It appears that users are being banned from 3DS online services, en masse. There's no direct cause right now, and seemingly no linking factor. This post is meant as an announcement for users, to be wary, and that GBAtemp will keep you updated as soon as more info rolls in. If you have been banned, please post in the thread below, and we will try to keep tabs on the situation. To be extra sure, it can't hurt to turn off your 3DS's wireless capabilities, so you might as well do that for now.

Edit 1: it appears that e-Shop access isn't restricted if you are banned.

Edit 2: A caller to Nintendo reported that the company said this ban is due to "unauthorized software usage".

Edit 3: @LinkSoraZelda is collecting info. Contact him if you are banned.

Edit 4: Click and fill this out if you were BANNED.

Edit 5:

[11:28:19 PM] Clector: Curiously the page of that error in Nintendo Support website used to have this:Error Code: 002-0102 Situation: You receive the error code 002-0102 when attempting to connect online. What to Do: If you continue to experience this issue, please contact Nintendo by calling 1-800-255-3700. Representatives are available from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Pacific Time, 7 days a week.
[11:28:44 PM] Clector: Now it says this: What to Do: If you are experiencing this error code, your Nintendo 3DS family system has been banned due to unauthorized system modifications, play of unauthorized versions of one or more games, and/or connecting to the official game servers in violation of our terms of service. This ban is effective immediately and requests to remove the ban will not be processed.

Thanks to @Joom

Edit 6: Aurora Wright is taking another poll here

Edit 7: Not a lot is known but

There are bans happening, they are happening in all regions.
All models in the 3ds family seem to be candidates for banning.
There is no indication they will be anything other than permanent.
A game or DLC may end up being a cause but there is no one game or DLC that ties banned users together.
The cause or causes are as yet unknown, though it does seem to be related to modifications. Reports of unmodified consoles being banned are as yet unproven.
The banning is tied to something you can modify, thus you can unban. Doing it while the causes are unknown is likely only going to burn a working token though.
There are semi public tokens out there, Nintendo knows how to browse a forum as well as you so don't be surprised if they also get banned.
It does not seem to be limited to a given base firmware version, it does not seem to be limited to any one custom firmware type. There is some speculation that older hacking methods are not being hit as hard but nothing to confirm this yet.
The data collection could have happened this morning, or it could have been months in the making.
A simple check to see is checking your friends list, by itself it will not ban you.
Some are turning their wifi off. It is doubtful this will be of much use and being banned does not seem to come with any downsides that wifi being off will not also mimic.
You may have escaped a ban thus far but it could happen at any point. It could be that they stop in the future, it has happened on other consoles, but you would be living in hope rather than any particularly well founded logic.
The bans are done on the side of Nintendo's servers rather than your 3ds so there is also that.

If you hack your devices/games then their online functionality may be troubled. This has been known for decades, Nintendo seems to have finally caught up with that.

Please continue to share information with the thread or the links in previous edits.

Update 5/30

HOW TO HELP AVOID BANS (we think)​

If I was to guess from the information we have gathered since the ban wave, it seems likely that they are looking for TitleIDs that don't exist. Homebrew shows up in the activity log as the Download Play app, and fake CIA's show up as just ??????. That last one is what I'm guessing they are looking for.

If you are not banned yet or before you unban yourself, go into your friends list, choose settings, and turn off the option to "show friends what game you are playing." This will prevent you from playing games online with friends, so turn it back on when you wanna game with someone, but ALWAYS keep it off when running custom CIAs. Next, go into system settings -> internet settings -> spotpass, and turn off BOTH options. One is auto download software, the other sends system information to Nintendo. Also, make sure you don't have your favorite title set to something stupid like FBI or any other non-Nintendo CIA.

Its VERY likely that these options are what tipped off Nintendo, but we aren't 100% certain yet. The amount of banned people that had one of these options turned on was over 80% for each. If I was to assume that some of those people overlap, its very possible (but not confirmed) that 100% of banned people in the survey had at least one of those options turned on. I personally had all of them off and I have TONS of reasons for Nintendo to ban me.... yet I am not banned (yet).

Another bit of advice: Only run custom CIAs when offline, and after you close them, run a "legit" game like Smash Bros. or something before shutting down or going back online. This way your most recent title won't show up as a fake CIA

Current Theories as to what causes a ban
​

* SpotPass Settings: 8 users out of 46 users that were banned have SpotPass completely shut off, or SpotPass only (no friends list visibility)
* Firmware Version (Luma, Nintendo): Literally all reports ranged from 10.2+, I can get exact numbers for this if you'd like, but all firmwares were affected.
* Firmware Type (A9LH, B9S): 44 of the 126 B9S users that answered were banned, pattern was mirrored for A9LH users as well.
* Homebrew Titles such as FBI, HBL, Luma Updater, Themely, and freeShop: Literally about 98% of users both banned and unbanned had some combination of these applications installed. However the common ones were: FBI, HBL, LumaUpdater and NTR.
* Save Modification: Equal amounts of users on both sides have reported save modification in some form, either with PKSM or another save editor
* System Transfers: 188 users said that they had not previously system transfered, 61 of those users were banned; 16 users said they transferred from a hacked console, only three of them received a ban; 13 said they transferred from a stock system and likewise were banned. The rest of our sample did not answer this question.
* Activity Log Information: A majority of those who have not been banned have said they had NOT cleaned their activity logs. I can get exact numbers for this too on request.

This information is just what I've found. Like I said, there could be variables or things we haven't even checked for yet. But these are things that I feel should be disproven, at least with the current dataset we have.

• From the information that we've gathered from some people that have used a packet sniffer such as WireShark, the following data is sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers as soon as the 3DS connects to the internet:
  • Amount of time spent online (timer stops when either the system is disconnected from the internet, or connection drops out, then starts the timer again in a new session when it reconnects to the internet).
  • The game being played and amount of time spent on it during that session.
  • The console's unique hexadecimal ID used in the LocalFriendCodeSeedB, along with it's RSA-signed signature.
  • The console's serial number in which is broadcasted from the SoC and is hard coded in the SoC.
  • Friend Code generated on the Nintendo 3DS system, if one has been generated.
  • Internet connection status (either online or offline).
  • The Nintendo Network ID, if there is one linked to it.
  • Even if the sending of SpotPass Information is switched off, or even hiding your currently playing games. It does not prevent the system from sending currently playing information to Nintendo's online gaming servers, it only hides it from your friends in your friend list (like being invisible on the forum, while mods and admins can still see you). Why? Because even people without a Friend Code on their system have been getting banned too!

• The following data is NOT sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers:
  • The data from the Nintendo 3DS's Activity Log. Oddly enough, while Nintendo does explicitly state that they collect Activity Log data, they're actually referring to their own server's Activity Log, which always tracks every console's online activity, and keeps a record of them that is stored forever. And is only collected in increments of data through a timer and a currently playing list.
    
  • Games or apps that have not been played, regardless if they're legitimate or not. You only get tracked when you're online and using that game or app.
  • Using games or apps while offline. Even though it is stored on the 3DS console's Activity Log, that data is NOT sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers.
  • Custom Firmware. Though we can't rule out the possibility of them releasing a 3DS update in the future that adds such function to collect MD5 hashes of files and FIRM data and send them to Nintendo online gaming servers (which would also be updated in a maintenance).

• Things that people think what happens with consoles, but really doesn't:
  • "LocalFriendCodeSeedB is transferred to the system upon doing a system transfer". This is false, the LocalFriendCodeSeedB remains on the system and does not move to another system.
  • "The console generates a LocalFriendCodeSeedB upon first startup". Again, this is false, the LocalFriendCodeSeedB is made during the manufacturing process at Foxconn. It is generated at the factory, flashed to the NAND flash memory storage, then created as an account on Nintendo's online gaming server and Nintendo eShop server immediately when being manufactured. It is absolutely impossible to generate a LocalFriendCodeSeedB and be able to connect to Nintendo's online gaming server and/or Nintendo eShop server, even if you knew the RSA generation key for it. You'd end up with Error Code 002-0102 "This console's online services have been restricted by Nintendo" if you even tried (the error can either mean two things: The hexadecimal ID doesn't exist on the server, or the request to access the hexadecimal ID has been denied which in other words... banned). So a LocalFriendCodeSeedB generator will NEVER happen! Because it's not worth doing, if it can't connect.
  • Switching off "Currently Playing" information. Once again, this does not hide your online activity from Nintendo's online gaming server, it only hides it from your friends.
  • Switching off SpotPass. Nope, this too doesn't hide your online activity from Nintendo's online gaming server, it only opts-out of receiving SpotPass data, sorry.

So pretty much the bottom line is, if anyone has been using custom apps and/or titles not installed through Nintendo eShop while online in the past, guess what? You're screwed! And it is only a matter of time before your console's unique hexadecimal ID in the LocalFriendCodeSeedB is banned from Nintendo's online gaming server. This will mean, your console can't access the Friend List or play any online functions in games.

If you have been online while using custom apps and/or titles not installed through Nintendo eShop and haven't been banned yet, that's because Nintendo hasn't caught up to you yet. They're still going through each unique hexadecimal ID's Activity Log on their server, and by Activity Log, I mean the Activity Log on their server, not the 3DS console's activity log. And it will be only a matter of time before you're banned too.

Thanks to @Platinum Lucario @MadMageKefka and @ShadowEO !

 

[Kanakops]

Okay all, why its not possible to make an .cia app to spoof the 3ds, to hide alllllllllllll illegitimate title and show at nintendo the 3ds are 'normal'
Like psnpatch or Psninja in ps3 for jailbreak console, I really think its possible and if one person can code that shit we can PROBABLY have no problem with online if we not are flag again

Im really not a hackers and I don't know how to programming and I know nothing, but I know some peoples goings to rost me, I just make a theory and I really thinks its possible to make an app like PSNpatch And psninja for spoof the 3ds

Oh yeah my english suck I know

 

[ShadowEO]

Okay all, why its not possible to make an .cia app to spoof the 3ds, to hide alllllllllllll illegitimate title and show at nintendo the 3ds are 'normal'
Like psnpatch or Psninja in ps3 for jailbreak console, I really think its possible and if one person can code that shit we can PROBABLY have no problem with online if we not are flag again

Im really not a hackers and I don't know how to programming and I know nothing, but I know some peoples goings to rost me, I just make a theory and I really thinks its possible to make an app like PSNpatch And psninja for spoof the 3ds

Oh yeah my english suck I know

If someone with the skills wants to create such a thing, more power to them. We don't even know that's what the cause is yet. SpotPass results so far have been inconclusive. AuroraWright and TuxSH have already practically stated that it's not within the scope of their project (nor should it be, regardless if they decided not to include it then it should be respected, it's their project, fork it if you disagree ). Honestly if it's implemented at the CFW level at all, it should be done as an optional set of patches that are maintained outside the main repository (mostly for legal reasons, but for the same reason that it doesn't NEED to be part of the base firmware.)

 

[Demonshen]

I've been fowling this poll https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1...Q-nf9corv0RzQxOzXLbbZ3CH4mfVqYQ/viewanalytics not sure how good it is

 

[ShadowEO]

I've been fowling this poll https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1...Q-nf9corv0RzQxOzXLbbZ3CH4mfVqYQ/viewanalytics not sure how good it is

We don't have public results yet (as the main spreadsheet is holding GBATemp usernames for follow-up purposes should that be needed and those should be purged before the results go public. Though I did post a link to the small sample I was looking at about a page or so ago.), but we are currently looking at this: https://goo.gl/forms/8t5WiRE45dBTgLG73

Edit: anyone else notice my user title changing from GBATemp Fan to Well-Known Member back to Fan, anyone know what's up with that? 0-0; I mean, I was pretty active back in the NDS days, but that caught me off guard.

 

[marbles73]

Well coudn’t they simply check which potntial offending IPs downloaded content on the 2nd sever and then verify whether these same IPs accessed the 1st server? For some reason people seem to think that this would be very difficult for Ninty to do but from my perhaps extremely ignorant perspective, I just don’t understand what is so incredibly difficult about comparing lists of IPs that accessed servers?

Under one angle, Nintendo has a lot more to loose by not blocking Freeshop than by shutting down the Eshop for a week or so for massive maintenance to fix the problem. Then again, it may be that it would require more than a few weeks to fix it, in which case they would loose more money by temporarily shutting down the eshop. Also, that would look really bad to their investors and potential new customers...

The eShop can also bypass the payment server when redownloading something you already own. They'd have to run a check for when you originally purchased the app in question which could easily be on a different IP.

 

[Eirikr]

The eShop can also bypass the payment server when redownloading something you already own. They'd have to run a check for when you originally purchased the app in question which could easily be on a different IP.

Quite true. I should have thought of that.

 

[nl255]

If someone with the skills wants to create such a thing, more power to them. We don't even know that's what the cause is yet. SpotPass results so far have been inconclusive. AuroraWright and TuxSH have already practically stated that it's not within the scope of their project (nor should it be, regardless if they decided not to include it then it should be respected, it's their project, fork it if you disagree ). Honestly if it's implemented at the CFW level at all, it should be done as an optional set of patches that are maintained outside the main repository (mostly for legal reasons, but for the same reason that it doesn't NEED to be part of the base firmware.)

Unfortunately that is not possible as Luma does not support external patches. Doing what you suggest would require switching to Corbenik (or Cakes, but Corbenik would be easier to write said patches for).

 

[ShadowEO]

Many residential ISPs also preform DHCP on their customers, so their IP address changes from time to time. IP addresses aren't a great identifier for usage nowadays and can end up causing problems for legitimate users.

@nl255 Indeed, but that's my point, someone could easily fork Luma and add the ability to load external patches, perhaps send a pull request back. It's open source, that's how open source works. But yes, that would normally require Cakes or Corbenik.

 

[BARNWEY]

Well coudn’t they simply check which potntial offending IPs downloaded content on the 2nd sever and then verify whether these same IPs accessed the 1st server? For some reason people seem to think that this would be very difficult for Ninty to do but from my perhaps extremely ignorant perspective, I just don’t understand what is so incredibly difficult about comparing lists of IPs that accessed servers?

Under one angle, Nintendo has a lot more to loose by not blocking Freeshop than by shutting down the Eshop for a week or so for massive maintenance to fix the problem. Then again, it may be that it would require more than a few weeks to fix it, in which case they would loose more money by temporarily shutting down the eshop. Also, that would look really bad to their investors and potential new customers...

The thing is, not everyone uses FreeShop for piracy... Besides, like you said, it would take a while for them to migrate everything to one server. Then, just think about the many people who access these servers every day. Think about all the lost money... While they could check for IP addresses, there are just way too many. There isn't an automated program that monitors this AFAIK, and there is too much room for error. If I recall, the eShop does the same thing when you redownload a title. Meaning that anyone who redownloads a game they deleted (for whatever reason) would also get marked. Plus, even if they did see us, what would they do? Do you really think that they would spend a butt-load of cash to sue the mass amount of people that use FreeShop? Not to mention, it's a technically legal software. It doesn't outright condone piracy, and it doesn't break any laws whatsoever. While there is the possibility that people can pirate games using it, not everyone does. They can't DMCA you for using legal software, and even if you were using it for illegal purposes, there's no proof. They can't check if you actually bought a game because the info (if you don't have an NNID) is stored on the 3DS. Plus, they can't see your NNID anyways. All they can see is the IP address, and the calls being made to the server. So they might be able to see your IP address, but they can't really tell much about what you're doing...

P.S. Sorry if this post sounds rude, I didn't mean it to be...

P.P.S. Wow! What a big wall of text I wrote XD

 

[nitroBW]

So you DID limit your information collecting to people that had not been banned. What was your argument here again?

By the way why doesn't this poll or any other ask if people regularly use the browser? It's one of the things that has clear knowledge of whatever it is you are running.

Where did I say that I limited it? We used Auroras Poll and without the amount of people who were not banned we couldn't have tested a few things, we used the data, although the poll being rather unspecific keeps us from knowing if its important. I legitimately can't understand how not having the number of people not banned and what . maybe didnt do but banned people did, is useless.

Sure they can easily see us using the browser, but how can using it prove that you have modified your console? I'm not excluding it from the possibilities, buf we mainly focused on things which can likely get you banned and the browser wasn't one of them (yet?)

 

[tehnoodnub]

Sorry, I'm a bit late to the party and haven't been able to read everything but I'm wondering if we have 'most likely' causal factor for the bans? There seems to be a bit of talk about having CIAs installed potentially being the culprit.

 

[Asterik1904]

Sorry, I'm a bit late to the party and haven't been able to read everything but I'm wondering if we have 'most likely' causal factor for the bans? There seems to be a bit of talk about having CIAs installed potentially being the culprit.

Same here but I think I read something about Spotpass being the main culprit by sending data to Nintendo regardless of settings

 

[MattKimura]

If someone with the skills wants to create such a thing, more power to them. We don't even know that's what the cause is yet. SpotPass results so far have been inconclusive. AuroraWright and TuxSH have already practically stated that it's not within the scope of their project (nor should it be, regardless if they decided not to include it then it should be respected, it's their project, fork it if you disagree ). Honestly if it's implemented at the CFW level at all, it should be done as an optional set of patches that are maintained outside the main repository (mostly for legal reasons, but for the same reason that it doesn't NEED to be part of the base firmware.)

Completely agreed. But why would Aurora make a poll and get so involved in figuring out the ban situation?

 

[ShadowEO]

Completely agreed. But why would Aurora make a poll and get so involved in figuring out the ban situation?

I can't speak for her, seeing as I'm not her, but potentially curiosity like us? Or perhaps it was an attempt to gauge if Luma was a legitimate target surface (which it doesn't appear to be).

 

[BL4Z3D247]

I can't speak for her, seeing as I'm not her, but potentially curiosity like us? Or perhaps it was an attempt to gauge if Luma was a legitimate target surface (which it doesn't appear to be).

That's what I figured as well.

 

[Disco Inferno]

Do you really think that they would spend a butt-load of cash to sue the mass amount of people that use FreeShop? Not to mention, it's a technically legal software. It doesn't outright condone piracy, and it doesn't break any laws whatsoever. While there is the possibility that people can pirate games using it, not everyone does. They can't DMCA you for using legal software, and even if you were using it for illegal purposes, there's no proof.

I'm not a lawyer, but I can imagine a judge accepting the argument that since everything is downloaded unprotected from Nintendo's own servers, and they've known about it for over a year and could fix the problem any time they wanted by changing the way they authenticate downloads, that it doesn't actually constitute piracy, since Nintendo is de facto just giving all their games away.

In other words, legal loopholes aren't just for rich people.

 

[BARNWEY]

I'm not a lawyer, but I can imagine a judge accepting the argument that since everything is downloaded unprotected from Nintendo's own servers, and they've known about it for over a year and could fix the problem any time they wanted by changing the way they authenticate downloads, that it doesn't actually constitute piracy, since Nintendo is de facto just giving all their games away.

In other words, legal loopholes aren't just for rich people.

I can see that too. However, FreeShop is technically a legal software (as it doesn't condone piracy or use any of Nintendo's code). If you aren't using it for piracy, you're not committing a crime by using it...

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

People are already claiming that they know how to avoid the ban:


Poor Youtubers, soon their inboxes will be flooded by people asking why they're banned XD

 

[MeLTy0724]

I'm a bit late to the party, but
2DS, a9hl 11.4
Have pirated games, both legit and not legit cias, send information via spotpass is off
Tested by going online in MK7 and checking friends list.
Should I still refrain from connecting to the internet until this is figured out?

 

[BARNWEY]

I'm a bit late to the party, but
2DS, a9hl 11.4
Have pirated games, both legit and not legit cias, send information via spotpass is off
Tested by going online in MK7 and checking friends list.
Should I still refrain from connecting to the internet until this is figured out?

Yes. Or, you can install a public seed (and backup yours until this thing blows over), change your SecureInfo_A (last line, change the serial code), and inject a blank nnidsave.bin.
If you go with my other suggestion, make a NAND backup first. Just to be safe...

 

[Ferreous]

My N3ds was banned earlier today after not being online for about a week.
I'm on 11.3U/Luma/A9LH
I used Freeshop.
Never save edited.
Spotpass was on/showed what title I played. (I had no idea this was on)

Hopefully my info helps out.
(I don't really care about losing online, I never bothered with it anyway. A little bummed I can't get the DLC for Monhun if I decide to try that out later.. Is it even possible to make that into a cia?)