Yet another Hacker News

99 points ledoge 4 hours ago 28 comments

KeplerBoy 1 hour ago | parent

Putting the obvious discussion about how much the AI matters in comparison to the user (experienced security expert from a few glances at the blog) aside; i think it's really neat how modern tooling (the KVMs, bluetooth light switch flicker, and usb controller support out of the box) enables this level of automation.

amelius 26 minutes ago | parent

I suppose we can let AI write the entire blogpost :)

KeplerBoy 18 minutes ago | parent

I don't know. I feel like the blog reads as very human written and enjoyable overall. Also what's 2 weeks of real work (in tandem with an agent) compared to a few hours for the blog?

_imnothere 26 minutes ago | parent

IMO, Nintendo deserves stronger backlash just like Sony. Game keycards keep the appearance of physical ownership without delivering what people expect from a cartridge.

I sure looking forward for more people hopping on the AI hacking trend to bring them down.

chocochunks 17 minutes ago | parent

GKCs aren't perfect, but both PS5 and Xbox Series consoles have had games where the disc is near useless too, either with only part of the game on the disc (e.g., Oblivion Remastered) or virtually none of the game on the disc (Indiana Jones). GKCs are at least upfront and clear on the packaging. I wish they had banned the practice of codes in a box. THOSE SUCK.

And just yesterday I had to use my modded 3DS to rescue a physical 3DS cart that wasn't booting. Luckily I was able to but there's no guarantee a physical game will last forever either.

asimovDev 4 minutes ago | parent

yes at least with GKC I immediately know that game is not playable offline instead of needing to go to https://www.doesitplay.org and hope that someone already documented the game I am looking at, which is the case with PS5

croes 14 minutes ago | parent

The Nintendo cartridges contain the full playable version of the game.

Third party publishers often just put the key on it. So blame them for that

xacky 26 minutes ago | parent

The Switch 2 jailbroken with the help of a Switch Flicker. Really funny.

Velocifyer 25 minutes ago | parent

It's unfortunate that this requires a specific $25 game (SmileBASIC 4)

Gigachad 23 minutes ago | parent

Console hacking has been like that for a very long time. But usually after the first exploits are found and hackers can start playing with things, many more follow. Though Nintendo has been stripping down the OS every new console so there’s less interesting stuff to exploit outside of games.

StilesCrisis 6 minutes ago | parent

This gives visibility to a lot more unencrypted code, so just give it time. More bugs will be found quickly now that the code is inspectable.

xacky 6 minutes ago | parent

I remember having to buy GTA Liberty City Stories to jailbreak the PSP. Then there was the infamous Cubic Ninja jailbreak which caused the game to become worth hundreds of dollars.

hturan 25 minutes ago | parent

Incredible all around.

If this is true decrypted `fs` r/w, I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing Switch 2 game dumps appear in a few hours. Given the world of recomps/decomps we now live in, that would mean console exclusives playable on arbitrary hardware (a worst-case scenario for Nintendo). We've already seen things like Tears of the Kingdom running at 60fps natively on an iPhone.

Giving LLMs arms and eyes via KVM (or webcam) is a very strong paradigm for this sort of hardware work, as it allows things to be parallelised and run 24/7. Highly recommend people play with this more (to less nefarious ends!) when working on firmware/hardware for external devices.

Worth noting too that this would have easily fetched >$50k via Nintendo's HackerOne (https://hackerone.com/nintendo).

mentos 18 minutes ago | parent

Short term the argument that 'piracy exists yet doesn't affect steam sales' holds true.

Long term when someone makes emulating Switch 2 on your Steam Deck a 1-click install I'm not so sure.

lachiflippi 8 minutes ago | parent

Very unlikely to happen via emulation, there's Switch 1 games that the Steam Deck struggles to run already.

TuxSH 8 minutes ago | parent

> Worth noting too that this would have easily fetched >$50k

More like $30k, no ("system processes allowing piracy")?

RicoElectrico 24 minutes ago | parent

And in the process obsoleting the work of many very dedicated fans who went to great lengths in order to record the Mario Kart World soundtrack (iykyk)

enricozb 16 minutes ago | parent

> thanks to my friends in Dabney House ...

Cool to see this happened at Caltech :)

GolDDranks 16 minutes ago | parent

If one follows this and jailbreaks their Switch 2, are they in danger of getting their account banned by Nintendo, and their games unaccessible?

GolDDranks 11 minutes ago | parent

(I'm interested in Homebrew, and I'd love to port my self made game dev framework on Switch 2, but I'm afraid of losing everything)

StilesCrisis 8 minutes ago | parent

Definitely a risk.

asimovDev 5 minutes ago | parent

never go online and even if you reset the console afterwards , assume the console will get banned when connect to the internet as they know to look for markers of customer firmware.

Switch 1 hacks bypass this by copying ofw from flash onto the microSD card and patching it there to my crude understanding, so that unsigned code never touches the firmware on the system memory.

Something like this definitely will be needed again for the Switch 2 so I'd only do this if you don't care about being banned.

ada-h00k 4 minutes ago | parent

The chances of getting banned for this are extremely high. The Switch 2 has plenty of mechanisms to detect tampering. Even if you were completely offline during the process and then reset the Switch afterward, there are logs. People have already been banned for using the MIG Switch to play backups of Switch 1 games on the Switch 2.

attels33 15 minutes ago | parent

What SW is needed for the jailbreak to work? Is it worth trying to buy a used console now?