Hacking WARNING - Gateway team bricks card ON PURPOSE!

[crediar]

It has recently been found out that the Gateway team put code into their Beta 2 (clones: 3.2-3.3b) that purposely bricks 3DSs when the checksum of the launcher.dat fails.

That means even when using a real gateway card the code can trigger when the launcher.dat is corrupted in any way.

The code is written to trigger at a random point in time which is based on the time the file was copied onto the SD.

When the brick code triggers it bricks the firmware and reprograms the eMMC NAND to have a size of 0 bytes.

edit:
Normmatt's region free patch is not safe either!

source:
https://ngb.to/threads/161-Gateway-3DS-Erste-funktionierende-3DS-Flashcart?p=187387#post187387

 

[Jojse]

Another lying thread? But if its true I think GW team doing the right thing, Why should clones steel GW's hard work....

 

[mr. fancypants]

serious gateway is just killing the other sides??? **** you gateway

but at the other hand, r4i needs to do real work now

 

[WoJjTeK]

Yeah, I was expecting this was done on purpose, now I wonder what will GW team say about that. Obviously it has been done to stop clones, but why on earth brick user's 3DSes...
I think Region-Free patch will be updated with a fix to that backdoor soon.

 

[Apache Thunder]

People need to start emailing Gateway demanding they stop bricking 3DS consoles for using modified launchers. I would understand if they wanted to brick the red gateway flashcart so it can't be used on modified launchers, but bricking a 3DS console is going too far. Nintendo has never intentionally bricked a console for having a modified firmware or flashcart, so customers should not have to expect that from Gateway. Plus Gateway never directly notified customers that they coded this in to happen. People should STOP buying the Gateway until they stop doing this. Vote with your wallet!

 

[DinohScene]

Well it's Gateways own launcher.
However purposely bricking... plain wrong.

Gateway be the new R4 for sure this way.

 

[misterb98]

Moved my post from the second page to here, so more people can see it.
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Just read though the entire german thread (translated) and this is what I got out of it.

• Gateway 3ds Clones will have their system NAND corrupted and the system NAND reader corrupted - no easy fix, if any at all.
• Gateway 3ds users with SD corruption issues can get this brick.
  EDIT 2: Apparently, GW has a sanity check to check for corruption. You should be safe with an unmodified GW launcher.
• The Region-Free patch for the Gateway 2.0b2 firmware does not have this bricking issue. EDIT: Apparently, it does.

Recommended Actions:

• Don't use the Region-Free patch - It will brick your system
• Don't use R4i 3ds Gold Deluxe or 3DS Link or Orange 3DS on any firmware equivilent to 2.0b2!
• If you are using Gateway, make sure not to download your launcher file from an external source!

If you are using a Gateway, and afraid you have a bad launcher.dat, you can perform a checksum.

BTW, i just did a checksum of my launcher.dat and its.
SHA: 3508a54dd3b1ff903fbf18ecf97b075205b67d0c

MD5: 6361c5d4935af6d888ffc0646548f5dd

As for actually performing the checksum...

http://gbatemp.net/threads/brick-protect-3ds-for-gw2-02b-users.360580/#post-4884288

Foxi4 was so kind as to write a program that will do it for you. Simply put your launcher.dat and his program into your NDS flash cartridge, and run it.

Note that this is almost arbitrary at this point. It is all but confirmed that GW users are completely safe... provided they are using unmodified files.


The rest of this thread is basically clarifying that NAND restore WILL NOT FIX THE BRICK and discussing the politics of the situation, with the occasional Noob telling everyone it is no big deal, and safe for GW users.


EDIT 2: As stated earlier, apparently there is a sanity check in place that will not run code from a corrupted file.

Source: https://twitter.com/Mathieulh

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Personally, I think that gateway had better remove this code, otherwise they are going to be scaring off all of their customers. It does rather throw a wrench into the clones of the Gateway though, as now they cannot copy Gateway's work. We just are unlucky enough to be caught in the middle of all this.

Here's to hoping that the Gateway devs will remove this malicious code in the 2.0 Release. If they don't we are going to start having the brilliant people in the community patch all the launchers, which is no fun.

 

[WiiUBricker]

As I said, Nintendo and Gateway warn to not modify their firmware, but only Gateway can afford to brick consoles.

 

[WoJjTeK]

Apache Thunder
Yeah but it's not Nintendo and they can do whatever they want. People won't stop buying the GW cards until a free piracy solution is available. It's sad , but true.

 

[Technicmaster0]

This is really stupid. I get it Gateway, you don't like your work being stolen.

Well, looks like Ill be waiting until either Region Free is fixed to not cause this problem, or Gateway releases region-free in classic.

All the more reason to buy a 3ds XL for an easier NAND restore if something goes wrong.

...A NAND restore should fix it, right?

Das ironische daran ist, das Normatt's Region Free Patch auch diese Brickfunktion patcht und so funktioniert Normatt's Launcher.dat im Endeffekt besser

It means translated that Normatt disabled the bricking function; it's safer than the GW launcher.

(welcome back to DSTT)

 

[misterb98]

It means translated that Normatt disabled the bricking function; it's safer than the GW launcher.

(welcome back to DSTT)

The hack for region free is already safe, and therefore safer than the official GW code? LOL​

​

Thanks for pointing that out, I really need the region free. ​

​

Edit: IT ISNT D:

 

[Daku93]

A NAND restore does not help!!!

Dieser Brick-Code brickt aber nicht bloß die Firmware auf dem NAND, sondern er programmiert den eMMC Controller vom NAND so um, dass der 3DS und auch Computer denkt, der NAND sei 0 Bytes groß. Das ist extrem schwierig zu fixen und geht nicht mit nem einfachen USB-Kartenleser.

In English:

This brick-code does not only brick the firmware on the NAND but also reprograms the eMMC-controller of the NAND in such a way that both 3DS and computer will think that the NAND is only 0 Bytes. This is extremely difficult to fix and you cannot fix it with a simple USB-cardreader.

 

[enarky]

So it's true. This is a dick move by the people behind Gateway. Bricking a clone card would be evil on its own, bricking a users system is inexcusable.

 

[Nikotchi]

It means translated that Normatt disabled the bricking function; it's safer than the GW launcher.

(welcome back to DSTT)

Did he really?

EOL has at least one report of Normmatt's launcher bricking a console. of course, it's certainly not as many as the case reported of it happening with clone cards, but still...

I actually replaced the patched launcher with the original out of fear.


USER / LINK TO CASE / MAIN CAUSE / CONSOLE MODEL/ DATE

 

[escherbach]

The idea is obviously to brick the consoles of other teams (who have stolen their exploit) to slow down their progress.

I mean it sounds like it bricks the 3DS in a really severe way so you can't fix by flashing a backup nand dump.

But this is so badly thought through that they will have to retract it - or they will surely suffer huge loss of admiration and customers

 

[kingsora831]

If this is true then you people should not be blaming gateway.
All the blame should fall on the R4i team for not testing their launcher before hand.
This just shows that they copy, paste, and release.

This brick code could have easily been stopped if the R4i team actually did their own coding (if normatt did it then they can too.)
Basically, all R4i users are Guinea pigs.
The R4i team releases w.e they have, see the reaction it gets and release a "stable" firmware if things arent working. (i.e: re-release an older version).

Honestly, did you think the gateway team would sit by and allow another team to steal their hard work and their profits.
R4i team should have done thorough testing, but its clear they have no idea what they're doing and could care less about their customers.

All R4i users should be demanding a refund, but then again, if you knew before hand they were copy-cats then you knew this could happen.
Man, all this to save $20.

 

[masterzero]

If this is true then you people should not be blaming gateway.
All the blame should fall on the R4i team for not testing their launcher before hand.
This just shows that they copy, paste, and release.

This brick code could have easily been stopped if the R4i team actually did their own coding (if normatt did it then they can too.)
Basically, all R4i users are Guinea pigs.
The R4i team releases w.e they have, see the reaction it gets and release a "stable" firmware if things arent working. (i.e: re-release an older version).

Honestly, did you think the gateway team would sit by and allow another team to steal their hard work and their profits.
R4i team should have done thorough testing, but its clear they have no idea what they're doing and could care less about their customers.

All R4i users should be demanding a refund, but then again, if you knew before hand they were copy-cats then you knew this could happen.
Man, all this to save $20.

sorry bruh , but this is not a excuse for breaking a FRIGGIN console

They could have , dunno , corrupted your sd and then show a message , don't support the clones or whatever , but breaking consoles is beyond legal terms I think

 

[kingsora831]

sorry bruh , but this is not a excuse for breaking a FRIGGIN console

Its not, i agree with that.
But again, if the R4i team actually tested the firmware they would have run into this problem and the firmware would've never been released.
So i still say the R4i team deserves the blame for this happening. since they're the ones copying and pasting, and deceiving their customers.

Gateway didnt deceive their customers, since their launcher works perfectly fine.
They dont have to guarantee that their code works if modified. Thats on the R4i team to guarantee.

 

[alirezay]

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!!?!?
BRICKING CONSOLES?
**** u gateway!
come on!you say who made that launcher.dat cant figure out how to block the cards instead of bricking consoles?
that would be ok if they broke clone cards but by bricking consoles they just showed us how greedy they are and they even dont care about their own customers!

 

[Ilogis]

Well, it is hard to get Gateway in some places (like mine) when R4i cards are available, don't give much shit about 20 bucks if I can get better card.
And detecting that trap is not an easy task. It only trigger after some times it seems. Clone teams will be more careful in the future, it is still a dirty move from gateway team.

Like a thief stole your TV and you destroy the house of someone who bought that TV.