I got 99 secure devices but a Nintendo Switch ain't one: If you're using Nvidia's Tegra boot ROM I feel bad for you, son

Re: Pwned? This is great!

"The Switch has some known and probably unknown anti-piracy measures for its games that will need to be defeated before that, not to mention the custom firmware she is working on needs to be able to successfully launch and maintain [pirated] games..."

Sure. So about another 2 weeks.

"Responsible hackers and users won't bother implementing or using such features,"

Of course they wont. Lol.

Re: "free games"

While I agree with you that users should be allowed more freedom with the hardware they own, you can't have "real" property rights for something you don't own and control.

For your house analogy, you willingly bought a part of the house that was not owned by Burger King; while on a base level that is applicable to the kinds of situations you are in when purchasing a locked-down piece of hardware with a software store, it is not representative of the legal side of things when applied to the software it runs, and I feel it is a dishonest and distracting comparison.

"Real property rights" imply you have access to and ownership over the property. A digital game that can be copied infinitely, therefor, cannot be subject to the same terms from a rational point of view. In worst case scenario if IP rights didn't exist and a company has an exploitable license or none at all, judges could potentially rule in favor of the end-user if they were to buy a copy of a game and resell their own copies. Doea that seem right? Not reselling your legally purchased game disc, but infinitely distributable digital copies?

Intellectual property rights exist because of that possibility, to protect the company distributing its easily duplicatable software. And even if IP didn't exist, it is usually described clearly in the legal terms that you agree to before sale of games or other software that you are not buying any rights or property ownership of the game, its content, or its copyright: you are buying a license granting you access to use and play the game, which is still owned in full by the company. That is what is meaned when you click "Buy" and what the company means when they say they are "selling" to you.

If you really want to live in a world where once you distribute your cool creation digitally you are not legally protected and people can do whatever they want with it even against your wills or licensing, keep me far away from it. I would be the first person to license my software under BSD 3-clause, but I would also ge the first to defend the declared and desired rights of others, because not everyone wants to give their hard work away for free or wants others to claim it.

Aside, I feel you are a bit fanatical in your presentation, to have the gall to call people that believe in IP laws fanatics!

Re: "free games"

"No, it's about principles, not freeloading."

It is about free games for the vast majority of people. I might actually buy a Switch if the games are free. After all there is little other reason to by the crappiest of the latest generation of consoles.

Re: "principles, not freeloading"

Can you please not talk about "real property rights". Pretty please?

The problem is that "real property" is a legal term (it means land and buildings, as opposed to personalty or "personal property" - like clothes or consoles). "actual property rights" or "genuine property rights" would be fine.

(As an aside, I think you overstate your case. If the transaction was changed to "leasing", I predict that the price the market would bear would be almost completely unchanged.)

Re: "free games"

When you buy stuff, you don't magically have universal 'property rights' to do with it what you will - and certainly don't have moral rights. People claiming that this is a 'win' against the cruel corporations really need to gain a little perspective. Your only right in that respect is to chose not to buy something if it does not suit your needs.

On the other hand, it sounds like a smart little hack. The Switch is a lovely bit of hardware and being able to run arbitrary code on it is neat. It's just a shame that the zealots will go from there to distributing games for free because apparently they believe that too is their 'right'.

Re: Pwned? This is great!

> Sorry, but that's just a racket and should be a criminal offence.

I dunno, my friend knowingly bought a Ninetendo Switch for the sole purpose of playing a handful of 1st party Nintendo games, starting with Zelda and then probably Mario and Mario Kart. He's very happy with his informed choice.

Undermining a console's defences to run emulators and such, well, that's what his his PS2 and and PSP are for.

Re: Pwned? This is great!

You do realise that BBB (Big Blue Box) have dumped several ROMs as they have all the Master Keys upto 4 I beleive it is.

Re: Pwned? This is great!

Breath of the Wild is the reason my mate bought a Switch. Mario and Mario Kart are just a vague bonus to be considered down the line.

Otherwise his PS4 dies the job nicely.

Re: An Nvidious flaw

A downlodable game is linked to a Nintendo Account, and the account is linked to 1 (one) Switch.

Now if Nintendo are serious about wanting to sell more than one Switch per household, they need to fix this - they need to be able to set up family accounts and group accounts allow games to be downloaded by everyone in the family.

The alternative is buying one cartridge which works with every Switch in the household.

They also need save game backups in case the Switch dies or gets stolen but that's another problem. Since the Wii they've been terrified of game save backups due to exploits so they won't allow local save game backups, but they're too tight to make it cloudy.

Re: Yawn

> So this dangerous exploitable hole I am going to get pwned through requires physical access?

As it's a portable console that could be taken into school, it's not impossible for a kiddy to mess around with their classmate's Switch.