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Twilight Hack Defeats Wii Menu Update 3.3
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:10 PM
from the say-goodnight-gracie dept.
from the say-goodnight-gracie dept.
Croakyvoice writes "Only days after Nintendo shipped Wii Menu 3.3, which stopped the Twilight Hack from working, the team lead by Bushing brought out a new version of the Homebrew enabling hack for the Nintendo Wii using the Zelda Game and a hacked save game."
Related Stories
[+]
Hardware: Wii Update 3.3 Defeats Twilight Hack, Freeloader 125 comments
Richter X writes "The newest update to the Nintendo Wii's Menu, version 3.3, contains code specifically designed to find and kill the popular Twilight Hack used by homebrewers to play unauthorized code on the Wii. The update also prevents the Freeloader software used to play imported games on the Wii. However, it does not seem to affect the Homebrew Channel in Wiis that already have it installed. The updated code is currently being researched in order to find what code has been changed. So far it has been confirmed that Nintendo included specific instructions to target the Twilight Hack. Work is also being done to update the Twilight Hack in order to bypass this new code."
[+]
Hardware: World's First Custom Firmware For Wii Released 165 comments
Croakyvoice writes "Waninkoko has released the world's
first custom firmware for the Nintendo Wii, which is installed using the twilight
hack; among its features is the ability to allow writeable DVDs to be read
in emulators. From the readme: 'The Custom Firmware installs as IOS249 and it does not modify
any other IOS so it is secure to install and has been made to be used ONLY with
homebrew
software. This is a custom IOS, an IOS modified to add some new features not
available in the official IOS.'"
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open works better (Score:5, Insightful)
when will these companies get it - if done well, open systems work better in a globally connected world.
billions of monkeys typing on computers will inevitably create a small handful that can and will consistently break your closed source world.
Re:open works better (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd have to say Nintendo has the entire open source world beat hands down so far as gaming is concerned.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't normally comment on people's sigs, but since you brought it up, his sig is actually kinda stupid.
Suppose I have a friend who constantly harps on how he can fix anything on his own car and how everyone should learn how to perform regular maintenance on their own cars and save themselves money at service stations for things they could do themselves. He does this for years, constantly harping on it. And then one day, we discover he can't even change his own oil. I myself don't change my own oil, so
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, due to decades of contentious lawsuits and complaints from cranky customers, companies have been forced to lock down their hardware to make sure that there are really no variables that exist in the system that could disturb the lowest common denominator consumer. Yes, it would be nice if everything we bought was unlocked, open, hackable, and mod-able to the nth degree, but that also opens the door to the one thing that no mainstream consumer will accept - instability. The average person buyin
Re:open works better (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't believe what you just said represents 2 mutually exclusive paths, things can be open and stable at the same time.
Your lowest common denominator consumer isn't going to be screwing with the system, so the fact that its open and not locked doesn't affect them, certainly it won't suddenly make their system unstable, remember most people don't hack around in these things.
The real push here is to prevent any perceived piracy risk by preventing backups from playing.
Parent
Nintendo's intentions (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Nintendo's intentions (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish scores went above 5 so I could've modded this up.
They said that homebrew save files will be deleted, publicly, prior to providing the update link; they basically said "We're going to eliminate anything that could cause system instability, so if you want to keep it, transfer it to an external device. We really don't want to brick your console." No reasons regarding piracy were given, although they probably express a healthy level of awareness and paranoia about the possibility of homebrew leading to piracy.
All in all, Nintendo generally seems intelligent about this sort of thing. They're trying to balance the happiness of the power-users and modders with their corporate interests and the possibility of piracy.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nintendo is still keeping in mind
Re:Nintendo's intentions (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:open works better (Score:4, Insightful)
It also wouldn't mean more illegal copies. Mr. Average doesn't "mod" his console for the same reason he buys his games: It's easier, more convenient and doesn't require technical knowledge.
All you'd have to do is make sure that playing illegal copies requires you to know what you're doing and make it nontrivial to do. The reason why there is a market for game copies on the PC is that it's convenient (due to copy restrictions and "CD must be in the drive" crap, often more convenient than using the original).
Now, it doesn't get more convenient on a console than using an original. Slip in the CD and play. Since there is no install part, even the CD requirement isn't a deterrent.
OTOH, don't forget that most console manufacturers earn a sizable portion of their income from licensing fees to those that want to produce for their consoles. I doubt they'd readily drop this source of income.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, I don't own a PS3 and never will.
In the battle between curiosity (will it mod?) and integrity (it's a Sony), integrity won.
Re:open works better (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets go with a famous slashdot car analogy, that happens to fit perfectly well.
My car's hood is not locked requiring a special key that only the dealer has.
I personally however am not mechanically inclined enough to do much more than check fluids in my car. I *do* take it to a mechanic to have it worked on. I am like your wii's lowest common denominator except for cars.
Now, add lock down. A special key is required to open the hood. Only the dealers have these keys.
Suddenly, every single person that liked tinkering under the hood is screwed. They have to resort to quasi-legal methods to do with their property as they wish. Those people know better than to call the dealer expecting a replacement when they know it was them monkeying with it that broke it.
I however am not affected by this change. My car still runs, and the procedure is basically the same, other than I have to go to the original dealer and get raped by their 10x higher prices, but since my usual mechanic wont have the key, i get screwed too in a way.
Leaving the wii unlocked to modding can't possibly effect the people who will not be modding it!
It only prevents those of us who want to do with our property as we wish, from being able to do so.
Parent
Re:open works better (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:open works better (Score:5, Interesting)
I was to the mechanic last week to get my engine checked out. The check engine light was on and I had no idea why. It didn't really tell them much either.
So they hooked it up to a "computer". (little handheld diagnostic gadget with small LCD display) Many of us that have taken our vehicles in for service have had to "hook it up to the computer" to see why the idiot light is on.
It told him there were one of three problems, the main one of which was going to require tearing the truck to pieces to get at a sensor, and since it only MIGHT affect my gas mileage, it wasn't worth it and I'm just going to live with the light, it's an old truck.
But he said that the computer itself was 20 grand, and the modules that he had to plug into it to check my vehicle, were $500 apiece. (there were two, any vehicle takes a particular combination of the two, one to read the sensors and one to interpret the output) He also told me that this was the last time the company was going to make modules for it, that the next iteration he was going to have to upgrade the computer (another 20 grand) but was very thankful that the modules were going away and it was instead only going to cost $200-300 each for downloads to upgrade the two parts of the tool.
So in much the same respect, Ford holds a lockdown on my truck, that I can't diagnose it without someone paying an unreasonable amount to do so. I don't have to take it to the dealer, there are mechanics with The Computer too, but it's not like I can have one of my own. He gets $40 every time he hooks someone up to The Computer, to defray the cost of the computer and its modules. That's $40 I really shouldn't have to pay, it should tell me what's wrong, or be a reasonably easy output. (gimme a serial cable with serial out, or on something newer, let me ssh in) Or on some vehicles you get a flashing series of lights. Or how expensive would it be to simply have a 3 digit LED display to give me a number, and have a table in the back of the owner's manual to look up the number? But no they're very happy to charge someone a ridiculous amount for that privilege and so that cost is passed on to me.
I also know someone that reprograms ECUs for street racing ("ricer") cars. He has to disassemble the source code on the new ECUs to figure out what they're doing, to modify them to fit the customers' needs.
There are many examples of lock-down in vehicles.
Parent
Re:open works better (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:open works better (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow .. you just described my absolute hatred of Apple and their philosophy.
What you have here is two distict, yet separate groups:
The idiot-proof, lowest-common-denominator, who wants things to work (and simply).
The more adventurous, possibly more knowledgeable individuals who like options.
I will NEVER purchase an iAnything. Why? Because I like to tweak, tinker, and have options. That's why I have an 8GB Nokia that uses a standard USB port to talk to any computer (and the phone says "What do you want me to be? A USB HDD? Maybe Sync with your phone software? How about a normal MP3 player?"), a Creative Zen for MP3s/Videos on the go, and a PC.
The problem with a locked-down, "Do it our way only" philosophy is it encourages laziness and contentment. How many of us got curious, or felt adventurous enough, to tinker with something technological (broken or not) just to figure out how it works (or even make it better or more suited to our needs)? Which, through trial and error, only encouraged us to venture out further and learn even more when our curiousity was piqued? If we never had the oportunity to break something or toy with the horizons on our own, we'd never be as knowledgeable in a technological fashion as we are. (Referring here to fellow /.'ers).
Parent
Re:open works better (Score:4, Informative)
Wow .. you just described my absolute hatred of Apple and their philosophy.
I will NEVER purchase an iAnything. Why? Because I like to tweak, tinker, and have options.
And what most users never notice: Apple isn't actualy against it, read:
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/overview.html [apple.com]
Of couse the MacPro is ever better for tinkering - but then there is no 'i' in it's name...
Martin
Parent
Re:open works better (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no idea how this got modded insightful. Saying that opening a system makes it unstable is like saying that removed locks from the doors of a house will make it fall down. The stability of a system is correlated with its quality, not whether it is open or not.
LS
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I'm all for open sourcing stuff, but the business model of consoles is all about having a closed platform so you can keep piracy to a minimum. And so far it's been working pretty well for them for the past 25 years or so.
Yes, there's a "small handful" that will constantly break their "closed source world[s]", which in turn requires them to spend money writing and releasing patches all the time, but between that and making their consoles as piracy-friendly as PCs are, I'm pretty sure the former choice is the
Re:open works better (Score:5, Informative)
The interesting thing is that modchips work in a completely different way, so these fixes don't really affect them. None of the current homebrew hacks/etc have anything to do with modchips or let people use pirated disc-based games.
As for VC/WiiWare piracy, it's true that the Homebrew Channel requires the same installation methods as hacked VC/WiiWare games, and both look the same to the system (unsigned channels). However, if Nintendo released an officially signed Homebrew Channel, we wouldn't have to worry about installing unsigned code any more. Then they could fix the unsigned channel bug, therefore killing VC/WiiWare piracy, and we wouldn't have to work around the fix (thus indirectly letting the pirates use it too). Pirate VC games are rather hard to run as "homebrew", because they want to read their data as channel contents.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with getting license fees from everyone who develops software for the console.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, it has everything to do with piracy, because the cruel reality is that no matter how good the intentions of the homebrew hackers are, 99% of the people that use their hacks are only interested in piracy.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sony's PlayStation 3 encourages you to run custom software on it, but it's not helping their case very much :P
Re:open works better (Score:4, Informative)
No it doesn't. It has a lame 'Other OS' mode that runs in a hypervisor with no access to the graphics acceleration and only limited access to the processors.
The PS3 itself is so locked down nobody has actually managed 'homebrew' on it yet.
Parent
That's a big "nearly" (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Score (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Score (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't it be:
Hackers: 2, Nintento: 1
Parent
Re:Score (Score:5, Funny)
Naw, it's,
Hackers: 10, Nintento: 01
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes - but:
Hackers defeat Zelda - 1 pt Hackers
Nintendo defends against hack - 1 pt Nintendo
Hackers defeat Nintendos defense - 1 pt Hackers
Re:Score (Score:4, Insightful)
The crack had to be updated, so Nintendo's patch did work against the attack (the first).
If you only count a point when Nintendo resists, than you also only count one point for all the versions of the crack.
So it's either Nintendo 1, Hackers 2 or Nintendo 0, Hackers 1.
Parent
Easter Egg (Score:5, Funny)
Take note of the nice easter egg they left in for Nintendo to find:
The Twilight Hack Song
---------
This was a triumph.
I'm making note here:
HACKED AGAIN.
It's hard to overstate our satisfaction.
Team Twiizers
We do what we must because we can.
For the good of all of us, except the ones who pirate.
But there's no sense crying over every quick plug.
We just keep on trying while there's still one more bug.
And the homebrew comes back, and we make a neat hack.
For the people whose Wiis want new life.
I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.
Even though they broke the hack and patched it.
And fixed IOS30.
And broke every fake signed disc out there.
As they failed it hurt because...
They were attacking homebrew!
Now these quick hack fixes have some beautiful holes,
So we found them fast and easily met our goals.
And I'm glad we got burned.
Think of all the things we learned.
For the people whose Wiis want new life!
Go ahead and patch it.
I think I'd like to have some fun.
Maybe you'll find an undisclosed bug.
Maybe that huge one.
That was a joke, haha, fat chance!
Anyway, this homebrew's great. It's also legal to use.
Look at me still talking, when there's hacking to do.
It might take three months,
but they'll patch this one too.
I've experiments to run, there's reversing to be done.
On the people whose Wiis want new life.
And believe me the Wiis want new life!
I'm busy hacking and they want new life.
I feel FANTASTIC and they'll get new life.
While you're dying they'll still be alive.
And when you're dead they'll still have some life.
STILL ALIVE,
still alive.
It's like Star Wars (Score:2, Funny)
- A New Hack
- The Big N Strikes Back
- Return of the Twilight Hack
They now charge for the Internet Channel (Score:4, Insightful)
For a while, Opera was giving away their browser for Wii users. Now you have to pay if you want to access the Internet using your Wii, and Opera is your only choice. There's been some talk about Firefox on the Wii but, as far as I can tell, that's all it is: talk.
So yeah, buying a Wii (and most every other console) is just buying a pair of handcuffs.
Hopefully PCs will never ever be this locked down.
Re:They now charge for the Internet Channel (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They now charge for the Internet Channel (Score:5, Insightful)
I will say (and I will say it anonymously, as even the vaguest breath of this opinion is karmic suicide on Slashdot), your sense of entitlement is quite overinflated. You seem to be under the impression that anything with silicon in it must be open to hacking and supported in such a hackable state by the manufacturers . If you can't run $os_of_choice on it for God only knows what reason (you haven't run it enough on your PC?), it is not only Flawed(tm) but immoral.
Seriously. It's a game console. It's not a $250 shortcut to a PC. Why on earth do you (I mean you, specifically, apparently an ardent PC user) want a web browser on a console? You can't just use a console to play games and a PC to do work?
And if you ARE one of the elusive homebrewers who actually want to make new games for the Wii (not Yet Another Damned Emulator), you are aware that the Wiimote's had fairly stable drivers for most major operating systems for some time now? I mean, if you actually want to develop for the Wii's unique features, I can get behind that the whole way. It's just that you don't need to hack the Wii to do so.
Just my opinion. While everyone else is struggling to figure out how to play old games from their past consoles on the Wii (in addition to their PC, XBox360, PS3, etc, etc), I'm having fun playing Wii games on the Wii and doing work on my rather a bit open PC.
Parent
Re:They now charge for the Internet Channel (Score:5, Informative)
For a while, Opera was giving away their browser for Wii users. Now you have to pay if you want to access the Internet using your Wii, and Opera is your only choice. There's been some talk about Firefox on the Wii but, as far as I can tell, that's all it is: talk.
You realize that Nintendo and Opera have always been perfectly up front and clear about their intentions [opera.com] with this regard, right? They had announced that Opera for the Wii would be free for only a limited time before it was even released.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, once you downloaded it's unlocked to that Wii. Forever.
Apparently a game or two also install it for free.. I've heard Super Paper Mario will install Opera.
Re:They now charge for the Internet Channel (Score:5, Informative)
And your point is... ? Nintendo and Opera made no secret about the fact that the Internet Channel was going to cost money. The reason why it was free for a time was that the browser was in public beta testing. The early testers had to put up with constant crashes, freezes, corrupted renderings, and a rather primitive user interface. But Opera used the feedback on the browser to create the superior final product. Those who had participated in the beta got to keep the browser at no cost.
So get your facts straight, eh? You made it sound like they did something evil.
Parent
What is the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What is the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people like modifying things and see what they can make them do. This is the hacker ethic.
Make your car go faster? Or run on vegetable oil perhaps? Changing your fridge into a computer cooling system? Messing with a synthesizer's innards to get some sounds it never had before? Improving an item by doing something with it the original manufacturers never considered.
For any reason from souping-up, to making it more envrionmentally friendly, to just off-the-wall crazy, hacking is about repurposing something because it suits you. It's inventing, innovation, creativity. If you can't see the point in these, then you don't understand hacking and I wonder what you're doing here.
For the Wii and PSP specifically, they are awesome platforms (and unique in their features), which inspire people. They are obviously having ideas for games, or uses for the consoles, that they are not available commercially. These homebrew guys have to work their own way in as the manufacturers have chosen to make dev kits and release methods prohibitively expensive (tens of thousands of dollars), so kudos to them for doing so. I hope they continue to use homebrew to make the next great set of applications and games.
If you want a comparison of how a manufacturer can get it right, look at what is going to happen with iPhone development over the next 6 months. With a free SDK and cheap way to distribute apps commercially, there will be a LOT of people eager to join in, and Apple will get a ton of apps and even some revenue, from doing this.
Whether the companies embrace homebrew or not, it will always be there one way or another. They should recognise it as a pool of talent and creativity and allow it the space to grow.
Parent
Re:What is the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's there.
Parent
Re:wdim (Score:5, Informative)
It allows you to run any type of code in the Wii, let's say, Linux.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The attack on the twilight hack was probably brought forth by the new found popularity for the Homebrew Channel, which brings homebrew software to the Wii using masses (Similar to PSP Custom Firmwares or Jail Broke iPhones).
Re:wdim (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What can you do with this hack? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. Because a lot of times "homebrew" is merely a code word for "illegally copied games" (oh, wait.. let's call them "backups", yeah.. that sounds much better).
If it allows you to write your own software for the Wii (is there an SDK publicly available?).. well, then we're talking and this is something to get excited about.
1) Homebrew doesn't mean "illegally copied games."
2) There is a sort of crude SDK out there, google it.
Please, before you open your mouth understand that not all homebrewers are pirates. We pay for our VC/WiiWare games (or just choose not to use the service). We just want to do MORE then what Nintendo is willing to do, like playing out of region games (Using Gecko Region Free) or other things as people write software, such as a POP3 email client, emulators, Doom, etc.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please, before you open your mouth understand that not all homebrewers are pirates. We pay for our VC/WiiWare games (or just choose not to use the service). We just want to do MORE then what Nintendo is willing to do, like playing out of region games (Using Gecko Region Free) or other things as people write software, such as a POP3 email client, emulators, Doom, etc.
How likely are you to buy a VC title when you've already got the ROM file and an emulator running?
Same as how much I would, if I owned the original cart and the working system
Re:What can you do with this hack? (Score:5, Informative)
Let's set thing straight. So far, homebrew on the Wii is an entirely different playfield from copied games. To play games on DVD-Rs, you need to hardware mod your drive, period.
Now, when you get to Virtual Console/WiiWare piracy, things get a little muddier. Unfortunately, if you can run homebrew, then you can effectively pirate VC games, because the terribly broken security means that you can pretty much just install them and they'll work. This might change in the future, when Nintendo fixes the problems.
Our (Team Twiizers') goal is to enable homebrew on the Wii, not piracy. We're not going to go out of our way to prevent piracy, but we also try to come up with methods of running homebrew that don't directly enable piracy. However, we can't work around the fact that, ultimately, if you can run unsigned code, then that code might be a game. We do have the advantage that pirates don't really have much of clue overall (so far), which is why we haven't seen a Wii ISO loader that can run games from an SD card yet. We sure as heck aren't going to write it, but if someone does, there's not much we can do about it.
As for homebrew, there is certainly a public, free, open source SDK available based on the GNU toolchain and an open source library to access the Wii hardware. In fact, most of the Wii's hardware is supported. Full graphics (though the API is mostly undocumented, it's all there), Wii Remote, SD card access, Gamecube pads, networking (WiFi or ethernet), USB mass storage, partial sound (no hardware acceleration yet), etc. See devkitpro [devkitpro.org] for the toolchain and wiibrew [wiibrew.org] for the community wiki.
Parent
Re:Only homebrew? (Score:4, Insightful)
It allows you to do the following:
1) Play pure homebrew from SD/USB
2) Play games from other regions on legitimate (pressed) discs
3) Play pirated Virtual Console/WiiWare games
And with a ModChip to keep the DVD drive from telling the Wii that a burnt disc is inside:
4) Play homebrew from burnt discs
5) Play pirated games with modified files
For obvious reasons, Nintendo is worried about #3 and #5.
Parent
Re:Fatal flaw (Score:4, Informative)
Wii games do run with a separate CPU taking care of security. There's a permissions system. However, said system is broken enough that we have 4 or 5 privilege escalation methods stowed away if we need them. Which means that the only real barrier to hacking the Wii is getting any code to run, which (practically speaking) means exploiting games via savegames. We'll always find one more bug in one more game.
Parent