Hacking Post your ideas regarding how to hack the 3DS, here

[Metoroid0]

Nope. The encryption is specifically designed so that that is not possible. This type of encryption is the same stuff used by governments and junk too, so it's known to not be simple like that.

But than, how does it work? (i'm curious)

Does that master-key that Nintendo got, knows how to decrypt purposely messed-up files like games etc.
and without that key, games and other files signed by Nintendo are just pile of bit's.. unless key decrypt's it?

 

[Rydian]

But than, how does it work? (i'm curious)

Does that master-key that Nintendo got, knows how to decrypt purposely messed-up files like games etc.
and without that key, games and other files signed by Nintendo are just pile of bit's.. unless key decrypt's it?

In this type of encryption, keys are made in pairs. One key (the secret one) encrypts content, and the other key (the public one) decrypts content. You cannot use one key to find another.

http://hackmii.com/2008/04/keys-keys-keys/
This has some info on the subject.

 

[Metoroid0]

In this type of encryption, keys are made in pairs. One key (the secret one) encrypts content, and the other key (the public one) decrypts content. You cannot use one key to find another.

http://hackmii.com/2008/04/keys-keys-keys/
This has some info on the subject.

To think that we are discussing this much over bunch of numbers, and that key being big secret...
when you look at it, it's just 32 digit long number... did anyone try to guess it?? (no, really, maybe we could hit a jack-pot) xD

By the way, thanks for that website

 

[Rydian]

Guessing's not an option. Even if we had computers that could guess 5,000 keys a second, it would take hundreds of us like a thousand years.

 

[MostImmature]

so, my question at this point is,

have demos been hacked yet? (to remove trial limiter # and etc)

I think we can start from there, can't we?

 

[Rydian]

so, my question at this point is,

have demos been hacked yet? (to remove trial limiter # and etc)

I think we can start from there, can't we?

No? We can't publicly edit anything on the 3DS.

 

[MostImmature]

Well, that's what I obviously wanted to know

I thought games get downloaded onto SD card? Or is it only most of the parts and some linger in 3DS NAND or something?

 

[Rydian]

Well, that's what I obviously wanted to know

I thought games get downloaded onto SD card? Or is it only most of the parts and some linger in 3DS NAND or something?

Stuff on the SD card is still signed/encrypted, if you edit it the 3DS won't run it anymore.

 

[SifJar]

But than, how does it work? (i'm curious)

3DS uses RSA I believe, which works on the principle of prime factors. Two large prime numbers are generated, and multiplied together. The prime factors are used to encrypt stuff, and then the public key (the product of the two prime numbers) must be known to decrypt. There is no known efficient method for factorising large numbers, so knowing the public key doesn't allow you to work out the prime factors.

[This is a slightly simplified description of RSA, but the main ideas are represented here. For more info, you might like to have a look at the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_(algorithm) - I will warn you though, it's quite long]

I will note here also that RSA is used for signing content, but not encrypting. There is an important difference, and here it is: On the 3DS, encryption is done using a "symmetric" algorithm (AES). What this means is that there is one key for encryption (not two), and that key is used both for encryption and decryption. The benefit of this is that it takes less processing power and time, so has less impact on performance. The downside is of course that if the key ("the common key" usually) is discovered, anyone can decrypt and, more importantly, encrypt content. And of course, this key has to be present on each 3DS unit, to decrypt content.

So encryption doesn't add a whole lot of security; it's more of an obfuscation technique (i.e. hiding content, rather than preventing it being modified). It does offer some security, but not a lot. The real security comes from the signing. Signing is done using RSA as I mentioned above, which is an "assymetric" algorithm; this means there are two keys, one used for encrypting, and one for decrypting. (RSA is still an encryption algorithm, although it is used for "signing" on the 3DS). A signature is generated by taking a chunk of the file in question (e.g. 1 KB or whatever; probably much larger than 1KB, but hopefully you get the idea), taking a SHA-1 hash of that chunk, and encrypting that hash with the private key. When the 3DS is checking the signature, it will then decrypt the hash using the public key, take the SHA-1 hash of the relevant chunk, and compare the one from the signature to the one it generated itself. If they match, it knows that the file has not been modified. If they do not match, the file has been modified.

By only encrypting the hashes of chunks in this way, there is less impact on performance than if the content itself is encrypted assymetrically. [Assymetric encryption uses more processing power and time to decrypt than symmetric].

The encrypted hashes are the "signature".

So to summarise, content is encrypted with AES using a "common key", then signed with RSA using a "private key". The signature is checked with the "public key" and content is decrypted with the "common key".

[I did a little more reading about cryptography since my last post...]

 

[DiabloStorm]

Guessing's not an option. Even if we had computers that could guess 5,000 keys a second, it would take hundreds of us like a thousand years.

Time to start gathering a worldwide botnet
Also, hypothetically, I wonder how long it would take if we gained control of something like the Srizbi botnet...lol

 

[PsyBlade]

Time to start gathering a worldwide botnet
Also, hypothetically, I wonder how long it would take if we gained control of something like the Srizbi botnet...lol

see two pages back for some rough numbers

 

[joejoejoey]

Can we start a fundraiser to hire a master thief to get into Nintendo's Dev Building?

Or do we need to be able to run unsigned code to hire a master thief?

 

[dalek333232]

considering that we can already crash the ds from buffer overflow, but it locks out less than a second after, so what if we made a program that activates at the start of the crash exactly

 

[dalek333232]

About the copying of Ambassador games. Does anyone know how the writing is done? My idea of it is:
3DS reads data that belongs to each individual 3DS > Writes encrypted data to SD card containing data specific to the individual > Signs > Verifies
The second and third step could be the same, I don't know.

If it does not work that way, not sure which way it would if it didn't, but, what if you had wires coming from the SD card pins to another SD card outside of the 3DS that are write-only. It'd write the exact same data to the second card. Though if the data being written to the SD card is for the individual 3DS this would not work.

Just an idea.

it is actually the 3ds reads the common 3ds code> reads the personal code> from then on its the same

 

[dalek333232]

when you delete private, it does nothing.(i didnt really delete it, i just copied it.)

 

[dalek333232]

has anyone thought that its strange some folders have real names and others are NUMBERS(the uncommon key) i say the uncommon key because by some comments i have seen they are different.

 

[MrMarco]

It may get a bit off-topic right now, but I find this weird.

3DS will not run unsigned content. You can edit 3DS code on PC, tho you can't sign it.
Why can't you run a 3DS emulator on the PC? Do you need the same key used by the 3DS? Why?

If you are able to edit unsigned content on the PC, I think you can simply run it, if you manage to know how 3DS hardware handles(runs) the code.

I'm a noob on encryption, and yes, I've read your 128-bit DSi Dream-Crusher thing, Rydian.

So? And about the key, just as Metoroid0 said, I would try to hit a jackpot lol (seriously, I would try, being random can lead you to success)

 

[Poketard]

It may get a bit off-topic right now, but I find this weird.

3DS will not run unsigned content. You can edit 3DS code on PC, tho you can't sign it.
Why can't you run a 3DS emulator on the PC? Do you need the same key used by the 3DS? Why?

If you are able to edit unsigned content on the PC, I think you can simply run it, if you manage to know how 3DS hardware handles(runs) the code.

I'm a noob on encryption, and yes, I've read your 128-bit DSi Dream-Crusher thing, Rydian.

So? And about the key, just as Metroid0 said, I would try to hit a jackpot lol (seriously, I would try, being random can lead you to success)

Because, that would require de-crypting it, and we can't do that yet.

 

[SifJar]

It may get a bit off-topic right now, but I find this weird.

3DS will not run unsigned content. You can edit 3DS code on PC, tho you can't sign it.
Why can't you run a 3DS emulator on the PC? Do you need the same key used by the 3DS? Why?

If you are able to edit unsigned content on the PC, I think you can simply run it, if you manage to know how 3DS hardware handles(runs) the code.

I'm a noob on encryption, and yes, I've read your 128-bit DSi Dream-Crusher thing, Rydian.

So? And about the key, just as Metroid0 said, I would try to hit a jackpot lol (seriously, I would try, being random can lead you to success)

You can't edit 3DS code on PC because as well as being signed, it is also encrypted. Encryption means that the code is changed to something "meaningless", and is only made meaningful again by decryption using the correct key (the common key). In it's encrypted state, you can't do anything with it; edit it or run it. The 3DS decrypts the code and then runs it. An emulator would have to do likewise, which is impossible without the common key.

 

[Metoroid0]

You can't edit 3DS code on PC because as well as being signed, it is also encrypted. Encryption means that the code is changed to something "meaningless", and is only made meaningful again by decryption using the correct key (the common key). In it's encrypted state, you can't do anything with it; edit it or run it. The 3DS decrypts the code and then runs it. An emulator would have to do likewise, which is impossible without the common key.

So what you're saying is that every console that exists today has their common key discovered, because there are Emulators for practically every console.​

So my question is, why would 3DS be different? The common key for it will eventually be discovered... nothing man-made is perfect.​

We will find 3DS's "Achilles heel" eventually, i'm sure!