huge protection system, who says you wont be able to play it with and orginial (or even backed up) game on another NDS? The key are inside the game....

 

[Mikerochip]

?

when playing these protected games, you already hold in your hand the means to remove the protection (the DS itself)
so, you just need to tap into its end result (the decrypted game), if you figure out the end result,
you didn't necessarly 'break' the encryption, but you could have circumvented it, giving you the same final result.


Remember, when thy encrypt this stuff it would be useless without some way to decrypt it.

your DS can already do it,
You just need to find the key.

 

[th3sandm4n]

This is the first time I actual have read somethign Qrazie has posted and disagreed (No offense though

). What you say about how u need super computer power and longs amounts of time....well....lots of computer freaks have that. (I wish I did so I could contribute ;P) I'm pretty sure that every "pirate" group will just look at this RSA crap and say," Let's see what these bitches got!" while they grab some cofee and start hackin' away!

But I agree, Piracy will never end.

 

[Dragonlord]

some points to nail:

the RSA itself is strong and you will not decypher it just like that... but... if the mountain doesn't come to the prophet the prophet comes to the mountain... meaning exactly what i (and somebody else) have said yet:

the game sends the data over an encrypted channel. the other side has to decrypt it. the DS is the decryptor and the game has the key(s). with other words: once you duplicated the content of the cartridge the RSA is at your mercy.

* removed * zzzzz... don't post on 3am... it yields crap

it's like always: a 1:1 copy solves your problem. you just need to invest time into finding a way to do this. there is no need for cracking an RSA key. the worst thing you can do is include the key with the game on the cartridge. but this is the only way how they can do it as if they store the key in hardware it would be only a matter of time until somebody finds the appropriate memory chunk in the ROM of the firmware.

thus the DS will be banged... the question is just when. let's make a poll for it