Exophase said:
sebt3 said:
Nintendo was/is realy serious about locking the wii down. Heck, their lastest firmware was just about to fix the "homebrew problem" (as the wii homebrew community offered to help fighting the real piracy problem, I guess nintendo see homebrew as a problem). But their firmware get hacked within a week at most.
Even if Miamoto don't want to see homebrew on its hardware, his techies are too lame to get security things right (see marcan blog for more info)
So I voted within a year
On the other hand, PS3 took years and from what I understand is still a toss-up. I don't recall Nintendo being quite as vocal on this issue when regarding the Wii, as they currently are with 3DS.
Nintendo has billions in the bank, so I don't think they'll have much problem hiring top class security experts to tackle this. But like I said, so much of this is up to chance. The best security experts in the world can still overlook something, and someone below best hacker in the world can get lucky.
To my knowledge, the main reason the Wii was hacked so quickly was because of the complete, full hardware backwards compatibility with Gamecube games. Heck, they had the four Gamecube controller ports and memory card slots instead of a USB adapter of sorts which probably would have been simpler and cheaper for Nintendo. What I've read is the Wii was hacked so easily because of the almost Gamecube-within-Wii type of console hardware. They didn't do software emulation like the Xbox 360 and some of the newer PS3s, they did full hardware backwards compatibility which allowed full system hacks by going through the already hacked Gamecube hardware. That is, of course if I understand the situation correctly.
I'm not exactly sure why the Xbox 360 was hacked so quickly but I know backup games became possible because of the unencrypted nature of the DVD drive. I remember they came out with modchips within months of its release, too. I know it was a hardware hack at first, and eventually the JTAG hack, which too is hardware, but I don't know the origins or methodology behind it.
The Playstation 3 has never really been hacked because I think one of the cell's cores somehow effects system security. And, as we all know, the cell is a monster and can do a whole lot. Also, I think taking out Playstation 2 emulation as a whole prevented some sort of exploit and the same with OtherOS. I guess Sony has learned from its PSP mistakes
I do think the 3DS will be hacked and fairly quickly. Whether it be within a few months or a year, I don't think it will take more than a year to hack it. I think since the 3DS is 100% backwards compatible with all original DS games, there will probably be some sort of tricking the system into thinking its loading an original DS game (since I believe flash carts exist because they discovered the encryption code for DS carts which made everything easier) and then trick the OS into running 3DS hardware.
I think it might be far more difficult to hack and may never be hacked because as consoles get more powerful in the future, they will probably have very advanced encryption methods. Even with Moore's Law, I doubt computers can hack the OS or software side of systems made in 10 years.
I don't know if any of you read, but the new Motorla Droid X has some sort of new bootloader thing called eFuse, which basically renders the system useless if a non-digitally firmware or whatever is attempted to be installed. Of course, the only way to get it working again is to put an official firmware back on, which would pretty much require going to the Verizon Store, and it would most likely void your warranty which would prevent them from being required to fix your phone for free. I also feel the SD card made everything on the Wii so easy to hack and I think it will be the same for the 3DS.
If Nintendo really wanted to prevent hackability, they would have some sort of eFuse type bootloader or whatever and ditch the SD card. If people don't want to download an update via wifi then they can connect the 3DS to the computer using a USB cable and install it on their system. I'm not sure if that's the case currently with the DSi/XL, but I know it's the case for the PSP and PS3. What they could do is put like 16GB or whatever of onboard storage and connect to your computer directly to install the update. If someone tries to install a non-digitally signed firmware or whatever, the eFuse would prevent the 3DS from turning on and working, and the only way to get it working again would be to take it to a retailer like Best Buy or open up the system yourself which would void your warranty for any future issues. The thing about memory cards is that they're removable. If you were to complain to a store about your system not working, if you take out the SD card where the hacked update was installed, they wouldn't have enough reason to void your warranty or make you pay for them to fix it. Even if they used a machine or peripheral to see why the system stopped working and it showed it was because of an unsigned firmware trying to be installed, if you used an SD card to install the update, you can claim the update didn't download correctly or something of that nature. If they were to have the memory onboard, they could very well see what you were trying to do and make you pay to fix the system.
That wouldn't prevent hackability but I bet it would be extremely expensive after a while. And by the looks of things, most hackers aren't filthy rich. The rich hackers might be sued after a while for trying to modify copyrighted Nintendo code which would not be a pleasant experience. SD cards made Wii hacking so much easier and without it, I doubt it would be as easy as it is to hack the Wii. So if Nintendo intends on keeping the SD card slot on the 3DS, which it looks like they will, and if they don't put some sort of eFuse on the system, then hacking shouldn't be extremely complex.
Just my thoughts and opinions, and I apologize if any of my comments are inaccurate.
