New DS cart Protection

amrod · November 03, 2005, 09:02:12 PM

from Nintendogs_Best_Friends_USA_NDS-TRM nfo

ÞÛ Here's the limited edition version from ÛÝ
ÞÛ the new DS bundles for all of you puppy ÛÝ
ÞÛ fans. ÛÝ
ÞÛ ÛÝ
ÞÛ Now for some bad news. As you may have ÛÝ
ÞÛ noticed, no new Japanese NDS games are ÛÝ
ÞÛ being released. Nintendo decided to make ÛÝ
ÞÛ some kind of new protection on recent JPN ÛÝ
ÞÛ NDS carts. Our WRG buddies confirmed ÛÝ
ÞÛ that these 'JAP 1.5' carts will not dump ÛÝ
ÞÛ with current dumpers. They have the games ÛÝ
ÞÛ for you, but can't do anything with 'em. ÛÝ
ÞÛ Frustrating, eh? And only a matter of ÛÝ
ÞÛ time until Nintendo implements this on ÛÝ
ÞÛ the rest of their carts. ÛÝ
ÞÛ ÛÝ
ÞÛ So, ever-so-bored NDS devs: Take a look ÛÝ
ÞÛ at current dumpers, and see if you can't ÛÝ
ÞÛ make a new (or fixed SMT version) one ÛÝ
ÞÛ to help WRG, DS owners, and eventually ÛÝ
ÞÛ US/EUR people if Nintendo is lame. ÛÝ
ÞÛ The old one wasn't that great anyways: ÛÝ
ÞÛ ÛÝ
ÞÛ RAW instead of file-based ÛÝ
ÞÛ Not working on M3/SC ÛÝ
ÞÛ Only decrypted dumps (no option/converter) ÛÝ
ÞÛ Slow on the PC side ÛÝ
ÞÛ Now, broken on JPN carts ÛÝ
ÞÛ ÛÝ
ÞÛ So, there's room for improvement. Send ÛÝ
ÞÛ your tools/art/dumpers/hate mail/utils ÛÝ
ÞÛ inprog or complete. We can test 'em for ÛÝ
ÞÛ you. If they work, even slightly better, ÛÝ
ÞÛ you win the grand prize. (Bill Cosby) ÛÝ
ÞÛ ÛÝ
ÞÛ Time for sleep. $100 says no one sends ÛÝ
ÞÛ anything...ahahahahhahaahhaahhahahahaha ÛÝ

Guess that's why no new jap dumps

memyselfandi · November 03, 2005, 09:45:19 PM

i'm going to post this on gbatemp to tell people, i'l give you credit

Koji · November 04, 2005, 12:07:23 AM

It'll be frustrating for awhile... but there hasn't been a copy protection scheme yet invented that hasn't been cracked. Just give it a little while and then there will be a small flood of new releases.

DeVS · November 04, 2005, 12:18:27 AM

Carts/CD/DVD are the easiest to crack and thats why you see dumps of games waaay before you see actual exploits to play them. But hey Nintendo has do to something to protect there assessts so you cant blame em for trying.

chiching · November 06, 2005, 09:09:27 AM

Quote from: "Koji"It'll be frustrating for awhile... but there hasn't been a copy protection scheme yet invented that hasn't been cracked. Just give it a little while and then there will be a small flood of new releases.

If case u didn't know, go and check for the emulator scene for CPS2 and CPS3.

It takes months for a single CPS2 game to be cracked and no CPS3 game has been emulated so far.

Although their technology can only be used on battery powered game cart, which NDS can't use, it doesn't mean that Nintendo cannot develop their system as hard as the old technology on a DS-card-sized system.

128bits RSA is just the state of the art encryption method used today. The estimated time for cracking a system takes more than one million on todays system. Can you wait that long ?

The hardest part is that even someone think of a way to break the 128 bit, they can simply improve it to 256 bit... If it is somehow an exponential-timed algorithm it means no one on Earth can live long enough to break the code.

CTX100 · November 06, 2005, 12:56:56 PM

I don't think this will help Nintendo for too long. They can't make a copy protection that will work forever, atleast not without creating compatibility issues(and it's for sure that Nintendo doesn't want to create any) like with the Starforce Disk Protection that disables games of running on any PC with only a CD/DVD writer(however that only works if the starforce driver is installed an opportunity Nintendo doesn't have with their DS)...

MottZilla · November 06, 2005, 02:27:05 PM

Your CPS2 analogy is false. CPS2 games are decrypted by a trojan dumping program designed by Razoola. It only "took months" per game because he had to actually obtain the original arcade board and the actual process of dumping the data was said to be slow.

Anyways, the fact is that the system itself (Nintendo DS) has to be able to get the info, so reverse engineering games that use such new protections can always help. Further development of emulators could too. I'm sure that this will only slow down releases of newer games for awhile. But eventually it'll be cracked.

davhuit · November 06, 2005, 05:40:10 PM

Quote from: "chiching"
Quote from: "Koji"It'll be frustrating for awhile... but there hasn't been a copy protection scheme yet invented that hasn't been cracked. Just give it a little while and then there will be a small flood of new releases.

If case u didn't know, go and check for the emulator scene for CPS2 and CPS3.

It takes months for a single CPS2 game to be cracked and no CPS3 game has been emulated so far.

Although their technology can only be u7sed on battery powered game cart, which NDS can't use, it doesn't mean that Nintendo cannot develop their system as hard as the old technology on a DS-card-sized system.

128bits RSA is just the state of the art encryption method used today. The estimated time for cracking a system takes more than one million on todays system. Can you wait that long ?

The hardest part is that even someone think of a way to break the 128 bit, they can simply improve it to 256 bit... If it is somehow an exponential-timed algorithm it means no one on Earth can live long enough to break the code.

Compare Arcarde Boars and a protection is completly useless, there's not the same thing at all.

cory1492 · November 07, 2005, 01:06:06 AM

The thing is, with the current dumpers on the DS, it is relying on a strict filesystem and a pseudo-random number generator that bases its seed on some info in the cart header and a value in the low ARM7 bios (and this info is known by those who made the dumpers, and likely coded directly into the apps) - as with any obfuscation found to deceive disassemblers, it is likely some form of simple obfuscation was used to trick the dumpers that currently exist - since the encrypt/decrypt method is essentially hardcoded into the DS bios it is likely they will not change the "key" size as they can simply do on AES and other forms of crypt, it will likely be just a matter of adapting the dumper to the obfuscation.

berlinka · November 07, 2005, 04:00:28 AM

Boy, isn't that Cory a smart lad...

cory1492 · November 07, 2005, 04:22:18 AM

Quote from: "berlinka"Boy, isn't that Cory a smart lad...

I'd agree with that, but as it is I cant make heads nor tails of how to actually dump a cart even with the disasm of SMT dumper in front of me :lol: a SC dumper would be nice though... my Dad agrees though, he says even my a$$ is smart :lol:

MottZilla · November 08, 2005, 03:51:50 PM

Is the source code to the SMT Dumper freely available? If it is, it shouldn't be too terribly difficult to make a dumper for SuperCard.

cory1492 · November 08, 2005, 04:02:33 PM

Quote from: "MottZilla"Is the source code to the SMT Dumper freely available? If it is, it shouldn't be too terribly difficult to make a dumper for SuperCard.

Nope, but the binary is freely disassembleable...
http://www.excite.co.jp/world/english/web/?wb_url=http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA018359/&wb_lp=JAEN

berlinka · November 08, 2005, 04:15:19 PM

Quote from: "cory1492"
Quote from: "MottZilla"Is the source code to the SMT Dumper freely available? If it is, it shouldn't be too terribly difficult to make a dumper for SuperCard.
Nope, but the binary is freely disassembleable...
http://www.excite.co.jp/world/english/web/?wb_url=http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA018359/&wb_lp=JAEN

Do you know if somebody is working on it already? I heard talking about Viewtiful Joe also being protected! I find it strange that there's almost no attention for this problem..

cory1492 · November 09, 2005, 06:35:59 AM

I dont know of anyone working on it, but then again when the other ones were released I wasnt expecting those for a long while. I imagine some of the flashcart companies are working on them or sponsoring people who are, as their sales are sort of driven by it especially if they put all their eggs in the NDS basket too quickly...