One thing that they discovered was a previously undocumented processor in Nintendo's game player. This tiny processor, dubbed "Starlet" by the team of hackers, was embedded on the Hollywood graphics chipset and was described as a "full-fledged NEC ARM system-on-a-chip." Not even licensed Wii developers knew of the chip's existence or of its role in the Wii's security scheme. Nintendo's secrecy about the existence of the processor successfully hindered attempts to hack into the Wii until its discovery.
In hacking the Wii system, Team Twiizers also came across Nintendo's ticket scheme, which lets Nintendo authenticate whether software is allowed to run on the Wii or not. They pointed out that the tickets allowed Nintendo to save costs and distribute their downloadable software through conventional networks, since it prevented users from simply copying their virtual console titles and playing them on another console. Another thing they found was that these authorization tickets had an unused time-limit functionality. This functionality may be used in Hudson's upcoming Joysound Wii karaoke software in Japan, which offers timed subscriptions to its song library instead of permanent downloads.
Since the initial discovery of these tickets, they noted that Nintendo has released patches that have done a good job in preventing the specific problem of Virtual Console piracy.
Team Twiizers also discovered that Nintendo did support DVD playback in the console, but had disabled the functionality. Thinking that leaving the functionality in was an unintentional oversight, and since their goal did not involve DVD playback, they contacted Nintendo to warn them of the issue. However, Nintendo did not respond kindly to their attempts at communication.
Towards the end of the presentation, guest speaker Michael Steil took the stage to explain his beliefs on the motivation behind hacking into consoles. He heels that almost all initial attempts at bypassing the security measures of consoles are to run homebrew software on them. However, he also acknowledged that this has the harmful side effect of being used for piracy. He concluded by saying that console manufacturers would be best protected against hacks by making their systems open to hobbyist uses while still secured against outright piracy. He pointed out that the PlayStation 3, on which Sony openly allows users to install Linux, is the only current console that has not yet been hacked.
The full session video can be found here.
One thing that they discovered was a previously undocumented processor in Nintendo's game player. This tiny processor, dubbed "Starlet" by the team of hackers, was embedded on the Hollywood graphics chipset and was described as a "full-fledged NEC ARM system-on-a-chip." Not even licensed Wii developers knew of the chip's existence or of its role in the Wii's security scheme. Nintendo's secrecy about the existence of the processor successfully hindered attempts to hack into the Wii until its discovery.
Team Twiizers also discovered that Nintendo did support DVD playback in the console, but had disabled the functionality. Thinking that leaving the functionality in was an unintentional oversight, and since their goal did not involve DVD playback, they contacted Nintendo to warn them of the issue. However, Nintendo did not respond kindly to their attempts at communication.
No, this has nothing to do with processing power for the games themselves. This chip acts like a security guy at the airport, asking people to empty their pockets and show their ID. Once you make it through security, the security personnel don't make you get to your destination any faster.
I'm more confused now than ever.
No, this has nothing to do with processing power for the games themselves. This chip acts like a security guy at the airport, asking people to empty their pockets and show their ID. Once you make it through security, the security personnel don't make you get to your destination any faster.
I'm more confused now than ever.
The Starlet handles at least these tasks in the Wii
* NAND access / filesystem
* DVD subsystem
* Authentication (RSA, EC, SHA1, HMAC-SHA1) and encryption/decryption (AES, RSA, EC)
* USB HCD (generic USB interface), Keyboard driver, Ethernet driver
* WiFi (both for networking and communication with Nintendo DS devices)
* TCP/IP and UDP
* SD card
* GPIO (Sensor bar, drive LED, power LED, etc)
* Audio/Video encoder (I2C) bus
One thing that they discovered was a previously undocumented processor in Nintendo's game player. This tiny processor, dubbed "Starlet" by the team of hackers, was embedded on the Hollywood graphics chipset and was described as a "full-fledged NEC ARM system-on-a-chip." Not even licensed Wii developers knew of the chip's existence or of its role in the Wii's security scheme. Nintendo's secrecy about the existence of the processor successfully hindered attempts to hack into the Wii until its discovery.
What does this mean ? I'm not a tech person.
does that mean Wii is MORE GRAPHICAL POWERFUL than previously thought ??QuoteTeam Twiizers also discovered that Nintendo did support DVD playback in the console, but had disabled the functionality. Thinking that leaving the functionality in was an unintentional oversight, and since their goal did not involve DVD playback, they contacted Nintendo to warn them of the issue. However, Nintendo did not respond kindly to their attempts at communication.
So basically whenever Nintendo wants they could make a DVD playback channel and it would work without hesitation.
Cool stuff. I hope they can get 4gb SD cards working next.
Yep. The Wii can support SDHC (unoffically, and not for use by retail Wii software) no problem, but Nintendo themselves are holding this functionality back.
Yep. The Wii can support SDHC (unoffically, and not for use by retail Wii software) no problem, but Nintendo themselves are holding this functionality back.
But WHHHHYYYYYY?!?!??! T_T
Another thing they found was that these authorization tickets had an unused time-limit functionality. This functionality may be used in Hudson's upcoming Joysound Wii karaoke software in Japan, which offers timed subscriptions to its song library instead of permanent downloads.
I loved watching that video. So many terms I didn't understand, yet I learned two facts. The Wii is hackable, and Nintendo should be nice to these guys that are considerate enough to tell Nintendo that there was an exploit that could really be used for piracy means. The PS3 isn't (or so they say) hackable, but nobody cares because they can run any app if they so choose so even if they're not running apps with full disclosure of the PS3's specifications.
If you let people make homebrew applications on your console... they'll start doing things on your console that doesn't give you a revenue stream at all.
TYP is saying that there is a guy in a blue suit inside your Wii. If you don't show him your I'd he tazers you.
