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DS Misc > Please bad people who annouce WFC compat. trainers [Renamed]

#63908 - MaHe - Sat Dec 17, 2005 3:16 pm

Anyone that will announce a WFC compatible game trainer should be permanently banned from now on (AC:WW could be an exception). If MK:DS speedhack or anything like that comes out, the gameplay experience will be destroyed for sure. Please, add this rule.

#63912 - Mithos - Sat Dec 17, 2005 4:28 pm

MaHe wrote:
If MK:DS speedhack or anything like that comes out, the gameplay experience will be destroyed for sure.


Neah, will even out the gameplay quite nicely.. ;p

#63914 - Alec - Sat Dec 17, 2005 5:01 pm

The trainers released by DsPet modify the save file only. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that speed hacks and the like are impossible through save editing.

ACTUAL hacking over WFC would go without saying as being non-postable and only possible through actual ROM editing.
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#63916 - Maverick - Sat Dec 17, 2005 5:38 pm

Not necessarily, whats wrong with some Gameshark style loader?

Im guessing you realise that this would work with an original game pak
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#63918 - tepples - Sat Dec 17, 2005 5:51 pm

Another idea: Take your GameShark style releases to Pocket Heaven.
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#63922 - DsPet - Sat Dec 17, 2005 5:58 pm

Commentary:
Although I agree with your sentiments, I think a ban is inappropriate.

FWIW: My trainers (save game editors) for Animal Crossing and Nintendogs only let you modify the game play to enhance your experience, which you may decide to share. They will not let you 'cheat' and win a competitive game over WFC.

A hypothetical MarioKart speed hack may be possible (not something that interests me). If someone wants to work on something like that, and people want to use it, then why ban it only here?? (this is not the only DS website). If they release it with source code, I think it would be quite appropriate and would advance the possibilities of hacking the DS and DS games in legal ways.
[eg: see the thread on how to open up new tracks with a WiFi/WFC hack]

Last edited by DsPet on Sat Dec 17, 2005 6:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

#63923 - MaHe - Sat Dec 17, 2005 6:00 pm

I agree with track-unlocking mods, however, it'd be horribly awful to see somebody using in-game hacks.

#63990 - octopusfluff - Sun Dec 18, 2005 9:39 am

MaHe wrote:
I agree with track-unlocking mods, however, it'd be horribly awful to see somebody using in-game hacks.

That's getting into a fuzzy right/wrong analysis that's really difficult to make at times.
Sometimes the distinction between 'useful and harmless' and 'unfair/cheating' is entirely subjective, or if it isn't, it might only be a matter of a byte or two difference.
As long as there's a solid legal grounding for the release and it has the potential to either be useful or increase understanding of the workings of a system (which may potentially be useful to someone else laster on), a subjective morality based policy may not be appropriate.

As an example, many people (Nintendo possibly included) see the track-unlocking as a form of cheating and some present it as immoral; since you do not feel this way on that subject, it should indicate the variety in viewpoints.

#63996 - souLLy - Sun Dec 18, 2005 12:10 pm

I think the problem in my mind would be if people did use some kind of trainer to cheat online, and Nintendo saw it was ruining the fun for everyone, they may find some way to ban people from the network in the way xbox live blocks users who have modified consoles. (i don't know the technicalities of the system enough to know if this is possible or not) but it's possible nintendo could also use a 'must run on v.XYZ firmware' to all new games- like the psp has a problem with.

Either way Nintendo doesn't seem to have had many issues with homebrew developers on the ds so far, i'd hate for the situation to change.

#64022 - m2pt5 - Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:18 pm

souLLy wrote:
it's possible nintendo could also use a 'must run on v.XYZ firmware' to all new games- like the psp has a problem with.

No it's not. With the first 64kb (or whatever it is) being protected by SL1 they can't force you to update your firmware.

#64024 - Mr. Picklesworth - Sun Dec 18, 2005 6:03 pm

Quote:
No it's not. With the first 64kb (or whatever it is) being protected by SL1 they can't force you to update your firmware.

What he's saying is that Nintendo is perfectly able to block non-Nintendo firmwares from working.
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#64032 - m2pt5 - Sun Dec 18, 2005 7:35 pm

Mr. Picklesworth wrote:
What he's saying is that Nintendo is perfectly able to block non-Nintendo firmwares from working.

Then FlashMe will be updated again to skip that check.

#64033 - MaHe - Sun Dec 18, 2005 7:37 pm

Humm, that's not for sure. Maybe the game would be locked to a specific RSA coded FW (and the previous ones).

#64034 - juhees - Sun Dec 18, 2005 7:52 pm

m2pt5 wrote:
Mr. Picklesworth wrote:
What he's saying is that Nintendo is perfectly able to block non-Nintendo firmwares from working.

Then FlashMe will be updated again to skip that check.


Couldn't a game just read the firmware, calculate some sort of checksum and only run on a firmware with the correct checksum? You couldn't do anything against it...
But i don't think N will do this, because this would mean, they couldn't release a new firmware on newer DSes...
A check it the checksum of the game is correct and if there is a gba flashcart in the DS would make more sense, imho.

#64043 - JaJa - Sun Dec 18, 2005 9:22 pm

Yay.
You guys have worked out why nintendo can't block firmware.
They can't do a checksum, because what if they release a new firmware then games won't run.
They can't make you upgrade, because the DS isn't really an upgradable system (what with the write protection and all).
They only thing they could to is block WFC friend codes, but you can erase your cart and generate a new one. The only downside would be you'd lose all your stats but cheats don't care about that.

They main reason they can't do any kind of validation is because AFAIK the WFC games are sort of P2P. Once the server establishes the participants it's up to the DS's to do the rest.

Although the thing they could do is get the game to checksum the firmware the first time around and compare the firmware checksum with a list on the server. This means they don't need to keep cart's up-to-date with the latest checksum's, just the server list. This would work because your WFC game binds to your DS. They block the WFC ID meaning that the WFC account and so the DS can't play online.

#64050 - chishm - Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:09 pm

No offense, but you're all thinking of the wrong thing. ;)

Even if they maintain a list of non-hacked firmware, someone with an original DS and a PassMe could still run the hack on a clean firmware. However, all these hacks have to modify the game in some way. So it is a simple case of checksumming the game binaries. The NDS files have coorect checksums in the header, and these can be compared to the checksum of the secure area, which would contain code to checksum the rest of the game.

There is still the problem of hacked games spoofing the checksum, however. I haven't thought of a way to detect this yet.
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#64060 - octopusfluff - Mon Dec 19, 2005 12:44 am

chishm wrote:
There is still the problem of hacked games spoofing the checksum, however. I haven't thought of a way to detect this yet.


The server could specify a set of arbitrary memory ranges (could be chosen at authentication time) to be used as a validation block, and send a public key to the client. The client then encrypts that block, sending the result back to the server.
The only way to defeat that mechanism would be to have a complete pristine copy of the game as a reference. Depending on how invasive the hacks are, this may only require keeping a copy of the altered area in order to spoof the check, or it may require keeping a copy of the entire image.

Ultimately, there is no 100% method to prevent this type of cheating where the rules of the game aren't enforced by a controlled system. All you can do is raise the barrier of entry.