Hacking 3DS Bricking Rumor

[Sicklyboy]

[...]not 1 person alive was bricked if you do this

I really would hope people havent been getting bricked.

 

[mysticwaterfall]

I really would hope people havent been getting bricked.

Sadly, people are indeed getting bricked:
http://www.11alive.com/news/article/271903/40/Police-search-for-man-who-attacked-5-women

 

[BORTZ]

Sadly, people are indeed getting bricked:
http://www.11alive.com/news/article/271903/40/Police-search-for-man-who-attacked-5-women

Har har

 

[OldClassicGamer]

Hou people are still talking about silly bricking rumor?
Person who compared it with PC and torrents is genious. Nintendo DOESNT have ability to brick. End of story

 

[PsyBlade]

Hou people are still talking about silly bricking rumor?
Person who compared it with PC and torrents is genious. Nintendo DOESNT have ability to brick. End of story

BS
Proving that someone does not have a certain ability is nigh impossible.
They just might have kept it hidden till now.

Additionally there is precendent of nintendo intentionally bricking consoles (the wii korean key incedent).

Even if you assume thet nintendo does not at this moment have the abbility to brick is is easy to obtain.
They can just require an update (via new games and eshop) that includes the ability.
Thats how the did it with the wii.

 

[Rydian]

Additionally there is precendent of nintendo intentionally bricking consoles (the wii korean key incedent).

That's a bug in the system triggered by modding it the wrong way, since Nintendo's not actually taking part in the problem with it happens (no network access, no data sent, etc.)

I mean if that counts as "Nintendo bricks the device", then this counts as "Samsung bricks the laptop".
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2026807/booting-linux-via-uefi-can-brick-some-samsung-laptops.html

 

[PsyBlade]

of coure there is no network comunication required for the actual bricking

instead of (A):
console detects unwanted behavior
phones home to nintendo
recives and executes some special bricking software

thats way to complicated
they simply do (B):
console detects unwanted behavior (checked on boot)
halt execution with error msg (instead of menu, essencially bricking it unless you can modify nand from "outside" to make it pass the check again)

are you seriosly telling me that while case A (what Nintendo does NOT do) whould be bricking by Nintendo while case B is not

 

[Rydian]

are you seriosly telling me that while case A (what Nintendo does NOT do) whould be bricking by Nintendo while case B is not

Both cases are bricking (the device won't boot, becomes unusable to the average consumer), but the question is who caused it and with which intentions? The concern with bricking and online access is one where people fear Nintendo will detect mods and remotely brick the device. That will obviously not happen.

Now that I've looked into the issue more, I can actually make a statement. The Wii brick issue is a bug. Purposely failing to run on Nintendo devices in relation to mods and displaying an error message has always given a consumer-aimed message, and continues to be accompanied by a consumer-aimed message even after the Wii, none of the error messages that pop up are of a technical nature.









"If it's a bug why don't they fix it?" - Time, money, manpower, etc, to fix something normal consumers will not encounter?

The link I posted is the same type of situation where a certain type of modification a user does results in the device bricking, but it's not like people can go around saying "Samsung bricked your laptop!" since it's a software bug.

 

[PsyBlade]

Now that I've looked into the issue more, I can actually make a statement. The Wii brick issue is a bug.

NO

They added a new function to a new release of ios70 which "tries to encrypt a certain byte pattern with the Korean key and then compares it with hard coded values, if the result matches it returns 0 which will then trigger the error"
A call to this function is then added to the Sysmenu startup process.

(quote from wiibrew: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Error_003)

Theres no way in hell that you do something like this by accident.

 

[T3GZdev]

its the year 2013, i swear if i see 1 more 3ds bricking rumor post.

 

[Rydian]

NO

They added a new function to a new release of ios70 which "tries to encrypt a certain byte pattern with the Korean key and then compares it with hard coded values, if the result matches it returns 0 which will then trigger the error"
A call to this function is then added to the Sysmenu startup process.

(quote from wiibrew: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Error_003)

Theres no way in hell that you do something like this by accident.

Just like there's no way in hell that Samsung would make their new Windows 8 laptops brick when trying to install Linux on accident? Except the laptops do brick when you install Linux, due to what the code itself says to do.

No duh the code says to do it, that's why it's a bug, it shouldn't be happening if the system wants to operate normally, but it is happening.

If this was a purposeful measure, then it would be accompanied with a human-aimed message like everything from the NES to the 3DS (multiple generations before the Wii, and devices after the WIi). There is both much precendent and continued action, the 003 error is an outlier.
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii_Error_Messages
Those are the types of messages that should be displayed to the end-user when there's an issue, though they're generic (like the DSi/3DS error upon detecting a flash cart) they're meant to be read by end users.

 

[PsyBlade]

Stop focussing on the result and look at the steps that lead there.
You can't tell malice or accident appart by result only.
The way it happens is the important part.


In the Samsung laptops there is no code that looks for linux and then bricks the board.

Instead of the saner methods like ACPI everyone else used,
200x's samsung laptops used a stupid way to manage laptop functions like backlight.
It consisted of simply writing specific values to specific regions of memory.
A linux driver that does that is included in the kernel.

While this was unusual then it was the common way to do things before better ways came along.
I supect they might not have trusted acpi or were to inexperienced with it or maybe just to lazy.

Now they decided to use these memory adresses for something different without telling anyone ELSE.
It seems they now map some uefi nvram stuff there. Which is then overwritten by the old driver.
As this is important for booting uefi the board is essencially bricked.

While malice might be possible it's more likely that they simply forgot to tell this to linux driver guy (who most likely does not work at samsung).
Or they had forgotten that they once used that region for that purpose in the past.


The nintendo case is different.
They DO have specific code with no concivable purpose other than looking for the korean key and then bricking.
Note that the korean SysMenus do not have this, only the others.

 

[Rydian]

The nintendo case is different.
They DO have specific code with no concivable purpose other than looking for the korean key and then bricking.
Note that the korean SysMenus do not have this, only the others.

Code that checks for certain things and then errors out or refuses to run when we have no clue what code was originally supposed to run never happens elsewhere, right?
http://hackmii.com/2010/09/insert-startup-disc/
Disc ID RAAE, which is specifically checked for and then refused loading, but the actual code that'd be run from the original disc is lost.

Notice that the article you linked on the wiki doesn't say that the check immediately bricks the device, but it changes the return code.
http://wiibrew.org/wiki//dev/es -1017 (the return code it'd normally give) is the same return code a few other things use. This really looks like some debug/check that was left in*, and they never found/fixed it because it never causes problems for normal users of the system.

* - After all, it's a raw error number instead of human-aimed text.

Your theory goes against all the precedent set before the Wii, and the things that continued to happen after the Wii.

 

[GroverA125]

So is there an actual agreement on this then? Can/Are Nintendo bricking 3DS consoles that have used, or are using certain explicit programs?

I'm finally coming clean of flashcarts, now that I'm of age and working (and know what the economy's like and how the gaming industry is getting affected), I feel that I should start putting money into the games and helping the companies that are making the games (which downloading a 3DS pirate copy won't do) and I just want to be sure that once I put the flashcard away for good, it isn't going to come back to haunt me later.

To be honest, I'm only really doing it for the Monster Hunter Franchise, I'd rather it come back and stay in the west for good, and putting numbers towards it is the only way to help secure it's presence. But either way, I just want to know for sure that if I update my 3DS while it doesn't have a flashcart, I'm not going to have to buy a new 3ds.

 

[PsyBlade]

Is there agreement: No, not at all
CAN Nintendo brick: Yes, easily
DO they brick: No, it appears not

 

[OldClassicGamer]

Is there agreement: No, not at all
CAN Nintendo brick: Yes, easily
DO they brick: No, it appears not

Nope they cannot brick it. There is no such thing as remotly bricking console. They could only force update without asking but that would not brick 3DS. It would just make R4 card unplayable

 

[PsyBlade]

I claim it is possible for Nintendo to brick ie existence of a way for them to do it

Nintendo has already shown its capability to:
a) write to nand (by downloading updates)
b) read from nand (by running updated sysmenu)
c) detect the execution of certain flashcarts (by block them)
d) display an error msg and do not allow any further interaction or progress (by the crash msgs)

existence can be proven by example, therefor I propose the following way of bricking:
if they detect a flashcart (c) they can instead of only blocking execution, write a certain value to some nand location (a)
on boot that location can be checked (b) and the boot halted (d) if it is present

since there is no practical way for normal users to manipulate nand from outside
or inside (no boot -> no sysmenu or other software) the device is what is commonly called bricked qed

please point out which step is impossible to do or which prerequisite is not fulfilled
(note that this only invalidates my proof, thats still WAY less than proofing non existence, which is what you claim)

 

[Shiny_Lucario]

Wait... whats "Bricking" mean???
(Sorry I'm new...)

 

[Walker D]

Wait... whats "Bricking" mean???
(Sorry I'm new...)

Means that the system becomes totally broken, making the Hardware as useful as a brick

 

[Tattorack]

Means that the system becomes totally broken, making the Hardware as useful as a brick

Oh, I thought it meant that (nintendo or other) are throwing bricks at the device