Hacking The Wii, officially hacked

[Dylaan]

So would this mean if they bring out some new kind of unwanted update on a game that was essential to running it, it would be possible to modify the update as to not harm anything? Just wondering...

 

[Edwii]

what i was referring to about wii updates and i think was implied, is that this new hack they have(and after refining it and making it useful) wouldn't be effected by our normal wii updates that we receive from Nintendo whether the update was intented to mess with hacks/mods/ect or as simple as adding some like Keyboard support or a a clock on our wii start page.

Rant: As stupid as it may sound im really looking forward to the day i don't have to read through all the crap when booting game about connecting my strap and nunchuck correctly each time i load a friggin game.

any ways. still looking for an answer to my question in my previous post

Question: noticed some people are talking of dreams of a dvd channel... i know we already have swap method of playing dvd using the wii, but people stopped doing that due to the fact it will damage and or burn out the laser lens on the disk drive... so this kind of hacking wouldn't fix a hardware issue right? the wii laser hardware was never meant for constant reading like when playing a dvd. but i could be wrong? DVD channel alt: having an exteral hard drive or puting dvd data on the wii and playing it but not using the optical drive directly would work.

 

[NaTaS69]

So... This might mean that i will be able to play (with the correct hack) SMG?
I have an wiifree

 

[Edwii]

So... This might mean that i will be able to play (with the correct hack) SMG?
I have an wiifree

That sounds like a reasonable possibility, but keep in mind its gona take some time for development to get something like that working. i think the ideal help with this new hack for playing newly encypided games is that we that are using mod chips wont have to rely solely on our chip provider to make updates to fix new protection, instead the protection would be bypassed at a different point then it is now.

 

[NaTaS69]

@Edwii: Thx for that. I can wait for the working stuff.
Even if it's by swapping method.

 

[.::5pYd3r::.]

WII HOMEBREW FTW!!!!111!!11!!!!1!11!!!11

 

[hankchill]

WII HOMEBREW FTW!!!!111!!11!!!!1!11!!!11

Wow, what a valuable response, I'm really glad your comment has helped to shed some light on this community and make us all understand this discussion a little better.

 

[furbyhaterex]

FTW HOMEBREW ON THE WII!!!!111!!11!!!!1!11!!!11

 

[gambit420]

Ok here my 2 cents:

Wii Homebrew sounds nice but please do not attemped to hack the WIFI, now with mariokart and brawl in the start holes it would be really fucked up to have fucking cheaters destorying the online experience (mk ds anyone?)

Please do not try to hack the virtual console, i think nintendo did something really good with it and it would be a shame if this system got hacked. People who really wanna play old games that hard and have no cash for wii points should stick to pc emulation.

So all in all i am more worried about this as i am happy!

 

[Hit]

Ok here my 2 cents:

Wii Homebrew sounds nice but please do not attemped to hack the WIFI, now with mariokart and brawl in the start holes it would be really fucked up to have fucking cheaters destorying the online experience (mk ds anyone?)

Please do not try to hack the virtual console, i think nintendo did something really good with it and it would be a shame if this system got hacked. People who really wanna play old games that hard and have no cash for wii points should stick to pc emulation.

So all in all i am more worried about this as i am happy!

Exactly no cheating in online games!

Virtual Console should just be hacked, don't you think they put much more effort in there retail games like Mario Galaxy
Virtual Console is a simple money stealing solution to Nintendo

 

[Digeman]

Ok here my 2 cents:

Wii Homebrew sounds nice but please do not attemped to hack the WIFI, now with mariokart and brawl in the start holes it would be really fucked up to have fucking cheaters destorying the online experience (mk ds anyone?)

Please do not try to hack the virtual console, i think nintendo did something really good with it and it would be a shame if this system got hacked. People who really wanna play old games that hard and have no cash for wii points should stick to pc emulation.

So all in all i am more worried about this as i am happy!


Exactly no cheating in online games!

Virtual Console should just be hacked, don't you think they put much more effort in there retail games like Mario Galaxy
Virtual Console is a simple money stealing solution to Nintendo

Amen to dat

Besides, I don't think the people that actually chipped the wii are much into the whole "buying" games thing anyways

So I don't think nintendo will be loosing much money at all

Edit: Oh and i dunno if this has been suggested before or anything (didn't bother reading all the 11 pages) but even though i agree that wifi shouldn't be hacked for cheating purposes, i think it should be hacked for all the "non wifi" games to be able to be playable online. Like playing multiplayer...but online xD I think you get what i mean

 

[Hit]

I thought the Wii uses a public/private key system where the decryption key is public (on the disk) and the encryption key is only known by Nintendo. Is that not the case?


you're partly correct
check here

Then how could the encryption key have been found? Doesn't it defeat the point if the private key is findable.

Because it must be in the device, otherwise it can't be decrypted by the device it self and the device wouldn't know what to do either
It's nonsense it's not in the device it must be otherwise the device can't decrypt and cant execute

 

[MaHe]

Since Wii is an updateable console, this thankfully means at least some anticheater protection (but could also block homebrew!). Anyways, even if installing (for example) Linux on my Wii would mean losing the ability to play Wii games, I wouldn't mind - only good titles till now were Zelda, and two Marios, and I was considering selling my console until this news broke out.

But I would love using my Wii as a Mac Mini replacement ...

 

[Kyokokoko]

It seems that everyone is wondering about the possibilities this piece of news opens up without having much of a clue. I guess I'll join in.

Would this mean that games which do not work on a different region console because of the language not being supported (e.g. SMG, Trauma center etc.) could be somehow hacked to good end?

Even better, could the firmware be decrypted, and if so, be replaced so that we could have a Jap wii with Us firmware, for example?

Pardon me if I'm just spouting nonsense here.

 

[raulpica]

Would this mean that games which do not work on a different region console because of the language not being supported (e.g. SMG, Trauma center etc.) could be somehow hacked to good end?


Are you talking of games like Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX? Then yes, it could be possible, with something like GCOS.

Even better, could the firmware be decrypted, and if so, be replaced so that we could have a Jap wii with Us firmware, for example?

More difficult, but not impossible if we can find a way to completely access Wii NAND. I don't see what good could come from doing that, though

 

[dextar]

This is great. Now we must hack Virtual Console and create a channel with a modified version of GoldenEye 007 running at 60 frames per second.

 

[pimpyT]

Ok here my 2 cents:

Wii Homebrew sounds nice but please do not attemped to hack the WIFI, now with mariokart and brawl in the start holes it would be really fucked up to have fucking cheaters destorying the online experience (mk ds anyone?)

Please do not try to hack the virtual console, i think nintendo did something really good with it and it would be a shame if this system got hacked. People who really wanna play old games that hard and have no cash for wii points should stick to pc emulation.

So all in all i am more worried about this as i am happy!


Exactly no cheating in online games!

Virtual Console should just be hacked, don't you think they put much more effort in there retail games like Mario Galaxy
Virtual Console is a simple money stealing solution to Nintendo

I'm looking forward to a hacked VC, moreso an emulator system that allows for multiplayer over wifi. Nintendo seems to want to make money off old titles, without making the effort to update any of the features. Looking back at when DVDs came out, a lot of people questioned why they would want to purchase all the movies they already owned on VHS. Well, people saw that they got extra features, deleted scenes, etc. On the VC, all we get is...... the same old game we already bought years ago.

 

[moshii]

Possible sure but it could just as easily be that keys are stored in the lead in to the disc in such a manner that a standard drive can not write to them: you still need a chip in one form or another to dupe the drive in the first place or at least write a hacked/new firmware to it.

I believe the problem with the gamecube it was symmetric encryption... and the keys where on the discs. There was already a video of some console hacking party that state this is no longer true for the wii.


The usefulness of this depends on the usefulness of those keys. They seem to be able to sign code and get it running on the metal opposed to in GC mode, but it's doubtful those keys allow you to authenticate discs: which I'm guessing is what most of you are looking for opposed to running homebrew. If someone like Datel can use the keys to press some commercial cheat discs or something drive chips might become a thing of the past... or maybe running on the metal will give access to the firmware

(/me guesses the firmware uses a different set of signing keys to games however.

 

[moshii]

Because it must be in the device, otherwise it can't be decrypted by the device it self and the device wouldn't know what to do either
It's nonsense it's not in the device it must be otherwise the device can't decrypt and cant execute

What probably happens inside the wii is this (This probably correctly summed up somewhere else, I can't be arsed to rummage around looking for a page that has the facts written by someone that isn't a rom hording fanboy talking out of their arse).

- The content of the disc is encrypted with a publickey (not on the disc, it's not needed for decryption), and the private key is stored in the firmware.

- The processor can only execute code *signed* with Nintendo's key, or something along those lines

- You can assume nintendo have implemented all sorts of traps in hardware to stop code ready the contents of the firmware etc like they did in the GBA, DS etc..

 

[Movi]

I just saw all of the video, and not learned much more. I think we should all just wait till the Flash talks, because i bet these guys are working on this as we speak, and i would hope/bet they will talk and show much more then. If someone has the ability, please record the talk.

Also, i would think the firmware uses a different set of keys for the updating process, but also those keys will probably reside in the same memory they got to. So the procedure of modifying the firmware shouldn't be too hard.

However, i don't think it's a smart thing to do, in fact this could be a very easy way of permanently braking your Wii as soon as N reacts with a firmware update. I would think a custom firmware is muddy at best, and I for one would probably not try it.

To summarize, at this point not much is certain except we can create our own Wii binaries which run. Anything more is pure (but healthy) speculation.